Events › Hawks & Birds of Prey

This program by Vic Berardi, who organizes the Hawk Watch at Illinois Beach State Park, will help you identify hawks and other birds of prey, including their behavior, movement, and other interesting facts about them.

Vic's presentation will include all the raptors regularly seen at the hawk watches in Northeastern Illinois during the fall migration period, including Illinois Beach State Park, Fort Sheridan Forest Preserve, and the Greene Valley Forest Preserve, and show comparisons amongst them. He will highlight favorable times of the fall for sightings of each species along with several of his photos describing them. He will also include charts showing trends over the sites' 24 years of data collecting and give some insight on why.

Vic Berardi is the founder of the all-volunteer Illinois Beach State Park Hawk Watch which has conducted
twenty-four complete seasons of full time hawk migration monitoring which began in the fall of the year
2000. In 2013, he and a few others conducted several spot counts at a new hawkwatch site at the Fort
Sheridan Forest Preserve on the shore of Lake Michigan in Highland Park, IL. The Fort Sheridan
Hawkwatch has now completed seven seasons of hawk watching and is now close to having full-time
coverage.
Vic is currently serving on the Board of Directors for the Hawk Migration Association of North America
(HMANA), a position he previously held several years ago. He also serves on several HMANA
Committees including being the Chair of the Winter Raptor Survey Committee. He also served for several
years as the Central Continental Flyway Editor for Hawk Migration Studies which is HMANA’s biannual
publication. In 2014 he was the recipient of HMANA’s Appreciation Award for his outstanding service to
further hawk migration studies and conservation. In 2009 he was awarded the Service to Chicago Area
Birders by the Chicago Audubon Society. And in 2007 he was awarded the Grassroots Conservation
Leadership Award for his leadership in raptor education and research.
In addition to Vic’s dedication to the hawk watches in northeastern Illinois and HMANA, he also finds time
to write articles on hawk watching, give hawk identification seminars and raptor conservation-related
talks. Vic is also an accomplished photographer and many of his photos are published in several
magazines, including several cover photos for Hawk Migration Studies and Bird Watching Magazine and
Outdoor Illinois. His book contributions include, “Stokes Field Guide to the Birds of North America” by
Donald & Lillian Stokes, “Hawks From Every Angle” and “Hawks At A Distance” by Jerry Liguori, “Birds of
Prey: Hawks, Eagles, Falcons, and Vultures of North America" by Pete Dunne with Kevin Carlson, “The
Crossley Guide: Raptors” by Richard Crossley, Jerry Liguori and Brian Sullivan and the “Pembina Valley
Raptor Field Guide.” Most recently he has contributed many photos for the new HawkWatch International,
HWI Raptor ID app co-authored by Jerry Liguori and Brian Sullivan and has made contributions to the
latest raptor book by Brian Wheeler, “Birds of Prey of the East: A Field Guide.” He also regularly donates
his photos for use in raptor conservation efforts.
Vic is also a member of the Raptor Research Foundation, HawkWatch International and several other
birding organizations including the Illinois Ornithological Society in which he served as a Board member
for 4 years and Field Trip Chair for 3 years.