Leelanau Peninsula BirdFest

The Leelanau Peninsula Chamber of Commerce announces the First Annual Leelanau Peninsula BirdFest, to be held Wednesday, June 1 through Sunday, June 5. This unique festival offers a wide variety of distinctly different field trips, including a Sunday morning sail aboard Inland Seas’ schooner to see nesting gulls, cormorants and Caspian terns on Gull Island. Also slated are a bus trip to the Grand Traverse Regional Land Conservancy’s prairie installation near Arcadia Dunes to see nesting upland birds such as northern harrier, and several pontoon boat trips down the Leelanau Conservancy’s Cedar River Preserve.

Other offerings include Birding by Ear with Tom Ford along the TART Trail, an afternoon with nesting endangered Great Lakes Piping Plovers and two separate field trips focusing on breeding birds in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. Visits to Leelanau State Park, Veronica Valley, Saving Birds Thru Habitat, Leelanau Conservancy’s Lighthouse West, Suttons Bay wetlands and two protected private properties round out field trip offerings.

On Saturday afternoon, Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore Staff will bring the Park’s Family Fun Time to Fountain Point Resort. There will also be educational seminars for those who choose to attend.

Headquarters for the event will be Fountain Point Resort, where bird hikes on this heavily wooded lakeshore property will be conducted every morning, wine and cheese mixers for attendees every afternoon, and keynote speakers in the evenings. Keynote speakers will be Dave Barrons, MDOT wildlife biologist Dick Wolinski and well-known bird conservationist and author Paul Baicich from Maryland.

For more information, or to register, go to the Leelanau Peninsula Chamber of Commerce website.