Festival celebrates refuge’s milestone

At the end of Dawson Beach Road in Woodbridge is the Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge, a 640-acre slice of unfettered wildlife.

Mark Williams grew up in a place with similar surroundings, where forests and wildlife habitats were practically his backyard, he said.

"That was our playground. That was our arcade," Williams said of his old stomping ground in the Pittsburgh area.

That's not so in the suburbs and, the Dumfries-area man said, he wants to make sure his son and daughter don't miss out on what he had.

What better place to take his 6-year-old daughter and 7-year-old son to experience nature than to a wildlife refuge.

On Saturday afternoon, the Friends of the Potomac River Refuges, a local not-for-profit organization, held its fifth annual Fall Wildlife Festival at the refuge.

"Having children and being an outdoors person, I want to have my children exposed to the outdoors," said Williams, a teacher at the Prince William County school system. "And it's free, and that always helps with this economy."

This year's theme was introducing children to nature using games, animal exhibits and other educational activities, said the conservation group's president, Annette Baker-Toole.

"Right now, the problem is people are getting away from the natural world," Baker-Toole said. "Obesity in Virginia has increased at a higher rate than any other state."

The festival, she added, was a good way to mark the refuge's 10th anniversary and to show some of the rare beauty that places like it

possess.

Just moments later, a bald eagle began circling in the sky that was barely spattered with clouds.

"Bald eagle overhead, there's a bald eagle, everybody," Baker-Toole shouted across the field.

Sisters Amber and Amanda Elston did just about everything there was to do at the festival.

They painted rocks, saw reptiles, birds of prey and even participated in the owl-hooting contest.

"They hoot like owls a lot," said their grandma, Brenda Fernandez, who attended the festival with her daughter and her two girls. "Especially around bedtime."

Fernandez's favorite part of the outing was the food, though. "They were the most delicious hot dogs we had all summer," she said.

At least 600 people and 100 volunteers attended the festival that went from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., according to the Friends of the Potomac River Refuges. And more than 20 vendors were on hand to educate, feed and band.

Suzanne Miller, a volunteer with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, has a master license to band wild birds to gather data.

And to illustrate how it's done, she used anyone who stopped by. Cody Lemmons, 14, of Woodbridge hap-pened to be one of those passersby.

He got the full treatment: Got put in the holding bag, had his wings measured then got his own rubber wrist-band.

"I feel kind of childish," Lemmons said after the short exercise.

But the candy that Lemmons got from one of the vendors appeared to have made up for that, as the teen added, "I like chocolate."

Staff writer Elisa Glushefski can be reached at 703-878-8062.