 Starting on Oct. 20 and continuing the third Saturday of every month through April, both children and adults can see Liberty's birds and many others, as Liberty Wildlife begins its fourth season of monthly programs with Desert Rivers Audubon at the Gilbert Water Ranch on the corner of Guadalupe and Greenfield.
Volunteers from Desert Rivers Audubon lead several guided bird walks through the Water Ranch's seven ponds, providing good views of resident ducks, herons, shorebirds and warblers, and always searching for that special rarity like a streak-backed oriole, a groove-billed ani or a least bittern.
While the groups are staging, Liberty volunteers have a number of birds on hand for up-close encounters.
"We have one rule for the birds we take out to Gilbert," says Anne Peyton, a Liberty Education team member who helped start the monthly program. "If you can see the bird at the Water Ranch in the wild, then we can take one of our birds. It makes the walks and our participation more special when people come back saying they saw a turkey vulture or an American kestrel in the distance, but now they can see them much better."
 For Claudia Kirscher, a Liberty volunteer and a board member with Desert Rivers, the walks are a special way to help get Liberty's message out to many more people, work on creative education partnerships with other organizations that share Liberty's values, and just to get outside. "The Water Ranch is a special habitat that attracts thousands of birds each year," she says. "We want to make sure that people get that up-close-and-personal experience before or after their bird walk and have them learn something, too."
"Often with the kids, though, we don't have to do any teaching," she laughs. "They do just fine telling their parents and grandparents everything they learned about the birds from a school program or a previous visit."
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