Puget Sound Bird Fest

Puget Sound Bird Fest in Edmonds, Washington is an annual fall celebration of birds and nature found on the beautiful shores of Puget Sound. The three-day event includes speakers, guided walks, land and water-based field trips, exhibits, and educational activities for children and adults. Plan to spend the weekend in Edmonds, birding and meeting other birders, naturalists, photographers, and people engaged in fascinating bird research projects.

The keynote speaker will be Steve Shunk, whose presentation, “How Woodpeckers Can Save the World (or at least your local forest!)” will be Friday, September 15, 7:30-9pm in the Edmonds Plaza Room, Doors will open at 7 pm. Woodpeckers represent one of the most specialized bird families in the world, and North America’s woodpeckers play a critical role in our continent’s forests and woodlands. In fact, nowhere else on Earth are woodpeckers such important contributors to forest ecology.

Steve will take you inside the woodpecker anatomy, and translate anatomical adaptation into the fascinating behaviors we love to watch among our favorite woodland carpenters. He will explain how these amazing birds can slam their heads against trees without injury; he will share the broad variability among our local woodpecker species; and, he will describe how several species can co-exist in the same stand of forest without competition. You will hear stories of fly-catching woodpeckers, ant-eating woodpeckers, and heavy-duty excavators. Steve will explain the keystone ecological roles played by our local woodpeckers, and he will send you home with a mission: Prepare to be entertained, educated, and inspired to be ambassadors for woodpecker and forest conservation.