Birders flock to Point Pelee National Park every May for a festival/Parks Canada

The Festival of Birds returns to Point Pelee National Park in Ontario with in-person events from April 30 to May 23.

Registration is open for daily birding hikes by calling 1-519-326-6173 or going online at FestivalOfBirds.ca. Tickets are $35 ($28 USD) for the two-hour guided hikes, which run daily at 8:30 a.m. (April 30 to May 23), 1:30 p.m. (April 30 to May 23) and 7 p.m. (May 2 to 22). There’s an extra morning hike at 7:30 a.m. on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays from May 6 to 15. 

At noon each day there’s a free “spotlight on” talk at the visitor centre, with topics ranging from birding basics and marsh restoration to birding by ear.

To earn a commemorative pin featuring a Least Bittern, take the 100 Species Challenge by counting the number of birds you see during your festival visits. Identification of species can be made visually or by ear.

Point Pelee sits at the southern tip of mainland Canada in Ontario/Parks Canada

Point Pelee, the second smallest national park, is the southernmost tip of the Canadian mainland and is warmer than the rest of the country. It sits in an ecological region called the Carolinian zone (also known as the eastern deciduous forest) and boasts five ecosystems — a Lake Erie and sand spit savannah, marsh, swamp forest, dry forest and beach.

The park is a famed migration spot for songbirds and monarch butterflies.

The spring songbird migration can start as early as February but isn't a steady flow of birds from the south. Parks Canada says migration progresses in several stages, and neotropic migrants (songbirds) usually arrive in intermittent waves, a pattern unique to eastern North America. "Each of these stages tends to be fairly fast paced, especially the songbirds, motivated by the drive to move north to breeding grounds," the agency says.

Guided birding hikes will happen in the morning, afternoon and evening, but birders can always explore alone/Parks Canada

Most of these songbirds are nocturnal migrants. When they find themselves over Lake Erie near sunrise, Parks Canada explains, they look for the nearest point of land to rest and refuel after flying up to 200 kilometres (125 miles) in a night. Since the Point Pelee peninsula extends 20 kilometres (12 miles) into Lake Erie, it's often the first point of land they see, and the Tip (the southernmost point of mainland Canada) is often buzzing with birds in the early morning.

On rare occasions, people may witness a fallout of migrants in the park. As Parks Canada explains, fallouts or groundings of songbirds occur when a warm weather front advancing from the south or southeast meets a cold weather front moving in from the north or northwest. Birds will descend when the two fronts meet at ground level, or when the birds flying on a warm front override a cold front. "Grounding of migrants, while amazing, is usually very stressful for birds, and birders need to use caution during these situations."

Point Pelee may be small but it often hosts rare species — like the Hermit Warbler, Black Swift and Cassin's Sparrow — not typically found in this part of Canada.