ELLSWORTH — Downeast Audubon has announced four middle-school student winners of summer camp scholarships for a free week at the Maine Audubon Hog Island Camp off Bremen.

Each scholarship is worth $1,150. Each winner submitted an essay about birds that was judged the best from all those submitted by students throughout Hancock County.

To be eligible for the scholarships, students from Hancock County were given the opportunity to describe in an essay their favorite bird experience. All entries were assessed anonymously by a panel of judges from the board of directors.

The winners are:

• Michael Vittum III, 13, a seventh-grader from Ellsworth Middle School, who is active in Boy Scouts, volunteers at Birdsacre and enjoys nature and all types of wildlife. He plans to study biology in college.

• Melissa Smith, 12, a seventh-grader from Dedham School who has several pets including a cat, dog and hamster. She likes to read, run cross-country and fold origami. She plays clarinet and participates in the school musical every year.

• Brooklin Eaton, 11, who attends Blue Hill Consolidated School as a sixth-grader. Her favorite subjects in school are science and art and she enjoys writing poetry. She collects bottle caps and interesting coins.

Dustin Smelley, 12, a sixth-grader from Ellsworth Middle School. He has been asked to go to the Junior National Young Leaders Conference this summer in Washington, D.C.

• Nichole Cochary of Bar Harbor was the first runner-up. Honorable mention went to Rye Murray from Southwest Harbor, Sarah Doucette from Orland, Bennie Johnson from Blue Hill, Lauren Doolittle from Blue Hill and Liam Adams from Sedgwick. Last year’s winners were Gavin Rogers and Chelsey Staples of Penobscot and Tessa-Isis-Bahoosh of Brooklin.

To read the winning essays and to find out more about Downeast Audubon, go to maineaudubon.org/downeast.