Join me at this second of two talks hosted by the Tahoma Bird Alliance (the first on April 11). I’ll be offering a slideshow presentation about my new book, The Bird with Flaming Red Feet: Seasons with an Uncommonly Common Seabird (Mountaineers Books/Skipstone Press). My book is part natural history of the exuberantly charming Pigeon Guillemot and the successful, long-running community science program focused on these birds in the Salish Sea. This is will be a 40-minute presentation with time afterward for Q&A and books sales and signing.

The Joys of One-Bird Birding Whidbey Audubon members are no strangers to Pigeon Guillemots. Since 2003, these lively, charming seabirds have gained a wide and devoted following on the island as the focal species of the Salish Sea Guillemot Network. There are now 250 volunteer community scientists in this ever-expanding network of “guillemoteers” and Maria is one of them. Though her first encounters with the guillemots on Puget Sound were centered on data collection, Maria’s hour-long surveys led to a curiosity-fueled, multi-year exploration of the guillemots and the lives they live beyond the data sheets. Maria’s new book The Bird with the Flaming Red Feet is informed by her thirteen years among the guillemots on an inlet near her home in Olympia. Her slide presentation is a celebration of the Pigeon Guillemot, the Salish Sea Network, community science, and the joys of “one-bird birding.” Q&A, followed by book sales and signing.

Join me to welcome The Bird With the Flaming Red Feet into the book world! I’ll be sharing stories about this lively seabird, reading a few excerpts, answering all your pressing guillemot questions, and signing books. Just in time to welcome the Pigeon Guillemots back to the shores of the Salish Sea—many on the water just 20 minutes from Lake Forest Park! Fun guillemot-themed prize drawing! This event is co-sponsored by the North Cascades Institute . Tickets are free, but RSVPS encouraged. Click here for more information from Third Place Books.

The Salish Sea School will be hosting me for a Science in Action talk on the fascinating and very different nesting behavior of my two favorite alcids—the Marbled Murrelet and the Pigeon Guillemot. While these two seabirds have family traits and life histories in common, they present very different challenges for the birder, scientist, community scientist, and writer. This slide presentation includes a Q&A. This event is free! Register here. Join Maria and the Salish Sea School staff after at Greenpoint, Washington Park to participate in a community science survey of these amazing seabirds and to learn more about what the Salish Sea School is doing to protect Marbled Murrelets Sign up for that here.

“Pigeon Guillemots: Red-footed, Charming, and Well-Connected”

During their summer breeding season, Pigeon Guillemots seem so completely absorbed with each other that you’d never suspect their social circles might also include kingfisher, puffins, rhinoceros auklets, eagles, cormorants, mergansers, octopus, orcas, dozens of species of fish and invertebrates, and even sea lions. In this one-hour class, I will share personal observations, stories from fellow volunteer community scientists with the Salish Sea Guillemot Network, and documented-but-buried accounts of the guillemot’s fascinating and often unorthodox relationships with other animals in the natural world. These stories—and more!—are the subject of newest book, The Bird with Flaming Red Feet, coming from Mountaineers Books in April 2026.

Sound Waters University is an annual one-day community-centered educational event. (My class is from 10:50-11:50 a.m.). The goal of SWU is to inspire individual action by increasing awareness of our local waters, beaches, bluffs, and upland habitats to sustain a healthy Salish Sea. The event draws 350 attendees and features presentations by marine educators, scientists and naturalists from around the region. For more information and to order tickets, please click here.