The annual Allegany Nature Pilgrimage

One of my favorite spring wildflowers, the Pink Lady's-slipper, makes an appearance during the annual Allegany Nature Pilgrimage. Its a beautiful orchid.

It's always a good time to think ahead to spring. Please consider joining us for the next annual Allegany Nature Pilgrimage, the first weekend after Memorial Day, in Allegany State Park, New York. It seems like 48 hours of nearly-nonstop field trips and programs, but they're spread over three days with breaks to eat and sleep. There are early-morning bird walks and bird-banding demonstrations, mid-morning walks and trips, afternoon walks, (or a choice of two all-day trips on Saturday if you prefer), evening walks (beaver and salamanders in the past), evening tent programs with a speaker on Friday and Saturday, followed by after-program frogs, insects and owling. Friday has afternoon and evening walks and events, while Sunday has the morning portion. If I'm not making much sense, just check out their schedule. The new Program Descriptions list was just finalized, and there's a nature walk for every taste, from birds to geology, wildflowers to trees, fields to forests, insects to herps, a bog slog and even specialized programs on photography, dragonflies, bats and beavers. For die-hard birders, there are birding trips from early morning to late into the night plus live birds-of-prey.

Allegany State Park is between Jamestown and Olean in southwestern New York State, next to the Pennsylvania border.

For more on the Pink Lady's-slipper, see my Adirondack blog post. Corrections, questions and suggestions are always welcome at northeastnaturalist@yahoo.com or connect through my Facebook page and photo page. There is a separate community-type page for The Northeast Naturalist.