Festival tickets on sale April 8
In a matter of days the wraps come off the 20th anniversary edition of the Meadowlark Nature Festival. Tickets for the Okanagan’s biggest, oldest and best nature festival go on sale in person and online at 10 am on Saturday, April 8.
Meadowlark volunteers will be taking ticket orders starting at 10 a.m. in room 2 at the Penticton Community Centre. Festival coordinator Jayme Friedt says it’s a good idea to get your tickets early because the most popular tours sell out very quickly.
This year there will be more than 80 smallgroup, expert-led tours available, including some perennial favorites like the cycling/birding tour from Chute Lake to Naramata with Richard Cannings, one of B.C.’s best known bird experts. The tour includes transportation to Chute Lake, a guided ride down to Naramata (with plenty of stops to check out the birds which, amazingly, respond to Cannings’ calls) and lunch.
Other favorites include The Burrowing Owl Tour. The 20 ticket holders will carpool to a private property near Osoyoos where they’ll get to see where the tiny, ground-dwelling owls are released by the Burrowing Owl Conservation Society as part of its 25 year effort to reintroduce the threatened species in the South Okanagan.
If bats are your thing, you’ll want to try the “Wings on Their Fingers” tour with bat expert Tanya Luszcz. The tour includes setting up nets near Vaseaux Lake to capture some bats for study. You’ll learn about bat habitat and the challenges facing this important species.
If you want to be sure of getting a ticket to your favorite tour, you might consider the Meadowlark Adopt-a-Tour program. For a modest fee, program partici- pants (businesses or individuals) get two free tickets to the tour plus a tax receipt and other benefits, including a mention on the tour web page. The program is meant to help with the cost of putting on the Meadowlark Festival. Details are included in the 2017 program guide.
The guide will be inserted into The Penticton Herald and The Kelowna Daily Courier on Friday, April 7. The Herald is supporting the festival in a big way this year by distributing 30,000 copies of the guide in the papers and to tourist information centres from Vernon through Osooyos and the Kootenay region and even into the Lower Mainland. Approximately 40 per cent of Meadowlark participants come from out of town each year. Many come back year after year for memorable experiences with talented, knowledgeable and enthusiastic tour leaders.
For more information visit us online: meadowlarkfestival.ca
Bob Nicholson is a member of the board of directors for the Okanagan-Similkameen Conservation Alliance, the group that puts on the Meadowlark Festival.