FIELD NOTES BLOG

Flights of Fancy: Bird Bonanza, December 2

Liz Wiener
November 30, 2023

This fall, Severson Dells Nature Center saw the return of a beloved program, the monthly Science Saturday! This event has welcomed over 700 people to Severson Dells since returning in September of 2023. Thanks to the generous sponsorships of Collins Aerospace and Nicor Gas, Science Saturday has been able to bring in experts from UW Madison, Northern IL Raptor Rehab Center, Sinnissippi Audubon, the Monarch Conservation Society, and more. Participants of all ages have made crafts, tried their hands at predator challenges, and ignited a curiosity for science! But, we aren’t done yet! The final Science Saturday of 2023 will be on December 2, and it is sure to be a great time! Join us for the Bird Bonanza! 

Not to be outdone by the Saturdays before it, Bird Bonanza will have a little something for everyone to “tweet” about. All ages will enjoy spreading their wings and soaring to new heights. 

Join Severson Dells AmeriCorps members to learn about bird beaks, feet, and feathers. Get an up close look at these amazing adaptations that make our feathered friends so special! You’ll also be able to decorate a miniature bird house to take home! 


Are you interested in getting out on the trails and learning about how to use binoculars and spotting birds? Join Don Miller and Kevin Kaltenbach for a short birding hike around the Severson paved loop. They will lead two hikes throughout the day, and each will last about 30-45 minutes. 

Are you more interested in the sounds of birds? Join Micky Torpedo for a performance of his most recent album, Birdsongs, Vol 1 - Sounds of the Mississippi Flyway . This is an ongoing collaborative project between Micky and Sinnissippi Audubon Society. Their newest album, Volume 2, will be released in Spring of 2024. For this performance, Micky will be joined by Heather Camacho (The Lone Canary) on violin, Karl Ropp on upright bass, and Cade Eastham (Turning Stranger) on percussion. Micky and friends will be performing two sets throughout the day. 

Our friends from Rock Valley Garden Center will also be here with lots of information about how to best set up a winter feeding station for birds, and you’ll be able to make a pinecone bird feeder to take home for your yard or neighborhood! Sinnissippi Audubon will be present with great information about George and Louise, Rockford’s resident peregrine falcons! 

Hoo Haven will be bringing along one of their resident education birds for an up close look at our feathered friends. If you haven’t checked them out, Hoo Haven is a wonderful resource for injured birds, providing rehabilitation and education for birds of all shapes and sizes. 

Finally, Collins Aerospace will be here talking about the physics of flight, how the planes you see flying take inspiration from birds, and getting youth excited in the aerospace industry that happens right in our backyard! You’ll learn all about Bernoulli’s principle, match bird wings and plane wings, and even test out your own paper airplane against some real aerospace and mechanical engineers! Harin Patel, a mechanical engineer at Collins Aerospace and a huge asset in the grant that Severson Dells received to put on these Science Saturdays says of the event, “Collins Aerospace will be partnering with Severson Dells to teach students the Physics of Flight! We are extremely excited to teach students how flight works and apply these concepts to airplanes!”


We hope to see you fly on over to Severson Dells for our Bird Bonanza. As you can see, there is something for every member of your flock to engage in. Bird Bonanza happens December 2, 2023 from 10am-2pm at 8786 Montague Road in Rockford, IL. If you have any questions, please reach out to Liz Wiener, Public Programs Coordinator at liz@seversondells.org or call 815-335-2915.

RECENT ARTICLES

Happy National Make-A-Will Month

By Linda Sandquist • August 7, 2025
As we observe National Make-A-Will Month this August, I want to relate a personal story about preparing my own will. Have you ever heard the saying “the cobbler’s children have no shoes”? Up until a month ago, this statement described me since my husband is a lawyer and we had no will or estate plan. I counted myself in good company when I learned that Abraham Lincoln, Picasso, Sonny Bono, and Aretha Franklin all died without a will. And I had a lot in common with the 72% of Americans who have not officially spelled out what should happen to their assets upon their death. Wills and estate plans are easy to put off. They feel too complicated, too time-consuming and too official. And frankly it’s not much fun to think about who should get what, knowing that at least one person is going to be disappointed and someone will most likely think they were left with the short end of the stick. While a will can’t soothe hurt feelings, one with a named executor will speed up the probate process and ensure that your wishes are fulfilled. Creating a will doesn’t have to be time-consuming or difficult - there are many resources online to help you write a document that needs only to be witnessed and notarized. The resources I found were free, very helpful, and very legal. Steps were simplified and I completed my will in less than an hour. If your wishes are more complicated, finding an estate attorney is also easy and can be very affordable. Another benefit of making a will or estate plan is that you get to decide what charities and nonprofit organizations will receive a final gift from you. If you’ve been a passionate supporter of something over your lifetime, wouldn’t you like to give them a final gift that really means something? It’s easy to direct a certain dollar amount or a certain percentage of your estate to an organization you really care about. And the organization is bound by law to follow your intentions - you can choose whether you want your gift to go to a certain program, operations and overhead, building maintenance, or an endowment fund. Equally as impactful, is making your favorite charitable organization the beneficiary of your retirement fund, IRA, or life insurance policy. Here at Severson Dells Nature Center, we ask that you consider including us in your estate plans. When you do, you become part of our Heritage Society, a group of like-minded folks, dedicated to the future of nature education in our region. Your gift, large or small, will make a difference. In 2016, a bequest from Orville and Ruth Varland to Severson Dells created an endowment fund to support field trips for students from the Rockford Public Schools. The fund has grown over time and continues to make a difference in the lives of young people who come to the Dells, many experiencing nature for the first time. Each year, students who have never been in a forest, seen a natural creek, or sat in the grass are here because of the Varlands. The legacy of Orville and Ruth lives on and on and on. I invite you to celebrate and Make-A-Will this month. Take the time to look for online resources or contact your attorney. Make sure your intentions are clearly written down so that when the time comes, there is no question about what you wanted. Please consider including Severson Dells in your will and join our Heritage Society. And let us know that you included us so we can thank and celebrate you now! If you've already considered Severson Dells in your estate plans, let us know! Email me at linda@seversondells.org or call me at 815-335-2915. * Please note: Severson Dells Education Foundation is not a legal entity and cannot give legal advice. We encourage you to seek out legal advice should you have any questions about the process of making a will or leaving an estate gift. Our Tax ID number is 36-2985870

Summer Storms: Meteorology and our Local Environment

By Sydney Sherbitsky • July 16, 2025
Summer days have an intense energy. For us, it’s easy to pack a lot of activity into long, sunlight-filled days. The atmosphere is packed in a different way, with thick, heavy humidity and sun-baked heat. You have probably experienced one of these particularly sweltering days where periods of calm are interrupted with a sudden summer storm. One moment you are relaxing, the next, you hear the rumbling of thunder, and it begins to rain, instantly cooling the hot ground and taking the stickiness from the air. You don’t have long to take in the scene as the intensity of the heat gives way to an intense storm. This is a different kind of energy in the air; this is a summer storm.

Nature's Blueprint

By Shannon Osadjan • July 3, 2025
Nature holds the answers for how to be more efficient with managing our supplies of earth’s natural resources. In fact, nature serves as the inspiration and blueprint for many structures and objects we use every day! Biomimicry is a practice of engineering that creates designs based on structures and sequences from the Earth’s natural world, including but not limited to plants, animals, and geographies. Biomimicry designs are meant to imitate functions that already exist and occur in nature. These designs are being transferred over and scaled up to provide solutions to human caused problems. There are three main core principles that make up biomimicry: recreating natural shapes, processes, and entire ecosystems.