Cold weather and early morning snow could not stop bird-lovers from coming to the Biodiversity Education Center during the Wild Day: Winter Birds event Saturday afternoon.

“The purpose of Wild Days in general is a family-friendly event program where we open our door and people can come in, drop in anytime between the hours that it’s opened and learn about the theme that we have set up,” BEC coordinator Maura Reed said. “[Today’s theme] was about the winter birds and we want people to learn about their anatomy, their eggs and nests, how to attract those birds to their home to be able to see them using specific feathers, and specific bird food and bird houses as well.”

Wild Days have been held at the BEC since its opening in 2014. Last year, with a total of eight Wild Days, the BEC has helped people connect more to the feathered creatures and gain knowledge through many education activities.

“My mom and my Girl Scout leader found about the [Wild Day: Winter Birds event” online,” Coppell Middle School North seventh grader Esha P. said. “[The event] is pretty cool because I got to learn about all the different birds and things I didn’t know about. I was curious about what the different birds are and where they live, how they migrate and how to make a bird feeder.”

Seven stations, with different categories but all about how to save the birds, each had a volunteer to help answering the questions of attendees of all ages. Most of the volunteers at the Wild Day: Winter Birds event are from Keep Coppell Beautiful Teen, a teen volunteer program.

This year, the BEC provided frosting instead of peanut butter to work as the coat before rolling them in the tray of bird seed. This change helped many people with a nut allergy.

“My favorite station is the binoculars one,” Kallery said. “It allows me to test them out and you can look out the windows or go outside to watch the birds.”

One of the seven interesting stations attracting many bird lovers was the egg station. Many artificial eggs replicas were displayed in many sizes and colors, helping to show people about the diversity among various species’ eggs.

“It’s really cool to see the different colors, sizes and shapes [among the birds’ eggs],” Reed said. “[It’s also nice] to see the ostrich egg which is one of the largest eggs versus a hummingbird’s egg which is so tiny and compare so I really like the eggs station. ”

Many birds do not reuse their old nests after they migrated from the north to the south in the autumn. Last summer, the BEC education naturalist Cynthia Contreras and a volunteer found a hummingbird nest which was also displayed at the event. 

[Today] I learned about how to make bird feeder,” CHS9 student Josphin Kallery said. “[I also learned] how to watch the birds through binoculars, how to identify different types of eggs and their migration behaviors.”

To find more about the upcoming Wild Day events, visit the City of Coppell website.

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