Family Birding

Family Birding is coming to the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center on Saturday, October 10, as part of the center's family programming. It's a birding session designed for families to get out and look at birds together, and it's held right on the grounds of the Wildflower Center.

If you're not already familiar with the place, the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center is a botanical garden dedicated to native plant conservation, open to the public year-round and just ten miles from downtown Austin. It was planted in 1982 by Lady Bird Johnson and Helen Hayes, and it's been part of The University of Texas at Austin since 2006. Over the years it's built a national reputation for its work in plant conservation, ecosystem design, native plants, sustainable landscapes, and education. The campus also includes the Texas Arboretum and the Luci and Ian Family Garden.

That makes it a good spot for birding, too. The center's native plantings draw in a variety of birds, so you're looking at them in the same environment they'd naturally inhabit. The program is built around that—spending a morning with your family spotting and identifying birds across the grounds.

For those who want to keep going, the center has other family birding sessions on the calendar later in the fall: Thursday, November 14 and Thursday, December 12, both from 9 to 10 AM. The October 10 session is the first of the bunch, so it's a good time to get started. You'll find the center at 4801 La Crosse Ave, Austin, TX 78739.