Migratory Bird Fest has been underway at Mitchell Lake Audubon Center from April 21 2022 to today, May 14, 2022. Bird Fest concludes with a community festival full of organizations and activities.
After a morning of birding at Pearsall Park, we drove over to the Mitchell Lake Audubon Center to check out the activities.
I first stopped by the San Antonio Water System booth to talk to them about their various programs and incentives. They talked about their great programs to conserve water and transform people’s yards with native and drought-resistant vegetation.
At 11 AM we walked over to the Center’s small amphitheater and sat down for an educational presentation from Last Chance Forever, a raptor rehabilitation center. They talked about the birds’ important roles in the ecosystem and how they benefit humans. This organization’s goal is to rehabilitate sick, injured, and abandoned raptor birds and release as many back into the wild as possible.
They have a few resident birds that are deemed non-releasable. These birds are used as partners in education and outreach. They have no names because they are not pets and are treated with respect and as wild animals.
Here is a Harris Hawk they brought with them. The educator was able to release and have the bird fly up into the trees and back down to him with his leather lure he swung around on a rope.
Other birds they showed the audience were the American Kestrel and Great-horned Owl.
Bexar Audubon Society had a great booth setup. They set up a play bird banding station with a net and plush birds in the net. Kids would come to choose their bird, get measured, and get a bird band of their own. It was adorable and the kids loved it.
They had golf cart birding tours going through the Mitchell Lake land every 50 minutes. By the time we got through what we wanted to see it was getting a bit too hot for us to go. I hope next year I’ll be able to catch an earlier tour because doing it on golf carts sounds like a refreshing change compared to cars and on foot.
