By Jeremy Hatt

Every year in September the Holiday Beach Migration Observatory and Essex Regional Conservation Authority host the Festival of Hawks at Holiday Beach, a popular event in Essex County that highlights the spectacular migration of raptors through our area each fall. “Hawk Fest” includes many exciting activities from banding raptors and passerines to observing hawks migrating over the Hawk Tower to presentations and walks.

 ECFNC had a table display at the event this year as well as hosting a joint walk with our friends from the Windsor Feminist Bird Club. We had a great turnout of over twenty people who were enthusiastic about not only birds but plants, insects, and other wildlife we came across.

This resulted in a few new memberships to ECFNC and educating participants on the use of iNaturalist and eBird as well as information on the birds that utilize Holiday Beach as a migration stopover. WFBC also expressed the importance of providing walks that promote inclusivity for marginalized groups and kindly rented out binoculars to those in attendance that didn’t have their own optics.

 The group in attendance was enthusiastic and friendly and we had a great time on the walk. A few highlights included watching a Red-tailed Hawk being released by banders as it zipped directly over the heads of our group, close looks at Great Egrets and Black-crowned Night-Heron in the marsh, an Osprey and Belted Kingfisher both actively hunting for fish, and a pair of somewhat late Eastern Kingbirds hawking for insects around the Marsh Tower.

Our full list of species seen during the walk can be found at: https://ebird.org/checklist/S195261199