Spring Wings ready for takeoff May 13

Organizers of one of the most popular birding events in the country are finalizing details for the eight annual Spring Wings Bird Festival May 13-15.

More than 400 people came to Fallon last year to view an event record of 158 different bird species during the festival.

This year's theme is "Kids and Nature." Activities for children and adults, many at no cost, celebrate the birds and wildlife in the Lahontan Valley, considered world-class viewing for shorebirds and raptors.

Spring Wings is planned around when spring's migratory birds stop in Churchill County along the Pacific Flyway.

Visitors may participate in a dozen tours to view migratory and resident birds. Registration is $30 until Sunday, and $35 after that. Daily tours leave from the Fallon Convention Center, which is Spring Wings headquarters.

The convention center will be full of displays and free events.

"The Nature Nut," aka Animal Planet's John Acorn, will sing, teach, and offer activities for children.

Wildlife and nature exhibits, storytelling, live-animal demonstrations, art and information booths are also planned.

New this year is an airboat tour by the Nevada Department of Wildlife.

Local biologists will point out bird species that cannot be seen by other modes of transportation. The 20-minute tour costs $35.

Janet Schmidt, festival coordinator and an outdoor recreation planner for the Stillwater Refuge, said most of the visitors to Spring Wings come from the Reno and Carson City areas, but others travel from across the country.

"Bird festivals have become quite the thing to do. People plan whole trips around them," she said. "Avid birders are typically older persons with expendable income."

Rick Gray, executive director of the Fallon Convention Center and Tourism Authority, expects a statewide marketing plan appealing to birders will increase the number of visitors.

Gray was recently recognized by the Nevada Commission on Tourism for a plan to tout Northern Nevada as a regional birding area.

"We looked at Fallon, Reno and Carson City as a triangle for birds and wildlife," he said.

Reno has a nature park, Pyramid Lake is home to more than 9,000 white pelicans, and Carson Valley is famous for bald eagles that feed on the afterbirth from newborn calves.

The "Bird Nevada First" marketing campaign can boost tourism in Fallon and surrounding communities. Gray hopes eventually the plan will include birding opportunities throughout the state.

"A marketing team that evaluated it found the area has world-class viewing. We hope to invigorate Spring Wings and attract the casual bird watcher, those of us who don't consider ourselves 'birders,' per se," said Gray. "Those people might come to the area for one reason and stay longer to do some bird-watching."

Gray said Audubon magazine recently contacted him after an advertiser canceled a full-page ad worth about $17,000. The magazine goes out to a half million subscribers.

"We got the (Spring Wings) ad for pocket change," he said.

The ad, titled "A Bird's Eye View of Nevada," specifically promotes Spring Wings, and includes its Web site address www.springwings.org.

Registration information and details are on the Web site or by calling 428-6452.