The Meadowlands Festival of Birding returns! Join the BCAS and NJSEA for a day of birding walks and talks, including by guest speaker Gabe Willow of the New York City Audubon Society, focusing on optics, bird identification, beginners tips and of course, the wonderful avian population itself. There will also be a live raptor demonstration!

The event runs from 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. and is rain or shine.

Contact: Don Torino at greatauk4@gmail.com or 201-230-4983.

About guest speaker Gabe Willow:

Gabe Willow Gabriel has been a nature enthusiast and birder since he was a small child in Maine, roaming the woods and fields in search of frogs and woodcocks. In his teens he traveled to Arizona, Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming to study birds, learning how to use mist nets and band birds. He went on to study ecology in college, his studies taking him to the mountains of Vermont and to southern Mexico, where he studied and painted the endemic avifauna for five years. In 2003 he moved to NYC, hoping to pursue an art school dream, but instead was drawn again to nature and birds, becoming a teacher-naturalist with the Prospect Park Audubon Center and leading tours for Wave Hill, Bryant Park, NYC Audubon, and others. Gabriel leads a wide variety of programs for NYC Audubon these days, including trips to NYC-area birding hotspots like Staten Island’s Clove Lakes Park, overnight excursions to destinations such as the Adirondacks, and classes on bird identification and using eBird.