Each year the Riverfest board chooses a “theme animal” to represent the annual Riverfest event. The theme animals are always found in our local watershed and provide more opportunities for learning about life in and around the river.
This year’s theme animal is the Eastern Screech Owl. The screech owl is a small owl which is one of the most common owls in Virginia. They are 8.5 inches in length and weigh around six ounces. Masters of disguise, the owl’s plumage blends in with the tree bark of the holes and hollows of trunks where they spend much of the day. Some screech owls are reddish brown and others are gray.
Eastern Screech owls inhabit open mixed woodlands, deciduous forests, wooded suburban areas, riparian woods along streams and wetlands and woodlands near marshes, meadows and fields. They often nest in trees in neighborhoods inhabited by humans.
You can support your local screech owl population by driving slowly at night, refrain from using rodenticides, leaving trees with cavities standing when possible, installing screech owl boxes and acknowledging the important role these owls play in your neighborhood rodent and insect population control. Come to Riverfest and learn more about this elusive and charismatic bird.
We have a winner!
Congratulations to this years Poster Contest Winner, Joseph Mullin! Joseph is an eighth grade student at Appalachian Christian School.
The Poster Contest was open to local K-8 children who expressed their interpretation of this year’s Riverfest native totem animal, the Eastern Screech-Owl. We received over 350 entries this year!
We have our one, overall grand prize winner and also second and third place runners-up, as well as one honorable mention. There are also winners in each grade category. ALL entries will be on display at Riverfest via a digital slideshow.
