Nature lovers, bird watchers, children and adults visited the Lehigh Gap Nature Center for their annual Migration Festival, held Saturday at the Osprey House on Paint Mill Road in Slatington.

The center held a limited festival last year because of the pandemic.

The festival highlights the various features of the center, like educational displays on migration, birds, butterflies, watershed, plants, and much more. There were also included guided hikes around the area, including a bird walk, tagging monarch butterflies, looking at insects, a garden tour, and an art show. There were also crafters on hand with demonstrations on woodworking, weaving, and gourd art.

Chad Schwartz, Director of Science and Education has been involved with the Nature Center for five years.

“I got involved with the center over 10 years ago while in high school. I interned here during college at Muhlenberg, and then I’ve been here since 2016, working on the staff. I love what I do, it’s a lot of fun here,” Schwartz said.

The center offers many educational programs. “We usually have about 10,000 students per year with our education programs, so we do lots of field trips here, in-school programs, and out-of-school programs. We’ve been doing a lot of virtual education the past year,” Schwartz said.

He also explained that this is the only nature center in the country that’s on a Superfund site.

There are a lot of challenges unique to that. In addition to running the education program, they maintain the refuge here. There’s a lot of work that goes into maintaining the 756 acres of land and cataloging the various species they see, part of the whole Superfund story.

The Nature Center started in the Slatington area in the 1980s and moved to its current location in 2002, purchasing 756 acres of land in the Lehigh Gap. The center has a trail system, education center, and a huge variety of plants all around the grounds.

The trails are open every day from dawn to dusk.

The Osprey House is run by volunteers, usually open in the mornings during the week. The center relies on volunteers who can help by participating in LGNC cleanup days, lead nature walks and workshops, help maintain the trails and make improvements, design and plant the many habitat gardens, and help organize and assist with public events.

For more information, visit www.lgnc.org.