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Fifty minutes west of the store

Holiday Beach Conservation Area

One of the largest autumn raptor migrations in North America, watched from a tower you can stand on.

Raptors will not cross open water, so everything moving south down the western basin of Lake Erie funnels along the shoreline past Holiday Beach. On a good September day the counts run into the tens of thousands, and all of it happens directly overhead.

Season
Late August to late November
Peak
Mid to late September for Broad-winged Hawk; October and November for the later species.
Right now
Broad-winged Hawk kettles. This is the big numbers day.
Planning a visit to Holiday Beach?See the week-by-week timeline

Fall hawk migration at Holiday Beach, week by week

Late August to late November. Mid to late September for Broad-winged Hawk; October and November for the later species.

  1. Mid – late September

    Happening now

    Broad-winged Hawk kettles. This is the big numbers day.

    What arrives

    • Broad-winged Hawk in kettles of hundreds to thousands
    • American Kestrel and Sharp-shinned Hawk
    • Bald Eagle and Osprey
    • Blue Jay and swallow movement along the shore

    What it asks of your optics

    Birds high up, small, backlit against a bright sky and drifting fast. What ruins most people’s day here is handheld shake at high magnification.

    • Image-stabilised binoculars

      A kettle at altitude is where stabilisation pays for itself, being roughly the difference between counting specks in a cloud and identifying what’s in it.

    • A scope for the distant kettles

      Kettles form kilometres out before they stream overhead, and a scope on a tripod picks them up well before anyone else on the tower does.

  2. October – November

    Fewer birds, better birds, and a great deal colder.

    What arrives

    • Red-tailed and Red-shouldered Hawks
    • Northern Harrier and Rough-legged Hawk
    • Golden Eagle in November
    • Late falcons, Merlin and Peregrine

    What it asks of your optics

    Long waits on an exposed tower in a cold wind for a handful of very good birds. Eye relief with a hat pulled down, and a focus wheel you can turn wearing gloves, stop being small details somewhere around the first week of November.

    • Binoculars you can use in gloves

      November on that tower is properly cold. A stiff or tiny focus wheel is unusable in gloves, and taking the gloves off isn’t an option for long.

    • A tripod that handles wind

      Exposed platform, steady wind, and birds you need to hold at high magnification for minutes at a stretch.

Holiday Beach sightings, as they happen

A short email whenever something worth driving for turns up, for the rest of the season. We will not send you a catalogue or a daily digest.

One email a week in season. Unsubscribe any time.

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Holiday Beach questions we get asked

The second half of September for sheer numbers. That is when Broad-winged Hawks move through in kettles. October and November bring far fewer birds but better variety, including Golden Eagle and Rough-legged Hawk late in the autumn.
Later than you would for songbirds. Raptors need thermals to get airborne, so the flight builds through the late morning and peaks in the early afternoon. There is no reason at all to be there at dawn.
Wide-field binoculars to pick birds up, and stabilisation if you can manage it, because distant kettles at high magnification are punishing to hold steady. A scope on a tripod earns its place spotting kettles before they arrive overhead.

Other destinations near the store