Puget Sound Bird Fest

To maintain a safe environment for everyone at the Puget Sound Bird Fest, group sizes will be limited and current COVID safety recommendations will be followed which may include masking and distancing. 

The Puget Sound Bird Fest in Edmonds offers birders a wide variety of habitats: salt water, fresh water, wetlands, fields, ravines, woods, and lots of back yards! Several birders keep track of the species seen each year within the city limits. They have documented 263 species in the city. In a typical year 180-190 species are seen. Some are year-round residents and some are just passing through on migration. Some winter here and others just spend the summer. Some are one-time vagrants.

The Puget Sound Bird Fest’s offerings include a diverse array of activities in addition to numerous guided birding walks throughout the weekend:

~ Presentations from local authors, artists, scientists and naturalists
~ Community science mini-symposium featuring regional bird research
~ Educational exhibits, optics, and bird themed art for sale
~ Online Photo Contest; last chance to vote for the winner!
~ Take-home kids activities

Olympia’s own Maria Ruth will be the Keynote Speaker Saturday, September 11,  at 10:30 am.  Her topic will be “The Not-So Awkward Auks.”
The Salish Sea is home to a fascinating family of diving seabirds known as auks, or alcids. Though often described as “awkward” or “clumsy” in field guides, these web-footed birds are amazingly well adapted to life in the air, on land, and especially at sea. Maria will talk about two of her favorite auks—the shy, cryptic, secretive, tree-nesting Marbled Murrelet (the subject of her 2005 book Rare Bird) and its clownish, extroverted, burrow-nesting cousin, the Pigeon Guillemot (the subject of her next book).

Registration opens August 1.  For a full schedule of events, see www.pugetsoundbirdfest.org.