Birding, Blues and CoastWatch

The annual Birding and Blues Festival is coming to Pacific City, April 29-May 1, and CoastWatch will be part of it. Fawn Custer, our volunteer coordinator, will speak on Sunday, May 1, at 11 a.m. on The Things We Learn from a Walk on the Beach.  Her talk, covering a wide range of the common and not so common organisms found while beachcombing, will take place at the Kiawanda Community Center (34600 Cape Kiwanda Dr. in Pacific City).

From noon to 1 p.m., Fawn will lead a beachwalk dedicated to exploring the driftline (or wrack line, as some call it).

The rest of the festival offers plenty to do, beginning with a free community open house on Friday, April 29th featuring a live seabird presentation and a children’s art activity. The weekend will include guided backroads tours, kayak trips, a “Pioneer Trail Tour” on historic roads through the Siuslaw Naitonal Forest, and birding field trips including walks focusing on seabirds, shorebirds, and owls.

Avian researcher John Marzluff is the festival’s keynote speaker.  Professor Marzluff, of the University of Washington, will discuss his most recent book, Welcome to Subirdia (2014, Yale University Press), which describes how suburban neighborhoods host a splendid array of biological diversity and suggests ways we can steward these resources to benefit birds and ourselves.  Marzluff speaks 1:30-2:45 at the Kiawanda Center.

A free Friday evening talk at the Pelican Pub & Brewery features independent wildlife biologist Deborah Jaques speaking on Pelican Travels, Tribulations and Social Networking from 6-8 p.m. The pub, known for award-winning microbrews, is just to the south of Cape Kiwanda on the Three Capes Highway.

More information can be found at www.birdingandblues.org.