The Lehigh Gap Nature Center is celebrating autumn migration and Appalachian ecology with a Migration Fest at the Nature Center in September.

The weekend celebration, Sept. 16-18, will focus on the migration of hawks along the Kittatinny Ridge, songbird, bat and monarch butterfly migration, seasonal changes (phenology), and the ecology of the plants and animals of the Kittatinny.The weekend begins on Friday evening with a Raptor Migration and Identification Workshop to prepare participants for enjoying the raptor migration at Bake Oven Knob and nearby Hawk Mountain Sanctuary over the weekend.There will also be workshops on phenology and monarch butterfly migration and tagging, plus talks by local experts on bat migration, neotropical migrants, gardening for migrants, and Kittatinny Ridge conservation.On Saturday evening, the keynote speaker for Migration Fest will be author and birder Pete Dunne of the Cape May Bird Observatory. There will also be field trips to Bake Oven Knob and Hawk Mountain to observe the hawk migration at the peak of broad-winged hawk season, with lots of ospreys and bald eagles likely at that time as well.In addition to the talks and workshops, there will be hands on activities for families, including monarch butterfly tagging, live birds of prey, and live locally occurring amphibians and reptiles. There are also great hiking trails at Lehigh Gap Nature Center.Its trails link with the world-famous Appalachian Trail and the Delaware & Lehigh National Heritage Corridor Trail along the Lehigh River. Access to the Lehigh River also provides opportunities for paddling and angling in a fly-fishing hot spot.There is something at Lehigh Gap the whole weekend for families and adults. This event is being developed in partnership with the Lehigh Valley Greenways Conservation Landscape Initiative and funding is provided in part by Lehigh County, the Audubon TogetherGreen Fellows Program, and a grant from the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, Bureau of Recreation and Conservation, Environmental Stewardship Fund, administered by Delaware & Lehigh National Heritage Corridor, Inc.For more information on the program see

http://lgnc.org or contact the Nature Center at 610-760-8889 or

lgnc@ptd.net. Lehigh Gap Nature Center is a non-profit, member-supported environmental education center located along the Kittatinny Ridge in eastern Pennsylvania. A complete schedule of events can be printed from the web site.