HOLIDAY BEACH AMONG TOP HAWK SPOTS
Magazine lists it as No. 3 in North America
Audubon Magazine has named Holiday Beach one of the top spots in North America to see migrating hawks.
“It’s really exciting,” said Danielle Breault Stuebing, of the Essex Region Conservation Authority.
“The one above us is Cape May, N.J., which is internationally known as a hawk watching spot and Holiday Beach Conservation Area is No. 3.”
Hawk Mountain in Pennsylvania was No. 1.
The September-October issue of the award- winning magazine named the Holiday Beach Migration Observatory at the Amherstburg conservation area jointly with the Detroit River Hawk Watch in Michigan among the 10 awesome places to catch one of nature’s greatest spectacles.
“I’m not surprised,” observatory president Bob Pettit said Tuesday, Sept. 25.
The article will mean more publicity for the site, which saw more than 100,000 birds of prey migrating through last year.
Breault Stuebing said the article by a renowned birdwatcher could boost tourism.
“It’s just so exciting to think that people will plan their trips based on those types of recommendations and there is a lot of room for growth,” she said of the 1,000 visitors each fall.
“From a tourist perspective, it would be great to see the fall migration grow to be as popular as the spring migration that we have at Point Pelee National Park.”
Dennis Patrick, a member of the volunteer observatory which has been counting migrating raptors since 1973, said “it really is phenomenal” to witness.
“The last two weekends have just been absolutely excellent. People are starting to discover this spot,” Patrick said from the hawk tower, where he counted four sharp-shinned hawks.
Sunday, Sept. 23 during the hawk festival, there were 18 bald eagles seen — which would tie the fifth-highest single-day record.
About 4,400 broad-winged hawks flew over the tower Sunday — in 1984 a record 96,000 broad-winged hawks passed through in one day.
Holiday Beach is blessed by geography. Migrating birds of prey don’t want to cross a large body of water because they need a lift on thermal air currents. So the spot on Lake Erie becomes a bottleneck as migrating birds cross the narrower stretch of water to Michigan.
Observatory volunteers are at the hawk tower daily in the fall to teach visitors how to tell birds of prey apart.
Holiday Beach was designated in 2000 by Bird Studies Canada as an important bird area and was considered to be globally significant.