Brenda Hente

Brenda has been observing, studying, and documenting Great Horned Owls in the St. Louis area since the fall of 2010. On many nights, throughout the year, she leads owl prowls to those who are interested in seeing the owls in their natural environment. She will also help with owl surveys for private landowners, interested in locating the owls in their neighborhood. Brenda has studied under world-renowned ornithologists, Scott Weidensaul and Dr. Stephen Kress, at Maine’s Audubon camp on Hog Island, off the coast of Bremen, Maine during the summers of 2015, 2016, and 2017.
Brenda presented and was the key-note speaker at the International Festival of Owls in Houston, Minnesota in March of 2018, representing World Bird Sanctuary of St. Louis, Missouri. Brenda has been a volunteer at World Bird Sanctuary since 2014, being named Volunteer of the Year in 2017, and given the Michael Cooke Award in 2022, for notably raising up awareness and developing support for WBS through community involvement. As a volunteer at WBS, Brenda has helped give shows on owls, and is a member of the banding team, banding songbirds, and Northern Saw-whet owls. She has also helped develop educational programs and has written curriculum for World Bird Sanctuary, along with developing their summer camp program. In March of 2019, Brenda was honored to present the “Owls of Ohio” at Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge in Oak Harbor, Ohio in collaboration with Green Creek Wildlife Society of Fremont, Ohio. Most recently, Brenda wrote four interactive, online programs for the St. Louis Audubon Society. Each program consisting of 5 lessons that build upon each other, or can be used independently, for elementary aged students. These fun and engaging programs titled, Home Tweet Home, Birds of Prey, Archway to Migration, and Tools of the Trade, can be found on St. Louis Audubon’s website and are free for educators to use in their classrooms today. Brenda has her master’s degree in school leadership and is an educator by day, teaching middle school in St. Louis County. In 2018, she was awarded the Emerson Excellence in Teaching Award for her development and implementation of an outstanding, outdoor education program at her school, giving students unique outdoor educational field trip experiences from 5th through 8th grade. She is also a Certified Missouri Master Naturalist and a contracted Instructor for the Missouri Botanical Garden and Shaw Nature Reserve, giving classes on owls, raptors, and other native birds.