Registration opens on December 6  rookerybay.org/events/festival-of-birds

Preregistration required for all field trips, keynote presentation and activities

The annual Festival of Birds will be held Jan.16-20 and includes guided field trips to wildlife hotspots around Southwest Florida, bird featured activities throughout the month and a special keynote presentation and reception featuring Dr. Jerry Jackson, host of "With the Wild Things” on WGCU public radio. Dr. Jackson is a world-renowned wildlife biologist, ornithologist and Professor Emeritus at Florida Gulf Coast University. Together with WGCU Public Media, Rookery Bay is celebrating Dr. Jackson’s 25-year anniversary broadcasting “With the Wild Things” a one-minute look at a particular environmental theme on WGCU public radio. Every weekday morning at 7:19 am, Dr. Jackson takes listeners to Southwest Florida’s beaches, swamps and preserves to learn about “the wild things.”

Field trips include birding walks, boat trips, kayaking adventures, swamp tromps and swamp buggy excursions to locations such as Six Mile Cypress Slough, Bunche Beach, Clam Pass, Corkscrew Swamp, CREW Marsh Trails, Eagle Lakes Park, Fakahatchee Strand, Florida Panther National Wildlife Refuge, Rookery Bay Research Reserve and Tigertail Beach.