Hummingbird Festival at Sugar Grove Nature Center

[August 17, 2013]  McLEAN -- Sugar Grove Nature Center will host its seventh annual Hummingbird Festival & Pollination Celebration on Aug. 31 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. The festival celebrates hummingbirds, bees and butterflies -- the vital pollinators for countless varieties of plant life in Funks Grove.

The event provides entertainment, education, food and fun. Admission is free.

What is pollination and why are pollinators important? Come to the festival to find out. All ages are encouraged to learn about pollination and pollinator migration from local experts during seminars, classroom programs, guided hikes and garden tours. Children will especially enjoy watching puppet shows, making crafts and overcoming obstacles in a life-sized game of migration.

Vern Kleen of Springfield will be at the festival again this year. He is one of the few licensed hummingbird banders in the United States. During the day he will demonstrate catching, banding and releasing hummingbirds. Celebration participants will have the chance to feel a hummingbird's record-speed heartbeat and "adopt" a bird to receive updates if it is recaptured.

Besides attending hummingbird seminars, guests can visit with local businesses featuring an assortment of products for attracting hummingbirds and other pollinators to yards and gardens. Learn about monarch butterfly tagging, tour the new Monarch WayStation, and visit with Wild Ones members to learn more about the value of planting native plants, especially milkweed, on your property. Explore the honeybee hives and sample some Sugar Grove honey.

As the festival approaches, follow the Sugar Grove Nature Center on Facebook or visit www.sugargrovenaturecenter.org for a complete schedule of events, updated program information and previews of the day's activities.

Note: Guests will not be permitted on the grounds before 10 a.m. on the day of the festival.

For more information about this or other programs at the nature center, phone [phone] or email [e-mail].

Sugar Grove Nature Center is in historic Funks Grove, just south of Bloomington-Normal, off Old Route 66. For a map and directions, membership and program information, visit www.sugargrovenaturecenter.org.

[Text from file received from Sugar Grove Nature Center]