For four days each February, birdwatchers of every skill level can participate in a global event for the love and wellbeing of birds.
Join us October 14th through November 18th (one day per week) for Session II
With all of the wonderful apps available, it is still a good idea to have a shelf of guides to call on. We love paging through them while planning our next exploration, exploring their beautiful illustrations, and carrying our favorites with us for quick reference.
BRDC recently hosted a Primitive Technology course as part of Galax Middle School Enrichment Week. The students were engaged with a variety of hands-on activities that connected them to skills used by early American Indians and materials found in their backyards.
"Over the last half a billion years, there have been five mass extinctions, when the diversity of life on earth suddenly and dramatically contracted. Scientists around the world are currently monitoring the sixth extinction, predicted to be the most devastating extinction event since the asteroid impact that wiped out the dinosaurs."
We are excited to announce that Blue Ridge Discovery Center has been awarded the contract to provide web content for the SWVA Outdoors Website. This project is headed up by the Friends of Southwest Virginia and is an effort to highlight the awesome outdoor recreation opportunities our region has to offer.
For March, the BRDC Book Club read Flight Behavior, by Barbara Kingsolver.
"A brilliant and suspenseful novel set in present day Appalachia; a breathtaking parable of catastrophe and denial that explores how the complexities we inevitably encounter in life lead us to believe in our particular chosen truths. Kingsolver's riveting story concerns a young wife and mother on a failing farm in rural Tennessee who experiences something she cannot explain, and how her discovery energizes various competing factions—religious leaders, climate scientists, environmentalists, politicians—trapping her in the center of the conflict and ultimately opening up her world. Flight Behavior is arguably Kingsolver's must thrilling and accessible novel to date, and like so many other of her acclaimed works, represents contemporary American fiction at its finest."
Both staff and volunteers were on-the-go as we taught students from Galax Middle School for their Enrichment Week. Enrichment week gives students a break from the everyday class routine and allows them to gain crucial experience outside of the classroom. BRDC provided students with three different programs that they could choose from including Pioneering, Crafting with Nature, and Exploration and Discovery.
This month, Grayson County students learned all about Animal Tracks and Signs.
BRDC Program Director, Lisa Benish, showed fourth grade students examples of tracks made by animals found here in the Blue Ridge. Students were asked to reenact the walking patterns of species such as white-tail deer, black bear, and eastern cottontails.
Our camps are led by highly skilled guides who understand how to develop curiosity, foster autonomy and be model citizens. Adventure is not the end, but rather a gateway to developing deeper connections with your surroundings. The farther you push the closer you get to discovery.
Discounted camp rates with family membership- Join Today!
Three days of exploration & discovery for all ages! Bring your family and celebrate Mother's Day in the most beautiful place on Earth. There is something for the entire family to enjoy with field trips Saturday and Sunday, an expert speaker Friday Night and nighttime programs at the campground. Topics include salamanders, wildflowers, geology, birding, fishing, cultural history, mammals, medicinal plants, general natural history and much, much more!
On a chilly January day, local birder Cathy Spencer stopped by our office with news of an injured red-tailed hawk just up the highway. We frequently get calls for help from concerned citizens about injured animals. For many years we were able to connect them to local wildlife rehabilitators William and Joyce Roberts. With William's death this past summer, dedicated rehabilitator Darin Handy stepped forward to carry the torch. After consulting Darin, we grabbed a blanket and BRDC storage tub and headed out to find the bird.
Blue Ridge Discovery Center and the Blue Ridge Birders are excited to announce a partnership to make the Blue Ridge Bird Club a program of BRDC! This partnership brings a renewed focus on avian life to BRDC and ensures that the many activities of the Bird Club will continue into the future. Beyond programming, Blue Ridge Birders provided nearly $5,000 from the James Coman Fund to support regional youth education focused on birds.
Prior to the turn of the 20th century, hunters engaged in a holiday tradition known as the Christmas "Side Hunt". They would choose sides and go afield with their guns—whoever brought in the biggest pile of feathered (and furred) quarry won. Conservation was in its beginning stages in that era, and many observers and scientists were becoming concerned about declining bird populations.
Beginning on Christmas Day 1900, ornithologist Frank M. Chapman, an early officer in the then-nascent Audubon Society, proposed a new holiday tradition—a "Christmas Bird Census" that would count birds during the holidays rather than hunt them.
