Registration opens for 2026 Headlands Birding Festival at Mentor’s lakefront

Mentor residents can now register for the 2026 Headlands Birding Festival, a Sept. 18–20 weekend centered at Headlands Beach State Park and other select area locations, the City of Mentor announced.

Registration opened July 1. Festival details and signups are available at headlandsbirdingfestival.com.

Along the shoreline

Headlands Beach State Park is the festival’s namesake and will host guided bird walks during the weekend.

The broader program includes a keynote presentation, birding boat and kayak trips, workshops, vendors and other activities along Ohio’s Lake Erie shoreline.

Walks and presentations

Residents choosing individual programs can sign up for guided walks at Lake Erie Bluffs, Mentor Marsh State Nature Preserve, Mentor Lagoons, Chagrin River Park, The Holden Arboretum and other nearby locations.

Afternoon presentations by experts will cover bird identification, habitat restoration and technology used in birding.

Sunday’s closing schedule includes a flight watch at Lake Erie Bluffs, bird walks at Headlands and nearby parks, bird-banding demonstrations and additional activities.

How to register

The festival schedule requires each attendee to complete a General Registration ticket before signing up for individual programs. Each person must register separately.

General Registration costs $20 per person, according to Cleveland.com, while most individual programs cost an additional $5 or $10.

Completed registrations cannot be edited, so attendees should review their program selections before submitting them.

At the center of the weekend is the familiar Headlands shoreline: the state park and connected Headlands Dunes State Nature Preserve together provide nearly one mile of publicly accessible Lake Erie beach.