Connecticut Bobolink and Wildlife Festival - this weekend July 12 & 13 FREE
'AK' via AllHAS
“Connect with Birds, Bugs and Nature“- Updated to include all ages and there are still openings
Sunday, July 13, 1- 4 PM
Allyn Brook Park, 50 Pickett Lane, Durham
This nature connection workshop is session 4 of the Connecticut Bobolink and Wildlife Festival . This program includes Wangunk Elder, Gary O'Neil telling stories from his great grandmother; Nature journaling with Up in the Trees by Alice Shogry; Birding by sound, finding your spark bird with Elena Coffey; and Nature-inspired art creations with Annyta Vizard and an Everyone Outside table with tadpoles and nature mysteries for adults and students.
Free: Art supplies included.
Register for Sunday’s event with the Durham Library calendar or during the Festival on Saturday.
https://durhamlibrary.libcal.com/event/14558546
List of Exhibit/Educational Tables
- Connecticut American Kestrel Project Northwest and North-Central CT American Kestrel Nest Box Project
- Bird Friendly Coffee / Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center
- Connecticut Butterfly Association
- Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) - Wildlife Division
- Connecticut Explored, the magazine of Connecticut history
- Connecticut Ornithology Association
- Durham Conservation Commission
- Durham Garden Club
- Hartford Audubon Society
- Everyone Outside and Coginchaug Outdoor Enrichment Center (COEC)
- Joe Gowac Wildlife Photography
- Lights Out Connecticut
- Mattabeseck Audubon Society
- Middlesex Land Trust
- Middletown Pollinator Pathway
- The New Haven Bird Club
- Quinnipiac Valley Audubon
- Rockfall Foundation
- Up In The Trees By Alicia
Morning Presentations
Saturday July 12, 2025 - Durham Community Center
A Review of the Connecticut Bird Atlas Data, Causes and Solutions
with Craig Repasz and Min T. Huang Ph.D.
The Connecticut Bird Atlas is a project to map all species of birds that occur in the state of Connecticut. Field work took place between spring 2018 and February 2022, and involved nearly a thousand volunteer birders, who submitted than 600,000 bird observations. The Connecticut Bird Atlas is a monumental conservation project that will map all bird species found in the state during both nesting and non-nesting seasons.
The Connecticut Bird Atlas confirmed that many of our breeding bird populations have declined in both distribution and abundance since the initial Bird Atlas in the mid 1980's. There have been some expansions in breeding distribution for some species. However, the overall picture is bleak across the Continent. We will review the potential causes of the decline and long and short term actions that the conservation community can take to try and reverse these alarming trends.
Dr. Min T. Huang is a wildlife biologist for the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) and heads the Migratory Bird Program for the State of Connecticut. Min received his Ph.D. from the University of Connecticut, researching sub-population structure and survival of resident Canada Geese. Dr. Huang has worked for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission with endangered species such as the Florida Grasshopper Sparrow, Red-cockaded Woodpecker, Florida Scrub-Jay, and Whooping Crane. He also worked for the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife where he worked with deer, elk, mountain goats and endangered species such as the Spotted Owl and Marbled Murrelet.
Currently he is involved with the habitats, migration and survival of North Atlantic Canada Geese, Mallards, American Kestrel, American Bittern and Eastern Whippoorwill.
Craig Repasz is the co-founder and chair of Lights Out Connecticut and President of the Friends of Stewart B. McKinney National Wildlife Refuge. The Stewart B. McKinney National Wildlife Refuge is comprised of 10 units across 70 miles of Connecticut's coastline. Friends of the
Stewart B. McKinney NWR volunteer to help the staff protect some of the last remaining undeveloped coastal habitats in Connecticut
He is past president of the New Haven Bird Club, currently serving as their Conservation Chair. He is past conservation chair of the Connecticut Ornithological Association. Craig has been the volunteer coordinator for the Connecticut Bird Atlas for six years. He enjoys backpacking and conducts Mountain Birdwatch surveys for the Vermont Center of Ecostudies.
The Wangunk People with Katherine Hermes
Dr. Katherine Hermes will discuss the 17 and 18 centuries of the Wangunk people, including plants used in food, drinks and medicines, their
genealogies, lifeways and legal innovations. Many of the Wangunk became Christians in the mid-18th century, left their reservation and traditional homelands in Connecticut.
Katherine Hermes is the publisher and executive director of the non-profit Connecticut Explored magazine about Connecticut’s past. She holds a Ph.D. in history from Yale University and a J.D. from Duke University. She taught Early American history and Indigenous history for 25 years at Central Connecticut State University. Kathy is a member of the Wangunk Studies Working Group and has published articles and book chapters on Native American legal history.
Native Plants and Birds: They Need Each Other
with Kathy Meyering
Kathy Meyering is a Master Gardener, certified by the University of Connecticut. She is Vice-President of the Middletown Garden Club, on the board of the Jonah Center for Earth and Art, and is a founding member of Middletown Pollinator Pathway. Kathy also manages, with volunteers, the native plantings at the Connecticut Forest and Park Association in Middlefield. Informed by faith-based teachings on earth stewardship (she holds a Master’s degree in religious studies from Hartford Seminary), Kathy has become increasingly alarmed at changes in the natural world around us. Her personal goal is to educate and recruit others to engage in sustainable, earth-friendly landscaping and gardening practices, avoiding the broad use of insecticides and herbicides, and replanting native species in landscapes and open spaces.
