ASHVILLE — On Friday from 8:30 to 10:30 a.m., the Chautauqua Watershed Conservancy will be holding a birding tour at its Loomis Goose Creek Preserve.

The tour will be led by Jim Berry, naturalist and retired president of the Roger Tory Peterson Institute. Berry will be joined by Jeanne Wiebenga, noted local nature photographer and CWC board vice president, who will discuss bird photography. Her photographs of the osprey family residing at the Loomis Goose Creek Preserve were chosen for a successful exhibit at RTPI last year and will be exhibited again this summer at the Athenaeum Hotel at Chautauqua Institution.

The preserve holds the third largest wetland on Chautauqua Lake and is one of the most important bird and wildlife habitats remaining on the Lake, providing habitat for osprey, kingfishers, heron, mallards, wood ducks, Canada geese, waterfowl, beavers, mink, turtles and amphibians. The site is also part of CWC’s 2022 “Walking Chautauqua’s Watersheds” summer hiking challenge. If you are participating in the challenge, this is a great opportunity to get a guided tour of the site.

The tour is free and open to the public, with donations to CWC welcome. Any donations from the tour will go towards CWC’s Fish Hawks & Steelhead Habitat Campaign, which will conserve 71 acres of additional “fish hawk” habitat upstream from the preserve and at the mouth of Chautauqua Creek in Barcelona.

Tour participants are encouraged to bring binoculars and cameras and should dress appropriately for the weather and the typical wet conditions of a wooded wetland. The Loomis Goose Creek Preserve is located on Route 394 / West Lake Road in Ashville (between Goose Creek Road and Ashville Bay Road, near Ashville Bay Marina). No RSVPs required. Coffee will be provided. For more information, call 716-664-2166 or email info@chautauquawatershed.org.