The Wings Over the Rockies Nature Festival, Columbia Valley
The BC Bird Trail team made its way out to the Columbia Valley to attend The Wings Over the Rockies Nature Festival in the Spring of 2023. We engaged with fellow birding enthusiasts, the event coordinators, and the field experts in attendance at the festival. We discussed the significance festivals like this hold in fostering environmental awareness, and learned about the Columbia Valley‘s distinctive ecosystems and wildlife.
We met with Theresa Wood, one of the festival organizers who told us more about the festival: “We have over 100 events which is pretty phenomenal, and it’s everything from exploring the geology of the area, to the waters, and birds of course”, Wood explained. The Wings Over the Rockies Nature Festival, hosted in the Rocky Mountain towns of Radium and Invermere (part of the Columbia Valley Bird Trail), is a week-long festival that explores the intricate relationship between wildlife, landscapes and people through dozens of dynamic and engaging events. Events include guided walks with nature experts, talks and keynote speeches, concerts and more!
The festival returns this spring, May 6th-12th 2024. This year, more than 100 events are planned surrounding the theme Wings ‘Way Over’ the Rockies – The BIG Picture, including a keynote speech from Bob McDonald, host of CBC Radio’s Quirks and Quarks. The full events calendar goes live on March 28th, 2024 which you can check out on their website when it’s live, and tickets go on sale on April 9th, 2024!
The festival inevitably brings out a ton of birders. “The thing I enjoy most is sharing birds with other people, and festivals like this are just such a great opportunity to do that”, Jody Allair, Director of Community Engagement at Birds Canada tells us. “It’s a great opportunity for people maybe just wanting to learn about birds or start their birding journey” Allair continues, urging birders of all levels to come to a festival like this one.
Birds, as we know are great environmental indicators of the health of ecosystems, but they are also a wonderful source of inspiration for folks wanting to learn more about conservation and sustainability. “The bird life and animal life here is just so dense…because we have an intact ecosystem and I wish we had more examples of this”, says Allair. “It’s really hard to conserve something unless you understand it and appreciate it, so birding…I hope would spur people to appreciate birds more, understand them a little bit more” Allair continues. He explains that birds, because of their unique appearances and charismatic personalities, have a unique power to inspire people to start making conservation-based decisions in everyday life.
Festivals like the Wings Over the Rockies encourage us to celebrate these incredible natural environments, but also to make conservation efforts to protect them. “Wetlands are really important for creating bird habitat” explains geologist and author Dr. Dale Leckie, “so I see the Wings Over the Rockies Nature Festival as a great opportunity to bring people together to understand wildlife, to understand bird distribution, to appreciate all the birds that we’ve got in this valley.” Dr. Leckie explains that, when people can appreciate the environment, they become more aware of it, and more motivated to protect it.
Get your tickets to Wings Over the Rockies Nature Festival on April 9th, 2024 and explore more birding hot spots in the Columbia Valley by checking out the Columbia Valley Bird Trail, with curated itineraries in Radium and Invermere, Golden, Cranbrook, and Kimberley.
