Hidden in the middle of the bustling industrious area of northern Ogden lies a nearly-silent trail that leads to Ogden’s Nature Center.

The trail is filled with hundreds of birdhouses, signifying to members the purpose of the Nature Center’s statement, which is about uniting people with nature. The Nature Center has displayed these birdhouses for 28 years in conjunction with an annual competition that supports the center’s mission statement.

This year, the event will go on, despite the ongoing pandemic, and the guidelines for accepted birdhouses and entry forms are available on the center’s website. Entries will be accepted for this year’s competition March 15-20. Officials are requiring social distancing and masks for the drop off, and participants will only be allowed to submit one birdhouse.

Each year, the birdhouses entered into the competition are placed across this trail. Many of them are sold or taken home by the creators, but some are left to become a permanent part of the trail.

After walking beneath the tree line, a sign appears to the left. This sign explains the purpose of the birdhouses and that most of them come from past years. Surrounding the sign are four permanent birdhouses. One of these birdhouses is built with license plates and another is roofed with mason jar lids.

“In the middle of the birdhouse trail is this great view of what’s around us in the city,” Linda Babcock, chairman of the birdhouse competition, said.

The open area to the trail allows visitors to see the mountains surrounding Ogden, including Ben Lomond. Babcock said there are few open areas like this part of the trail that allow people to experience nature in this way in the Ogden area.

Towards the end of the short walk to the Nature Center, visitors are greeted again with more trees and more birdhouses from the competition.

“When the school kids walk down the trail, they are just fascinated by this,” Babcock said.

The birdhouse competition is meant for all ages, from children to adults.

In normal years, there is an awards ceremony, but this year, the Nature Center will announce the winners over social media on April 17.

“The nature center is one of the few places that people can go and feel safe because it’s an outside activity,” Brandi Bosworth, the public relations officer for the Nature Center, said.

Bosworth said the birdhouse competition is an activity that people can see and do safely.

“When you see kids submitting something, that’s kind of cool — grandfathers helping their grandkids out, or a dad and his son — it’s a fun way to do something and get involved,” said Ben Velasquez, last year’s artistic/imaginative second-place winner.

Last year, the event was shut down for a period because of the pandemic.

“We were in the middle of it when everything’s shut down, like pretty abruptly,” Bosworth said.

Eventually, the competition was able to reopen as COVID-19 knowledge continued to grow.

The Nature Center is not concerned that the competition itself will pose a threat to the spread of COVID, since it is outside and any in-person part of the event has been moved online or canceled.