An appearance by a Peregrine falcon at last year’s “Wild Things” festival was one of the event’s most popular attractions. This year’s festival on Saturday will offer another chance to meet a raptor from the Chintimini Wildlife Center in Corvallis.

By CHERYL ROMANO/Lincoln Chronicle

YACHATS — “Wild Things” will make nature-loving hearts sing on Saturday, June 13, when the third annual festival enlivens downtown Yachats.

From 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., the family-friendly event will take place in the Yachats Commons and the Yachats Lions Club Hall for people to share the celebration of Oregon’s coastal outdoors. Plant and animal walks and demonstrations, story time and a chance to meet a raptor highlight the day’s events, all shaped to spur appreciation of the natural world on the coast.

“We’re trying to engage the community to understand the environmental impact we have through our everyday lives,” said event coordinator Candi Claussen of the Yachats Lions Club, sponsor of the festival. “It will be a fun, interactive way to learn about being a good environmental steward.”

Festival features this year will include:

A solar telescope set up in the Lions Hall parking lot from noon to 2 p.m., enabling safe views of the sun;
A chance to meet a raptor in the Lions Hall from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.;
An educational wetlands walk behind the Pavilion, which is behind the Commons, at noon and 2 p.m.;
Talks about local plant life at Prospect Park just east of U.S. Highway 101 at Prospect Avenue;
A microscope provided by the Oregon Coast Aquarium to see the plankton on which whales feed;
A whale-sighting platform at Yachats State Park;
Storytime in the Commons Room 3; and
A Cape Perpetua Collaborative naturalist riding the Yachats Trolley, talking about the area marine reserve and tidepools.

The Yachats Lions have brought the festival under their sponsorship umbrella. The club was involved in “Wild Things” last year, and assumed sponsorship to align with Yachats’ designation as a Bird City earlier this year.

The Wild Things festival was created by Jim Welch of Yachats and its name derives from two creative works — the classic rock song “Wild Things,” and the Maurice Sendak book Where the Wild Things Are.