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When the Dogwood Canyon Audubon Center opened in Cedar Hill last month, Dallas County became the only place in the country with two national Audubon centers. The other is the Trinity River Audubon Center. The Dogwood Canyon center’s director, P ATT y M c Gill, lives in Forest Hills. She has a doctorate degree in ornithology from Cornell University, and she specializes in ecology and conservation. McGill worked for 22 years at the Chicago Zoological Society, which operates the Brookfield Zoo. She moved to Dallas recently with her husband, who works at the Dallas Zoo.

Why did you move to Dallas?

I left the Brookfield Zoo because I got married four years ago. Finding two really good jobs in our fields in the same city is not easy. My husband found a job at the Dallas Zoo, and this opportunity came along at Dogwood Canyon. My real passion is birds, nature, wildlife, conservation. So the opportunity to work with the Audubon society at Dogwood Canyon is just a great fit for me. The combination of science and conservation and birds and connecting people with nature is just really a perfect, perfect fit.

tell us a little bit about the Audubon center.

We’ll have programs for children and nature lovers of all ages. We’re in a 3,000acre green space, so it’s a gorgeous location with a rich diversity of nature, and we’ll be offering school programs, preschool nature play opportunities, programs for families and adults, and eventually, I would like to connect with seniors in the area. We have a canyon view room, which is wheelchair accessible, so people who cannot access the trail can still get up close with nature. We’ll have a lot of informal programming. There will be some guided hikes, or people can just hike the trails themselves themselves.