25th Annual Fall Festival

Enjoy the premier festival that celebrates all things nature and environment in WNY! Crafts for kids, live animals, hands-on activities, food, and more! No registration required.  The NFTA Parks Adventure Bus is offering free transportation from the main terminal in Buffalo to the festival. Visit the NFTA website for more details.

Activities include: 

• Explore the Lily Pond
• Win a prize with the Kid’s Scavenger Hunt
• Visit our Rescue Turtles
• Make a Nature Journal and nature crafts
• Pitch a tent- as fast as you can!
• Test your birding skills at the Spotting Scope Station
• Test your outdoor know-how at the Leave No Trace Station
• Enjoy fun activities with 35 partner organizations including hoverball archery, fossil “digging,” and more!
• Musical entertainment from local students at the food tent 11:30-12:15 and 1 -1:30 PM

Walks and talks:

• 10:30 AM – Messinger Woods Wildlife Rehab Talk*
• 11:15 AM – DEC Drone Demonstration*
• 12:15 PM – The Job of a Forest Ranger*
• 1:30 PM – Tree ID Hike with DEC Forester
• 2:00 PM – Bird Walk with Reinstein Staff
• 2:30 PM – Bird Walk with Reinstein Staff

*There will be an American Sign Language interpreter present for demonstrations occurring between 10 AM and 1 PM.

Donations are gratefully accepted at the door to cover the cost of the festival. We encourage festival goers to bring cash for the Boy Scout food tent and other vendors as there is no ATM on site. Please leave pets at home (dogs are not allowed at Reinstein Woods except service animals). There are two water-bottle filling stations on site. 

Exhibitors:

Buffalo Audubon Society
Buffalo Geological Society
Buffalo Ornithological Society
Cheektowaga Historical Association
Cheektowaga Youth Engaged in Service (YES)
Citizens Climate Lobby
Cradle Beach
Cornell Cooperative Extension of Erie County/Master Gardeners
DEC Bureau of Invasive Species & Ecosystem Health
DEC Bureau of Wildlife
DEC Forest Rangers
DEC Great Lakes Program
DEC Lands & Forests
DEC Law Enforcement
DEC Materials Management
DEC Office of Recreation
DEC Region 9 Fisheries
Eastern Monarch Butterfly Farm
Erie County Department of Environment and Planning
Erie County Recycling
Erie County Soil & Water Conservation District
Friends of Iroquois National Wildlife Refuge
Friends of Reinstein Woods
Great Falls Council, Boy Scouts of America
Messinger Woods (10-noon)
NYS Office of Parks, Recreation & Historic Preservation
Penn Dixie Fossil Park & Nature Reserve
SPCA Serving Erie County
Tifft Nature Preserve
US Fish & Wildlife Service
WNY Land Conservancy
WNY Lions Club District 20N Sustainability Club
WNY PRISM
WildWood Western New York