Mare Island and Vallejo have long been a sought after pitstop for birds on their journey south for the winter. This year however, it’s even more coveted by those that wish to see them.

This weekend marks the first ever Winged Migration Expo on Mare Island while next weekend is the 29th annual SF Bay Flyway Festival.

In January of 2024, Myrna Hayes, the SF Bay Flyway Festival Director, decided to cancel the event after facing a lack of support, she says.

So, after a year of no birdwatching expos, this year there are two.

One, a reinvigorated and adapted Flyway Festival and the other, the new Winged Migration Expo, which boasts up-to-date technology and resources.

“As an event producer I was very excited because this gives me an opportunity to showcase what I do and how I can bring events to life,” says Jacqueline Barsotti, Event Planner for the City of Vallejo and the Winged Migration Expo.

“I wish we could have done it with the previous producer (Hayes) but we are still doing it so that’s exciting,” she says.

Barsotti says that upon learning Hayes canceled last year’s Flyway Festival back in January 2024, she got together with prominent city figures like Tom Bartee, the district director for Senator Bill Dodd and Senior District Representative Mel Orpilla to find a way for the festival to continue.

“When it was initially brought to my attention it was kind of like an all hands on deck emergency, this event just got canceled,” says Barsotti.

“A bunch of community members got together and thought, first, ask her to join us and see if we can support her to keep going. If not, and she did turn us down, then we will pick up and take over,” says Barsotti.

However, Hayes says she was never approached about continuing her Flyway Festival or joining the team for the Winged Migration Expo. When asked whether she was contacted, Hayes said “100 percent zero, no. No way in hell.”

Hayes believes that plans for the Winged Migration Expo were in the works before she canceled her 2024 event, saying that it was the reason she was unable to receive support last year like she had in the past.

But those with the Winged Migration Expo are focused on the future. “For me, it’s all about bringing the youth out,” says Barsotti.

The Winged Migration Expo is free to all and will feature both virtual and in person nature hikes, live streams of local birds and a free shuttle to and from the hikes on the island, which Barsotti says is in an effort to be inclusive and engaging.

“Why not bring the new generation and more diversity and inclusion for Vallejo so that everybody knows about it,” Barsotti said.

For Hayes, the Winged Migration Expo provided an opportunity to adapt in a tough situation.

“I’ve just chosen over a process of grief and loss and anger and confusion and distress to pivot,” she says.

Hayes says that in the past two years she has faced extreme difficulty in finding space, exhibitors and vendors that she previously didn’t have issues with and in the end decided she “can’t possibly compete with my own event,’ she said, referencing the similarities to the Winged Migration Expo.

This year’s Flyway Festival Pop-up will take place at Moschetti Artisan Coffee Roaster.

“I didn’t quite believe that moving from a headquarters at Mare Island to a coffee roasting plant could work,” Hayes said. Eventually, with support from community members, plans for this year’s Flyway Festival took off, she says.

For the Flyway Festival, Moschetti Coffee will offer “exclusively roasted coffee grown in Columbia as part of the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center’s Bird Friendly Coffee Program, which ‘Protects Migratory Birds and Supports Shade-Grown Coffee Farms,’” according to the Flyway Festival Website.

The pop-up will also feature a live raptor show and bird watching boat cruise.

Leading up to the Flyway Festival, Hayes has been hosting hikes throughout the area.

“I’m not going to say that in the wind and the cold 100 people showed up, but on the sunny days at the beginning of January, 60 people showed up to go on one of my Mare Island walking tours around the shipyard,” she said.

In the end, both Hayes and Barsotti say the focus is on the birds.

“These guys are up there in the air for hundreds of miles and so long and far and they choose this area to take a break,” says Barsotti.

“This is all about our wild lands community. It’s all about this magnificent event that takes place rain or shine throughout the millennia…We are just privileged to be in their way,” says Hayes.

Whether there are two, three or no migration festivals in Vallejo next year, the birds, from osprey to geese, will continue to stop at Mare Island on their long journey south.

WHAT: Winged Migration Expo, San Francisco Bay Flyway Festival

WHEN: Feb. 1-2, 10 a.m. — 4 p.m. and Feb. 7-9,9 a.m. — 6 p.m.

WHERE: Building 34, 1024 Nimitz Ave., Mare Island and Moschetti Artisan Coffee Roasters, 11, 6th St., Vallejo.