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Contact: Diane Cunningham, Chair
Visions for Clarendon, Inc.
870-747-3397
Join Us for the 7th Annual Big Woods Birding Festival
CLARENDON — Visions for Clarendon
and Audubon Arkansas are gearing up for Clarendon's seventh
annual Big Woods Birding Festival Saturday, May 17, 2008,
7 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Audubon Arkansas’s Director of Bird
Conservation, Dr. Dan Scheiman, and expert birder and nature
writer Mel White are leading bird walks on the levee and to
Louisiana Purchase State Park. The first levee bird walk begins
at 7 a.m. and will be led by both Dan and Mel. A second round
of walks will begin at 8:30 with one group on the levee and
another taking a bus to the state park. Spring migrants should
be in abundance including Baltimore Orioles, Prothonotary
Warblers, White-eyed Vireos, Acadian Flycatchers, Indigo Buntings,
and more!
Many annual activities will featured at
this year's festival. The youth fishing derby will be held
at the Donald Branch Fishin' Hole from 7-9 a.m. Children will
have the opportunity to catch catfish provided for the derby
by Arkansas Game and Fish Commission. Prizes for the biggest
fish, most fish caught, and first fish caught will be awarded
at the festival main stage on the courthouse lawn at 9:30
a.m.
Also returning will be the Little Rock
Zoo’s Bird of Prey program. The informative and educational
program features a variety of live birds of prey including
hawks and a Bald Eagle. This program will be held from 11-12
noon on the main stage at the courthouse.
Musical entertainment will include a returning
favorite, the Cummins Prison Band, which will play from noon
till the end of the festival at 3 p.m. New this year is the
local band Crash of the Conspiracy, composed of Clarendon
High School students who will be featured on the main stage
from 10-11 a.m.
Another new item is a children's concert
at the City Welcome Center at 10:30 a.m. Children's musicians
Brian and Terri Kinder of Little Rock will perform a rollicking
fun concert for children and their parents. This concert is
being sponsored by the Clarendon American Legion Auxiliary.
As always, the festival will include free
children's activities such as making bird feeders and bird
houses, a duck pond, ring toss, button making, craft frames
and coloring books. A clown will also be strolling through
the children's area giving away free balloons. Other children's
activities that will require tickets will be the ever popular
mechanical bull rides and various inflatable attractions.
The Boy Scouts cake walk will be held in front of the Monroe
County courthouse from 11 a.m. till noon.
The pie-in-the-face booth will also be
featured at the festival from 1-2 pm.
Anyone who would like to volunteer at
the festival is encouraged to contact Clarendon City Hall
at 870-747-5414.
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