where natural history meets art
The Big Sit!
Sunday, October 14 • Dawn–Dusk
How many birds can we perceive from a 17-foot diameter circle? Can we beat last year’s record? Join Team Loonatics at the Birds of Vermont Museum and find out.
Snacks and coffee provided for sitters. Please bring your own binoculars.
For much more info, see http://www.birdwatchersdigest.com/bwdsite/connect/bigsit/about.php or call the Museum at (802) 434-2167.
Fabulous Fall Festival
Saturday, October 13 • 10 a.m. – 4 p.m.
Live birds, music, soap and wood carving, kids’ crafts, face painting, and more!
$2 / Free if you are 3 and under or show your Museum or Green Mountain Woodcarver membership card
Our schedule of events (but check when you get here to be sure):
10:00 Carving Workshop : Spirit faces in bark (2 hours; $10 fee but this includes all-day admission also)
11:00 Soap Carving
11:00 Live Music by Northeast Field (terrific Celtic music)
1:00 Live Bird Talk
2:00 Soap Carving
2:15 Face Painting
3:00 Nature Note cards
3:59 Announcing Winner of the Kids Raffle
All Day / Ongoing:
Sunday, September 16, 8:30am 1:30pm
Seek out songbirds, shorebird, raptors and waterfowl, new back roads and birding hotspots around Orwell, Vermont. This Birding the Basin trip will be led by Jim and Kris Andrews, both long-time birders. This is a beautiful and diverse area that is not heavily visited by birders. Maybe we’ll even find a few reptiles!
We will be birding by car as well as walking along a few back roads. Meet at the Gas’n’Go at the intersection of Rte 22a and 73 and carpool from there.
Best for adults and older children.
$20 for members of the Birds of Vermont Museum; $25 for non-members.
Please pre-register (you can pay ahead or at the door) by calling 802 434-2167 or emailing museum@birdsofvermont.org.
September 12 update: We won third place!
Enter your bird art in the Birds of Vermont Museum 2012 Art Contest. The theme is
Download an art contest flyer for you, a friend, your school, library, or scout group! Art Contest Flyer (142 kb PDF), or read the rules below. We look forward to seeing your art!
Anyone aged 0 – 18 years old.
Art that fits our 2012 theme: It’s a Bird’s World.
How do you and birds affect each other and your world?
Contestants may use any media.
Past entries (and winners) have used paint, colored pencils, crayons, markers, clay, wood, or papier-mâché.
Flat submissions (paper, collage, etc.) must be no larger than 8 ½” x 11”
3-D art must be smaller than 6”x 6”x 8”
One entry per person.
Name, age and contact information must be included with entry. Please put this on the back or bottom if possible.
Entries must be received no later than September 30, 2012.
Please bring or mail entries to:
Birds of Vermont MuseumEntries will be displayed at the museum throughout the 2012 season, so enter early!
First, second, and honorable mention prizes will be awarded in the following categories (most are age-based):
We may add additional prizes or categories at our discretion. In the past, we’ve added Masks, Ceramics, and Watercolor and Resists.
Winners will be announced at the Museum at the Fall Festival, Saturday, October 13, 2011 (see more events on our calendar).
Winning entries may be displayed (with artist and parent approval) on our blog or our Facebook page after the Festival.
Of course! Entries may be picked up at the Museum. We encourage you to collect them between October 13 and November 1, 2012, if possible. We are open by appointment, rather than daily, starting November 1.
We welcome sponsors of our art contest! Contact us if you’d like to donate funds (to purchase prizes) or prizes (we do ask that we get to vet these first).
Past sponsors have included farm and garden stores, art supply shops, artists, and museum members.
Call (802 434-2167) or email us (museum@birdsofvermont.org) if you can sponsor the show.
The Engraving Bench, Essex Junction, Vermont
Black Horse Fine Art Supply, Burlington, Vermont
Guys Farm and Yard, Williston, Vermont
Essex Cinemas, Essex, Vermont
Inspiration Arts and Crafts Supplies, Essex, Vermont
Guest post by Kari Jo Spear, Photographer, Novelist, and Daughter of Bob Spear
I can’t remember the first time I ever heard the “M” word. The fact that we were going to have a museum in the family happened very slowly, after a great many permutations and plot twists, and by the time it was a reality, it felt like it was meant to be from the beginning.
But it didn’t start out that way.
Continue reading “The Bird Carver’s Daughter (Part 3: Something’s Going On Here…)”
Our Exploring Binoculars program today was a blast! Investigators ranged from about 7 to about 65 years old. It was a technical sort of program, more about how they work than about how to use them. We did a little demo/inquiry first, with light and lenses and prisms, asking “What might happen if …” questions and then doing that to see what really does happen. Fun seeing upside-down light bulb images on tissue paper become reversed on sweatshirts! (See that “how they work” link for what we did.)
Then we laid out some defective binoculars donated for the express purpose of disassembly (cleaning and reassembly optional). Continue reading “What happens when you take some binoculars apart?”
Saturday, Apr 28, 2012, 9:00am – 1:00pm
Birds of Vermont Museum, 900 Sherman Hollow Road, Huntington, Vermont 05462
Help us prepare the Museum for the 2012 open season! Do windows, clean nest boxes, spruce up trails (weather permitting), prepare handouts for visitors and school groups, add bird data to online databases, and much more.
We provide lunch! Please let us know you’re coming: call (802) 434-2167 or email museum@birdsofvermont.org
Tue, April 24, 2:00pm – 3:30pm
Birds of Vermont Museum, 900 Sherman Hollow Road, Huntington, Vermont 05462
What counts as a Bird “home”? Nest? Roost? Habitat? Territory? Ecosystem?
Homeschoolers and vacationing children are invited to join us at the Museum to find out more as we craft our interpretations of “home” for a bird. Best for ages 3-10.
$10 members, $15 non-members. Fee includes admission for child and one accompanying adult. Please pre-register by calling (802) 434-2167 or emailing museum@birdsofvermont.org
Saturday, April 21, 1:00pm – 2:30pm
Birds of Vermont Museum, 900 Sherman Hollow Road, Huntington, Vermont 05462
Ever wondered how binoculars work? Ever wanted to take some apart? Home-schooling and vacationing children are invited to join us at the Museum to find out more as we dissemble non-working binoculars, investigate optics, and consider how eagle eyes work.
Best for ages 8-16. Younger children should please bring an adult to help. Teachers welcome!
$10 members, $15 non-members. Fee includes admission for child and one accompanying adult.
Enrollment limited to number of defunct pairs of binoculars (feel free to bring your own ancient, damaged or just plain not-very-good-anymore pair). Registration is required. Register by calling (802) 434-2167 or emailing museum@birdsofvermont.org
The photo of disassembled binoculars is ©2011 Frank Lagoria (Flicker page: http://www.flickr.com/photos/binocwpg/ | email: flagorio@shaw.ca) and used by permission. Thanks, Frank!