Port Royal will celebrate a birthday Saturday. A little birdie says you’re invited
Birthday for the Birds at Port Royal’s Cypress Wetlands — a rookery that draws thousands of birds to the heart of the town — returns after a two-year hiatus and will include a remembrance for the man who started it 10 years ago.
The annual celebration of the rookery in the urban landscape coincides with nesting and chicks hatching.
“This is the time the chicks are busting out of their eggs,” says Kat Bray, a spokesperson for Friends of Cypress Wetlands, a not-for-profit that promotes the wetlands. “So we are welcoming them with a birthday party.”
It’s from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. Saturday.
Pete Richards started Birthday for the Birds, said Bray, who saw the wonder of the wetlands and wanted it shared with the community.
The first bird party was conducted in 2012. It was canceled in 2020 and 2021 due to the pandemic.
For its return, a plaque in Richards’ honor will be dedicated at 9 a.m. Richards died in early 2020 at 78.
“He used to walk in the wetlands all the time,” Bray said. “He just thought it was a marvelous place.”
A rookery is a communal nesting ground for gregarious birds. At Cypress Wetlands, nesting starts in early spring on islands, trees and shrubs surrounded by water.
Among the most common nesting birds are great and snowy egrets, and little blue, green, tricolored and black crested night herons. White ibis, wood stork, roseate spoonbill, yellow crowned night heron, cattle egret, glossy ibis, green blue heron and other birds also visit the rookery.
The birds have an unlikely ally in alligators that patrol the waters, deterring animals such as raccoons from swimming to the islands to eat baby birds.
Master naturalists will be stationed along the boardwalk to answer questions about plants, reptiles and birds.
Kids will enjoy a scavenger hunt.
Birthday cupcakes, kazoos to play a birthday song for the chicks, party hats and artwork created by students from Port Royal Elementary and Riverview schools will be part of the fun.
Hunting Island Interpretive Center and Birds of Prey will both be on hand with birds and wildlife critters.
“It’s just a celebration of the area,” Bray said.
