SEQUIM — Registration for the 2023 Olympic BirdFest — which is set for April 13-16 — is live at OlympicBirdFest.org.
The four-day festival, with most events at the Dungeness River Nature Center, 1943 W. Hendrickson Road, includes field trips with experienced birders in Sequim fields, tide flats, estuaries and wooded areas, as well as a cruise around Protection Island.
In addition to the field trips, birders may participate in presentations, workshops and a banquet with a speaker and raffle. Registrants may reserve from a lengthy list of field trip offerings and pay for their choices in advance.
On the evening of April 13, the festival will offer a meet-and-greet, a talk on owls, art and photography classes, and a bus tour of totemic art with the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe.
Saturday night’s banquet features speaker Dr. Scott Pearson, who manages an extensive set of research and monitoring projects in the science division for the state Department of Fish and Wildlife. Pearson will talk about the fate of two puffins species that nest in this area: Tufted Puffins and Rhinoceros Auklets.
The cruise around Protection Island National Wildlife Refuge is available on April 16. On Sunday afternoon, birders can add on a three-day trip to the Makah Reservation that includes admission to the Makah Museum, catered meals and a chartered bird-watching trip into the Strait of Juan de Fuca.
The festival will be preceded by a three-day cruise of the San Juan Islands April 11-13 with Puget Sound Express. Lodging will be overnight on San Juan Island.
Participants will board the boat in Sequim at John Wayne Marina.
The festival — co-sponsored by the Dungeness River Nature Center and the Olympic Peninsula Audubon Society — has been advertised nationally in birding publications, Audubon Society newsletters and extensively in online calendar listings.
Within minutes of going live on New Year’s Day, several field trips, such as the “Dawn Chorus” that begins before 7 a.m., were sold out.
To see listings or to register, go to OlympicBirdFest.org.
