Colonial Beach to hold virtual Osprey Festival

Colonial Beach is calling all bird lovers to come and gaze from a social distance.

The town, located on the Potomac River just 32 miles from Downtown Fredericksburg, will host a virtual Osprey Festival. The birds return every year to this community on Virginia’s Northern Neck Peninsula.

This is the second year for the festival and it’s going virtual, this year, due to the coronavirus.

A town spokeswoman tells Potomac Local News:

The Colonial Beach “Virtual” Osprey Festival offers much of what would have been offered at the live festival. There are many photos, stories, videos, and presentations on the ospreys and other birdlife characteristic of the area. New material will be coming in week by week and people can access several osprey cams through the site.

Local townspeople are urged to become “Osprey Watchers” of the osprey families nesting in and around Colonial Beach. From among these postings, a King and Queen Osprey will be chosen at the end of their season in September with a prize awarded for the observant reporters. Others further afield who feel they have something interesting to show or tell about ospreys and other birdlife are also encouraged to send in reports. Posts can be sent in directly for the website to [email protected] or posted on the Colonial Beach Osprey Festival Facebook site.

Birds are not the only subjects on display. Art, music, and local historic sites are featured including the birthplaces of three presidents born nearby–Washington, Madison and Monroe–and the ancestral home of the Lee family. The site also showcases the history and architecture of the Colonial Beach downtown and beachfront, a steamboat era resort at the dawn of the 20th century and an early casino gambling mecca mid-century.

Donations, sponsorships, advertising revenue raised through the virtual festival will be applied to revitalizing the historic downtown through preservation-based development and beautification through landscaping and tree planting to make the town an even more welcoming and enjoyable place for residents, visitors, and our feathered friends.

Last year, the festival drew about 100 people, we’re told.

Businesses in the town are currently operating under Gov. Ralph Northam’s Phase 2 coronavirus reopening plan.

• Restaurants and beverage services may operate at 50% occupancy load with at least six feet of spacing between tables.
• Farmers markets may operate as long as six feet of separation can be maintained between guests (including between tables and persons on public sidewalks).
• Non-essential retail may operate at a 50% occupancy load.