Families can “Take a Walk on the Wild Side!” this weekend with a visit to the Ohio Bird Sanctuary. The family outing doesn’t require traveling far: The Ohio Bird Sanctuary is located just outside of Lexington. The “wild” event is the Fall Family Festival on Saturday, Oct. 12, a fundraiser that helps support the care of rescued birds.
There will be a variety of activities to enjoy. In past years the annual event included a 5K or Trail Run, but this year they’re offering a “Walk on the Wild Side!”
“This is an opportunity to do a family event with eight challenges,” explained Executive Director Gail Laux, “One of the board members said, we need to create an event that matches our identity. So that’s when we came up with the idea of “Take a Walk on the Wild Side!” Everyone always says how lovely our trails are so this is an opportunity come out and take a mile and a half walk on the trail.”
“This is a family place,” she added, “so we wanted it to be something you do as a group. It’s not competitive, to an extent. There’s no speed to this. There’s eight challenges and there’s only one of them where you need to be probably at least 10 years old. The challenge is that when you get to some of them, you can pick one person from your team to do the challenge. I don’t want to give away what all of the challenges are, but I want people to know that you can pick a team member to do a challenge. You get to match the challenge to the talents of your group and there are some of them that will take the entire group to do the challenge.”
Laux also explained that every challenge site has the option to take a knowledge challenge instead of the physical challenge. For example, there could be a picture of a bird and pictures of some nests. The knowledge challenge is to match the bird to its nest.
To register for the Wild Side challenge, click here.
This year the event will help raise money to “raise the roof” of the new flight enclosure to aid in the rehabilitation of injured eagles, large owls and peregrine falcons. The facility needs approximately $4,000 to complete the enclosure and the Mansfield Rotary recently presented them with a check for $2,000.
But in addition to helping support the rehabilitation of the birds in the care of the Ohio Bird Sanctuary, the festival is also a wonderful opportunity to enjoy a fall day in the outdoors in Richland County. The event will be held from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. and includes crafts for children, live bird shows, a visit from the Columbus Zoo animals from 2 p.m. to 3 p.m., an opportunity to photograph raptors, and an early evening campfire and storytelling. Food will be available for purchase, provided by Smokin’ Bros BBQ, a local barbecue vendor.
“The Columbus Zoo is being extremely generous,” stated Laux, “and bringing animals even though it’s also a big day at the zoo, too.” She wasn’t sure what animals they will bring this year but last year their animal visitors included a penguin and a dingo.
The Ohio Bird Sanctuary is located at 3774 Orweiler Road, Mansfield, OH. Admission to the Fall Family Festival is $10 per car. For more information, visit their website, or visit them on Facebook.
The Ohio Bird Sanctuary is a 501(3) non-profit organization which is dedicated to the rehabilitation of Ohio’s native birds of prey and songbirds, with an emphasis on educating the community about conservation of our natural resources.
The Bird Sanctuary is open to the public and encompasses over 90 acres including; hiking trails, live bird of prey displays, and a walk-through songbird aviary.
There are a number of permanent residents at the Bird Sanctuary, residents because many of them were either struck by cars and are now flightless or were raised by humans and imprinted and no longer recognize their own species. Their resident bald eagles is believed to be the oldest living eagle hatched in Ohio. He was banded as a nestling in 1988 but at the age of 25 was struck by a car, injuring his wing.
Seymour is a Great Horned Owl who fell from his nest and can’t fly. And Tundra is a Rough-legged Hawk that was struck by a car and can no longer fly. Rough-legged Hawks are native to northern Canada but can be seen in Ohio in the winter months.
The Ohio Bird Sanctuary also has a preschool program. Jan Ferrell said they visit area preschools every week and introduce children to not only birds, but their cat and bunny as well. She said many children haven’t had experiences with animals.
“We want to teach them to value all life equally,” said Ferrell.
