ASHVILLE — Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m., the Chautauqua Watershed Conservancy will host a birding tour at its Loomis Goose Creek Preserve.
The tour will be led by Jim Berry, naturalist and retired president of the Roger Tory Peterson Institute. Berry will be joined by Jeanne Wiebenga, renowned local nature photographer and Vice Chair of the CWC Board of Directors, who will discuss bird photography. His photographs of the osprey family residing at the Loomis Goose Creek Preserve were chosen for a successful exhibition at RTPI last year and will be on display again this summer at the Chautauqua facility’s Hotel Athenaeum.
The reserve is home to the third largest wetland on Chautauqua Lake and is one of the most important bird and wildlife habitats remaining on the lake, providing habitat for osprey, kingfisher, heron , mallard, wood duck, Canada goose, waterfowl, beaver, mink and turtles. and amphibians. The site is also part of CWC 2022 “Walking the Chautauqua Watersheds” summer hiking challenge. If you participate in the challenge, it’s a great opportunity to get a guided tour of the site.
The tour is free and open to the public, with donations to the CWC welcome. All donations from the tour will go to the CWC’s Fish Hawks & Steelhead habitat campaign, which will conserve an additional 71 acres of land “fish hawk” habitat upstream of the reserve and at the mouth of the Chautauqua stream in Barcelona.
Tour participants are encouraged to bring binoculars and cameras and should dress appropriately for the weather and wet conditions typical of a forested wetland. Loomis Goose Creek Preserve is located on Route 394/West Lake Road in Ashville (between Goose Creek Road and Ashville Bay Road near Ashville Bay Marina). No RSVP required. Coffee will be offered. For more information, call 716-664-2166 or email [email protected]
