By Delaney Joyce
Next Thursday, AltaCal’s Annual Snow Goose Festival of the Pacific Flyway lifts off to immerse Chico in the wonder of birding and wetlands conservation.
The event will do this through field trips, workshops and the chance to see the titular snow geese in action.
Stationed at Patrick Ranch Museum, the festival plans to host 58 field trips, a large banquet, a silent auction and multiple vendors, not to mention 100 volunteers and 80 trip leaders who will give their time to educate the public on the importance of the Pacific Flyway. The action starts on Jan. 22 and runs across four days.
According to the American Bird Conservancy, the Pacific Flyway is one of four major regional flyways in the United States, with the others being the Central Flyway, the Mississippi Flyway and the Atlantic Flyway, from west to east respectively. Situated as the westernmost flyway, birds in the Pacific Flyway are observed to travel as far south as Patagonia and as far north as Alaska.
Paul Kirk, coordinator for the upcoming Snow Goose Festival, is taking on that role for the very first time after being an AltaCal board member for eight months. This will mark the first Snow Goose outing since the retirement of the previous festival coordinator, Jennifer Patton, who founded it and had been directing its activities since their inception in 2000.
As a former school teacher and conservation biologist for nonprofits in the Chico area, Kirk was inspired to take on the role after having volunteered as a trip leader multiple times prior and worked with one of the festival’s sponsors, River Partners.
“I was so fond of this as an event that brings in people of like mind – because it’s more than the birds, it’s more about the habitat that birds live in, so habitat conservation,” Kirk said. “I think I told people right off the bat, I said, ‘I’m not going to try to fill Jennifer’s shoes. I mean, she did it for 25 years.’”
Situated in one of the most significant migratory pathways on the planet, the Pacific Flyway sees millions of birds using the Northern Sacramento Valley’s avian highway as a route to their next destination. During the winter, sandhill cranes, tundra swans and various duck species are particularly prevalent, with Kirk emphasizing the grandeur of the snow goose as the main inspiration for the festival’s namesake.
“They’re this beautiful bird, and just to see them migrating in the great lines, in the V formations and everything – I think it just became an icon,” Kirk reflected.
He added that, despite not being an expert birder, he felt compelled to help maintain the spirit of a festival that he saw brought immeasurable value to the Chico area.
“I wanted to be able to maintain all the stuff that I had seen that I always thought made up a good festival,” Kirk noted. “I saw it as a place for me to fit in. I retired, so, you know, when people retire, they often want to find something meaningful to do. Because that’s just what humans like to do.”
The festival offers a variety of field trips during the four-day schedule, ranging from kayaking on the Feather River to the popular Northern saw-whet owl banding trip, which Kirk said sold out in seven minutes. Last year’s festival saw 685 registrants and 155 bird species reported sighted or heard, with this year’s numbers expected to be similar.
In addition to field trips, festivalgoers can register for the “Gathering of the Wings” Banquet at Bell Memorial Auditorium at Chico State on Saturday, January 24. This grand event brings the community together to celebrate the hard work put into the festival, culminating in a silent auction of art, wine and services.
Keynote speaker Kate Marianchild, an environmental educator, naturalist and author of “Secrets of the Oak Woodlands” will be present at the banquet to discuss the fascinating behaviors of animals dependent on oak trees.
For art-lovers, the Museum of Northern California Art has once again partnered with the Snow Goose Festival to provide the “Perch, Flutter, Soar” art exhibit, which opens on January 22 and continues until March 15.
The Sacramento Audubon Society says that conservation of the Pacific Flyway is crucial, with 90% of wetlands being lost due to factors such as water shortages and changing agricultural practices, taking away important stopover points for many birds traveling the flyway. Audubon Society chapters such as AltaCal take important steps toward preserving and restoring vital links across the Pacific Flyway.
Kirk hopes attendees to take away the message that protecting habitat and providing places for wildlife to thrive is paramount to the coexistence between animals and humans.
“I want people to have this feeling of awesomeness. Like, ‘this is amazing,’” Kirk acknowledged. “The habitat we have is precious. There are a lot of habitats where life is abundant there because of the availability of water. Being in this wetland is quite significant for a lot of those birders.”
Online registration for the banquet and remaining available trips is open until Tuesday, January 20 on the Snow Goose Festival website, with walk-in registration being available though without the guarantee of a preferred trip.
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