Our favorite birders, brothers Ezra and Theo Staengl, are featured in this week’s Cville. The article by Carol Diggs describes an evening walk in search of woodcocks.

Now 16 and 14, Ezra and Theo are mainstays of the Blue Ridge Young Birders Club for avian enthusiasts aged 7-18. The club meets monthly at Ivy Creek Natural Area and runs at least one field trip a month elsewhere. Their mother Joanne Saladis is the coordinating adult.

In 2017, the boys compiled photographs and wrote descriptions for the digital bird show in The Quarry Gardens Visitor Center. The show features 29 of the 80 avian species that have been identified here. (The full list may be found by scrolling through the consolidated database linked to The Gardens page on the website.)

Ezra and Theo have led bird walks for the public at QGs during migrations. We’re hoping to join them this fall.

Learn more about the club at blueridgeyoungbirdersclub.org.