This week in Greenwich: the hawks get a whole festival on Riversville Road, Adopt-A-Dog takes Baldwin Park for a 38th year, and P&Z saves an oak in Old Greenwich

Two of the best days on the Greenwich calendar land back to back. Saturday belongs to the Audubon center, which opens at seven in the morning because that is when the raptors are moving, and Sunday belongs to several hundred dogs and the people who will be talked into adopting them. In between, a town boat takes 25 volunteers out to Great Captain Island to clean the beach.

Best for families this week: Hawk Watch Fest has owl pellet dissections and a migration game running all day Saturday, and Puttin' On The Dog admits children 5 to 12 for $10 on Sunday. Science Solvers at the Bruce is free with admission and needs no registration.

"Nature's Impressions: The Modernist Landscape" at the Bruce Museum, 1 Museum Drive, Tuesday through Sunday, 10 AM to 5 PM. The Richter Collection hanging alongside it makes this the museum's strongest room right now, and the Sunday French language tour is a reminder that the Bruce keeps quietly doing things no museum this size needs to do. Ticketed, all ages, indoors. Details.

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Friends Friday Films: "The Devil Wears Prada 2" at Greenwich Library, 101 West Putnam Avenue, 7 to 9:15 PM. Twenty years on from the first one, and the Friends of the Library got it before most people have decided whether they want to see it. Free, adults, indoors. Details.

Planning and Zoning told a West Way homeowner the oak stays. At the September 15 meeting, the owner of 40 West Way in Old Greenwich asked to take out a 24 inch oak, roughly 75 to 80 years old, from an already approved landscape plan, citing the new house, the sea wall and storm risk. Neither the applicant's arborist nor the town tree warden had called the tree dangerous, and the commission noticed. Chair Margarita Alban: "It's not that you haven't convinced us. It's that neither your arborist or our tree warden cited there being a danger." Commissioner Arn Welles was more direct about the alternative: "You want to manage risk, bring an arborist in and preserve the tree, trim it where necessary, wire it where necessary and enjoy the benefits." Commissioner Nick Macri settled it: "I think this tree, as proposed, stays." Source: Greenwich Free Press.

Ground broke on Benedict Court, and 48 of its 120 apartments are reserved for moderate income households. Congressman Jim Himes and First Selectman Fred Camillo turned dirt on September 18 with Lonicera Partners and Nimbus Properties on a six story building in central Greenwich, designed by BKSK Architects and due in 2028. Forty percent of the units go to moderate income renters through the town and the Greenwich Affordable Housing Trust Fund, aimed at teachers, nurses, first responders, municipal staff and service workers who work here and cannot currently live here. Source: Greenwich Free Press.

The Retired Men's Association spent Wednesday on how Greenwich saves its old houses, one at a time. Elise Hillman Green and Jacqueline Wetenhall gave the September 23 talk, titled "Historic Properties of Greenwich: Protecting Houses, One by One." The same week the commission declined to let a 75 year old oak come down, which suggests the town's preservation instinct is not limited to architecture. Source: Greenwich Free Press.

Hawk Watch Fest at the Greenwich Audubon Center, 613 Riversville Road, 7 AM to 4 PM, rain date Sunday. Nine hours built around the fact that broad-winged hawks do not wait for anybody's brunch reservation. Christine and Betsy Pereigne bring Christine's Critters, Brian and Teddy Bradley bring Skyhunters in Flight, Ryan MacLean runs the raptor identification workshop for people who cannot yet tell a kestrel from a merlin, and Wildlife in Crisis releases a rehabilitated hawk back into the sky. Mill River plays bluegrass, Tommy Siegel and Billy Libby bring Extremely Accurate Birds, Grigg Street Pizza handles lunch, and the kids get the Great Migration Game and owl pellet dissections. Tickets are sold in advance online. Ticketed, kids welcome, outdoors. Details.

Great Captain Island Clean-Up, 8:30 AM to 1 PM, meeting at the Grass Island boat launch ramp. The Conservation Commission runs its annual cleanup and Parks and Recreation supplies the boats, which means 25 people get a morning on Great Captain that nobody else can buy. Boat space is capped at 25 and registration is required. Rain date Sunday. Free, adults, outdoors. Details.

GHS Cheer Gameday Experience and Breakfast starting at Greenwich High School's gym, 10 Hillside Road, 10:30 AM, finishing at noon at Cardinal Stadium for the Youth Day football game. Breakfast, the cheer team, then the field. $50. Ticketed, kids welcome, indoors and outdoors. Details.

Art Society of Old Greenwich "Fall Show" opening reception at Greenwich Library, 101 West Putnam Avenue, 2 to 5 PM. The Art Society has been hanging shows in this town since before most of the current galleries existed, and an opening reception in a library is a pleasantly unpretentious place to look at paintings. Free, all ages, indoors. Details.

Puttin' On The Dog, 38th annual, Roger Sherman Baldwin Park, 100 Arch Street, 10 AM to 4 PM. Adopt-A-Dog's festival, and the reason a certain number of Greenwich households have the dog they have. Contests, a silent auction, food trucks, a Bone Bar, training demonstrations and a Kid Zone, plus the adoptable dogs, who are the entire point and who know it. $25 adults, $10 seniors, $10 for children 5 to 12. Ticketed, kids welcome, outdoors. Details.

Cinema at the Bruce and Focus on French Film present "Hugo" at the Bruce Museum, 1 Museum Drive, 2 to 4 PM, film starting promptly at 2. Not the Scorsese one. This is "Victor comme tout le monde," about an actor who recites Victor Hugo nightly in a Paris theater and has lost his daughter offstage. Joe Meyers and Professor Sylvie Kandé talk afterward. Registration required, seats limited, and there is additional parking at the Island Beach lot, the Steamboat Road commuter garage and on Museum Drive. Ticketed, adults, indoors. Details.

Science Solvers: Imagination Playground at the Bruce Museum, 1 Museum Drive, 1 to 3 PM, in the Cohen Education Wing. Drop in, no registration, free with general admission, designed for children 4 and up and their grownups. Big foam blocks and a set of prompts, which is all most four year olds have ever needed. Free with admission, kids welcome, indoors. Details.

Jonathan Kruk tells "The Revolutionary Ghosts of Sleepy Hollow" at Greenwich Library, Monday September 28, 6:30 PM. Free. Details.

Arch in Bloom is already decorated for Halloween and running Pumpkins and Pints on October 3. Details.

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