The Audubon Discovery Camp, a nature-oriented summer day camp for children in the Eastern Panhandle and nearby Maryland, is now registering campers for its 2011 season.

The camp, which is entering its ninth year, is sponsored by the Potomac Valley Audubon Society (PVAS).

Registration opens to PVAS members on Feb. 1. The general public may register their children starting Feb. 15.

Those who wish to register are encouraged to do so early – camp sessions usually fill up fast.

This year’s camp will span eight weeks between May 31 and July 22.

The first two weeks will be devoted to sessions for preschool-age children. The remaining six weeks will include a variety of different sessions for children entering grades 1 through 8.

Most camp sessions will be held at the Society’s Yankauer Nature Preserve on Whiting’s Neck, in the northeast corner of Berkeley County or at CraftWorks at Cool Spring, in southern Jefferson County.

This year, for the first time PVAS will also offer a week of evening camp sessions at the Yankauer Preserve and a one-week history-related camp at the Peter Burr Living History Farm in Jefferson County.

There will also be three special “adventure” camps for children entering grades 5 through 7.

All of the camp sessions are aimed at helping children gain a better understanding and appreciation of the natural world. All of them offer hands-on experiential learning led and supervised by experienced instructors.

Session sizes are kept very small to ensure an excellent instructor/child ratio of one to 10.

The camp director is Ellen Murphy, PVAS’s Director of Youth Education, who has many years of experience in developing, directing, and delivering educational programs for children.

The fee for most camp sessions will be $150 per week. The fees for the preschool sessions will range from $50 to $125 per week, and the fees for the adventure camps will range from $180 to $250 per week.

Full details about the camp can be found on the PVAS website at www.potomacaudubon.org, and easy online registration is also available there. A valid credit card is required for registration.

For more information or questions, contact Ms. Murphy at 304-676-8739 or pvasprograms@comcast.net.

The Potomac Valley Audubon Society is a United Way of the Eastern Panhandle partner agency and a member of the Combined Federal Campaign.