Timed to hopefully coincide with big days of Broad-winged Hawk migration, the Hawk Weekend Festival activities were enhanced by epic days of raptor and songbird migrations at Duluth (photo by Josh Haas).

Every birding festival is worthy of participation, but we wanted to give you a report on an especially successful extravaganza that celebrated 3 days of exceptional bird migration, including remarkable numbers of raptors, songbirds, and others! Last weekend the Hawk Weekend Festival was a thrilling success for anyone who ventured to the lookout ridge at the Hawk Ridge Bird Observatory in Duluth, Minnesota, which overlooks the north shore of Lake Superior. As our editor always says, “Timing is everything,” and the timing for this festival was unprecedented.

With the festival running Friday through Monday, as festival participants were about to arrive Thursday, only 2 Broad-winged Hawks were observed at Hawk Ridge, signaling a low point created by strong south winds. But Friday the wind direction changed and no less than 15,657 Broad-winged Hawks passed overhead to the delight of excited birders, along with 875 Sharp-shinned Hawks, 106 American Kestrels, 89 Bald Eagles, and other raptors. That’s with festival participants witnessing a couple huge kettles of Broad-wings that numbered 800 to 1,000 hawks!

Hawk counters on hand described Friday’s flight of raptors and other birds, as “one of the best morning flights recorded at the ridge in recent years! Thousands of warblers migrated by, including 17 identified species – Yellow-rumps and American Redstarts were everywhere! Flycatchers and vireos also made a remarkable late season appearance,” counters noted. “Overall the migration was diverse and included nuthatches, woodpeckers, tanagers, pipits, thrushes, waxwings, and jays! The stars of the morning were easily the 133 Rose-breasted Grosbeaks, which are unbelievably beautiful birds that are striking in flight.” Other notable species counts included 752 Blue Jays, 429 Cedar Waxwings, 382 Yellow-rumped Warblers, 208 American Redstarts, 112 American Goldfinches, and many other species.

Saturday, only 20 Broad-wings passed by, but a season record 1,075 Sharp-shins kept festival participant in high spirits. Was the Broad-wing flight passed? Not yet; Sunday’s big flight of Broad-winged Hawks numbered 5,465 with 589 Sharp-shins, 87 kestrels, and 83 Bald Eagles. Other notable weekend counts included 2,092 Blue Jays, 313 Northern Flickers, and more than 2,000 warblers Saturday, while Sunday produced tallies of 5,792 Yellow-rumped Warblers, 1,171 Blue Jays, and a highlight of 774 Sandhill Cranes.

After the epic weekend birding festival, the hawk flights slowed again Monday, with 130 Broad-wings and 152 Sharpies sighted, but there were season high counts of American Kestrels (132) and Peregrine Falcons (8) for anyone who didn’t get enough raptor thrills over the historic weekend.

It’s worthy to note that the counters at Hawk Ridge try to identify and count every bird, which is a huge effort on days like these, but it provides a remarkable volume of information about the migration of a variety of birds that pass through the area. And it creates a great deal of inspiration for birders to visit for the ridge to experience one of these super migrations. To see daily and monthly raptor count totals, along with daily descriptions of non-raptor bird counts, see HawkCount (scroll below the initial raptor count table for the songbird data). You can also read about the Hawk Weekend Festival at Hawk Weekend Festival 2024 : Hawk Ridge Bird Observatory

In case you feel like you missed an opportunity to attend a memorable birding festival last week, never fear, all those birds are headed south, and even bigger numbers will pass by Corpus Christi, Texas – especially big numbers of Broad-winged Hawks – and the Corpus Christi HawkWatch is holding their Celebration of Flight birding festival this weekend from September 27 to 29 at Hazel Bazemore County Park. For more information, see Celebration of Flight – HawkWatch International

There are also many other raptor counting stations across North America, and you can get a daily look at count totals from each site at HawkCount and we encourage you to visit a count site near you this fall.