Hummingbird Festival at the Wilderness Station

One of the best free family mornings on the Rutherford County calendar, and it is genuinely worth setting an alarm for. Licensed banders catch, measure and release ruby-throated hummingbirds in front of you, close enough that kids can see the bird in hand before it goes.

Banding runs 8:00 to 10:45 a.m. only and that is the part children remember, so come early if the banding is the draw. Everything else runs 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.: conservation and craft booths, speakers, activities and food trucks.

Free, all ages welcome, at the Wilderness Station in Barfield Crescent Park. Ruby-throated hummingbirds are the only hummingbird species that nests in Tennessee, and they leave before winter, which makes early September the right week to catch them.