🐞 Durham Community Center
Afternoon Presentations - Saturday July 12, 2025
The Making of The Fledgling 4 with Joe Gowac Wildlife Photography
Lunchtime Workshop in the Library
Joe Gowac filmed his first full length video production called The Fledgling 4. In this documentary, Joe followed a family of Barred Owls for 100 straight days from March to late June 2024.
The Fledgling 4 was a finalist at the Wildlife Conservation Film Festival. Recently, The Fledgling 4 won Best Documentary at the 2025 Providence Children's Film Festival. Joe, a second grade teacher, took up wildlife photography about eight years ago. His “spark” bird was when he captured an action shot of a diving osprey. His drone shot of the Arrigoni Bridge in Portland Connecticut, became an official U.S. Postage Stamp in 2023.
Every Small or Large Space of Meadow Helps Our Wildlife
with Peter Picone in gymnasium
You can be a habitat manager through your deliberate actions of creating and maintaining meadows in your surroundings. The benefactors can be many; including Bobolinks, Indigo Buntings, Bluebirds and Goldfinches while being beneficial to many insects like the Monarch Butterfly.
Mr. Picone will share with you the inextricable link between wildlife and vegetation and include examples of his various projects in meadow creation and enhancement on large and small scales.
Peter Picone, a DEEP Wildlife Biologist, has been working in the field of wildlife conservation and habitat management for over 35 years. He manages habitat on state-owned wildlife management areas in western district of Connecticut. His expertise is in creating meadows/fields by seeding or planting native vegetation and reducing invasives. A few examples are at Housatonic River Wildlife Management Area in Kent, Robbins Swamp WMA in Falls Village and Suffield WMA in Suffield.
He and his family are also ecologically restoring a 40 acre property named ‘Charter Oak Tree Farm’ in Sprague CT. He is a graduate of the University of Connecticut's College of Agriculture and Natural Resources with a Bachelor of Science degree in Renewable Natural Resources
Count the Bobolinks and More
at Frederick White Farm - Saturday July 12, 2025
Bird Walk Leaders
Morning walk at 8:00 AM with Melissa Baston
Melissa Baston is an experienced birder. She is a board member of Quinnipiac Valley Audubon Society. Melissa helps to install and monitor many American Kestrel nesting boxes in Durham and throughout Connecticut. There are over 100 American Kestrel boxes monitored in Connecticut where volunteers band the fledglings.
Afternoon walk at 2:30 PM with Celeste Echlin & Debbie Evans
Celeste Echlin is a resident of Litchfield County, CT where she lives with her husband Sam. She is a Board Member of New Haven Bird Club and her local Land Trust in Harwinton. She has been birding for eight years which grew out of many years of hiking and spending time outdoors. Celeste enjoys photography and learning the flora and fauna observed in nature.
Debbie Evans was raised by parents who encouraged bird and plant identification when hiking or camping. The bird that sparked her interest was an American Kestrel that landed on her neighbor’s fence when she was in first grade. The second spark was 40 years later when a Rose-breasted Grosbeak landed on her kitchen bird feeder. Every day is an exciting bird day. Debbie studies bird guides, lists birds that she sees on eBird.org and is often seen with her scope. She is a Captain with the Christmas Bird Count, a Board Member of Mattabeseck Audubon Society and volunteers with the Summer Bird Count and Big Sit. Now she’s leading a bird walk at the Connecticut Bobolink and Wildlife Festival in Durham!
Thank you to the many volunteers who joined and helped with the bird walk, Count The Bobolinks.
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“Connect with Birds, Bugs, and Nature“
Presenters - Sunday July 13, 2025 1:00 PM to 4 PM
🌻Allyn Brook Park Pavilion 🌻
Stories from His Great Grandmother with Wangunk Elder, Red Oak.
Gary O’Neil/ Red Oak and Wangunk tribal elder, potter, educator and historian is part of the Algonquin cultural group who historically presided over both sides of the Connecticut River in present-day Middletown, Portland, and East Hampton. He will talk about his great-grandmother and his grandmother and how they both influenced him through their story-telling and their strength in a large extended family.
Nature-inspired Art Creations with Annyta Vizard
Connect with nature through hands-on experiences. Print beautiful leaf and fern designs to cover your nature journal. Celebrate our towns’ parks, old farm fields, forests and streams that help save birds, bird nests and other wildlife.
Nature Journaling with Up In the Trees By Alicia Shogry
Record a dragonfly and damselfly while adding your own artistic style.
Alicia Shogry is owner of “Up In the Trees By: Alicia,” a hand painted business of bird-inspired artwork and gifts. Alicia graduated from Rochester Institute of Technology in Illustration and a Creative Writing Minor and from Lesley University with an Master’s in Education in Community Arts and the Visual Arts. She loves to admire and to paint all things birds and nature related.
Birding by Sound and Finding Your Spark Bird with Elena Coffey
Spy on birds, bugs, plants and other living creatures. Learn the clues or field marks that help identify a bird.
A life-long birder, Elena travels worldwide to find that special bird.
Listen to Song Sparrows “Maids, Maids, Maids…… Put on Your Tea Kettle”.
See a central dark chest spot on a Song Sparrow.
Tadpoles and Nature Mysteries with Lucy Meigs of Everyone Outside Examine, explore, magnify and sketch what you find.
Lucy Meigs is founder and director of Everyone Outside a small non-profit in central CT that focuses on connecting people, especially children, with the natural world.