Sequim Gazette staff

“BirdFest registrations continue to pour in,” says coordinator Vanessa Fuller. But, she quickly adds that openings still are available for most field trips and activities planned for the 12th annual Olympic BirdFest, April 10-12, and for the guided birding and wildlife cruise in the San Juan Islands, April 12-14.

The festival offers nearly two dozen guided trips, workshops, classes, tours and a gala banquet with auction and raffle.

Registration is through the BirdFest website, www.olympicbirdfest.org, which gives the complete catalogue of activities and events along with availability and prices.

Raffle tickets for the 8 x 28 Vortex Viper Compact Binoculars valued at $420 are $5 each at the Dungeness River Audubon Center.

Proceeds from the raffle and BirdFest activities help support the center’s educational programs.

“Our field trips are designed to accommodate birders at all levels,” says expert birder and trip organizer Bob Boekelheide. He added that three hours of birding at John Wayne Marina, Dungeness Spit or Three Crabs may be more enjoyable and productive for a beginning birder or someone with limited stamina than some of the longer trips.

Play BirdFest-BirdQuest April 1-11, by finding the birds created by Jake Reichner’s Sequim High School ceramic’s class in Sequim’s downtown businesses, during business hours, free to the public. Find them all between April 1-11 and enter to win your choice of prizes. Drawing will be held at 12:30 p.m. Sunday, April 12, in the Dungeness River Audubon Center, 2151 W. Hendrickson Road, Sequim. BirdQuest is organized by the Sequim-Dungeness Valley Merchants Group.

New this year! For children up to 12 years of age, use your eagle eyes to spy the BirdFest-BirdQuest eagles located in Sequim’s various businesses. Find them all from April 1-11 and enter to win your choice of prizes. Drawing will be held 12:30 p.m. Sunday, April 12, at the River Center.

The Northwest Raptor & Wildlife Center will do a free live raptor presentation at 7 p.m. Friday, April 10, at the Sequim Middle School cafeteria. Arnold and Debbie Schouten are opening up their Endangered Waterfowl Breeding Sanctuary again for two private tours at 9 a.m. and 1 p.m. Saturday, April 11. The sanctuary maintains and raises 15 species of waterfowl commonly known as sea ducks, which rarely are seen in captivity. These sea ducks spend most of their lives in salt water, coming to fresh water only during the breeding season. The sea duck group includes some of the most spectacular and highly specialized of all waterfowl – harlequin and long-tailed ducks; and spectacled, king and common eiders.

Since the Olympic Peninsula Audubon Society started BirdFest in 2004, the festival has grown to include a variety of workshops and tours. A few openings remain for the Nature Photography Workshop on Saturday taught by Hal Everett, the Bird Drawing class taught by artist Robert Amaral on Saturday at the Dungeness River Audubon Center and for the Jamestown Tribal Totem Tours on Friday and Saturday. The tours, limited to 16 participants, will be led by tribal members and will include up-close views of totem poles and a visit to the House of Myths, where the totem poles are created.

The guest speaker for the 2015 banquet is Lynsy Smithson-Stanley from the National Audubon Society in New York. The topic will be “Not Your Grandfather’s or Nana’s Climate Change – A New Path Forward.”

The banquet is from 6:30-8:30 p.m. Saturday, April 11, at the Red Cedar Hall on the Jamestown S’Klallam campus. Advance reservations required.

OPAS, a partner of the Dungeness River Audubon Center, created BirdFest to help support the educational programs and operations of the center and Railroad Bridge Park.

“Because the center and park receive no tax support, funding is provided by partner members and other generous donors,” says Eftin Strong, the BirdFest’s founder and life-time member of OPAS.

“So BirdFest not only gets people outdoors for birding, it also helps with supporting the valuable River Center programs.”

To learn more about the Olympic BirdFest, log onto www.olympicbirdfest.org or call the Dungeness River Audubon Center at 681-4076.