Old Lyme — Hartford Avenue in Sound View transformed Saturday into a daylong celebration of the arts, music, nature and the business community.

The Osprey Festival, hosted by the Lyme-Old Lyme Chamber of Commerce, featured activities from sandcastle competitions to live music performances.

Festival-goers strolled along the avenue to visit vendors selling items from artwork to old-fashioned toys, as children held balloons and ate Italian ices on the warm June day.

Under a white tent, people took cover from the sun and listened to music or lectures on art or the environment.

Braiden Sunshine of Lyme, the United States Coast Guard Dixieland Jazz Band and the Lyme-Old Lyme Middle School Jazz Catz were among the scheduled performers.

The Chamber collaborated on the event with the Connecticut Audubon Society's Osprey Nation, the Roger Tory Peterson Estuary Center, Lyme Academy College of Fine Arts of the University of New Haven and the MusicNow Foundation, according to a news release.  

Rachel Grigorian and Clayton Anderson of Vermont were visiting the festival on Saturday with family.

Anderson's children, Pan, 6, and Narumi, 3, enjoyed rides at The Carousel, which offered free rides at intervals during the day.

Grigorian, who grew up visiting her family's cottage at Old Colony Beach, said the kids loved the place, and the free carousel ride was "a bonus."

"It's fun to share with the kids the traditions I had when I was a kid," Grigorian said.   

Mercedes Buckingham of Norwich watched Saturday afternoon as her sons, 8 and 7 years old, and a family friend enjoyed their third ride of the day on The Carousel.

"The kids are having a blast," she said.

At the festival, Paul Spitzer, an osprey researcher and protégé of Roger Tory Peterson, delivered an afternoon lecture on ospreys, encouraging the audience to "think about nature all around us."

Ruth Craven of Old Saybrook and Imelda Koptonak of Old Lyme came to the festival on Saturday afternoon for Spitzer's lecture, but just missed it.

Craven said they would instead stroll down Hartford Avenue to check out the vendors, many of them local, and "to see if there's something we can't go home without."

They then planned to make their way back up to the area where vendors sold refreshments, from an array of food to lemonade. 

Lyme Academy students Bingk Houle and Aubrianna Robinson were stationed at a table at the event to sketch caricatures. They chuckled about the highlight of the day: drawing a man in a lobster costume who had posed for a portrait.

Nearby, other students showed their work, including laminated monogram letters by Martha Williams and a depiction of the Eight Mile River by S. Paul Michael.

Rochelle Tasca, a student who was demonstrating calligraphic drawings with walnut ink, said the festival was a "warm environment."  

"It gives us students a nice opportunity to demonstrate what we love and what we're passionate about," she said.

Lyme-Old Lyme Chamber of Commerce President Mark Griswold said the festival brings together art, music, nature and business.

The chamber planned activities geared toward children in the morning and toward adults in the afternoon, with events in the evening for everybody. 

Griswold said the Chamber wanted to breathe life into the area and encourage people to revisit Sound View. He pointed out that some of the vendors will now be familiar with the area and could consider the idea of opening up a business in the neighborhood.

The event also served to raise awareness of the osprey, which is a symbol of the town and the Chamber.

Osprey platforms made for the event will be put up to be used by nesting ospreys, Griswold said. 

The Connecticut Audubon Society held a booth to inform visitors about Osprey Nation, a citizen science program in which volunteers monitor osprey nests.

Frank Pappalardo of the Sound View Commission, which worked in conjunction with the Chamber, said the event was positive for both Sound View and the town as a whole and received a very positive response from residents.

Gail Fuller, president of the Sound View Beach Association, which offered a pancake breakfast and homemade desserts at the event, said everybody was working together to make the event a success.

"We want to have Sound View shining, because it is a jewel," she said.

 k.drelich@theday.com