Hummingbird Festival at Sugar Grove Nature Center
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[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.
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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.
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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.
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![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2013/Aug/17/images/ads/current/anh3_lda.png) 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 309-874-2174 or email
info@sugargrovenaturecenter.org.
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]
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