Whether you’re a birder or not, you’ll be charmed by a lively and charismatic Pigeon Guillemot. These Pacific coast seabirds are common, easy to spot, and fun to watch close-up from shore, though they are often overlooked by birders seeking more elusive and rarer life-list birds (such as their more famous cousins, the puffins). Pigeon Guillemots have unique and fascinating stories to tell about being a seabird and about the workings of our shared environment. And, lucky for us, they tell them loud and clear. Since 2013, Maria has been watching and listening to the guillemots nesting on Puget Sound near Olympia as a volunteer community scientist with the Salish Sea Guillemot Network.  Q&A plus book sales and signing.

Join author Maria Mudd Ruth as she shares what she’s learned about the guillemots, about “one-bird birding,” and the community of “guillemoteers” devoted to this marvelous seabird.

Join me in a lively conversation with fellow Pacific Northwest “bird author” Marina Richie. Marina is an award-winning nature writer living in Bend, Oregon. Her new book, Feathered Forest: Aloft with Birds in Ancient Trees will be hot off the press (and includes a chapter on the Marbled Murrelet). Her previous book, Halcyon Journey: In Search of the Belted Kingfisher, received the 2024 John Burroughs Medal for Distinguished Nature Writing. We’ll explore the common themes in her books and my books, Rare Bird: Pursuing the Mystery of the Marbled Murrelet and my latest The Bird With Flaming Red Feet.