There is still space in a couple of the Richardson Bay Audubon Center & Sanctuary Waterbird Festival sessions. Acclaimed birder Peter Pyle, pictured above, will be leading Gull & Waterbird Identification Workshop. Peter works as a biologist for The Institute for Bird Populations. Peter is also a Research Associate at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco and the Bishop Museum in Honolulu. Peter has authored or co-authored over 100 peer-reviewed papers, four books, and an on-line monograph of the birds of Hawaii. Among bird banders he is best known for his Identification Guide to North American Birds, Parts 1 and 2, which includes detailed criteria for ageing and sexing all North American birds in the hand and the field. In 2011 he had the good fortune of describing a new bird species, Bryan's Shearwater, and naming it after his grandfather.
Local birder and Marin Audubon member Len Blumin will be lead a trip Birding Las Gallinas Water Treatment Facility ponds. Len Blumin is a retired E.R. Physician, living with his wife Patti in Mill Valley, California. Len enjoys taking digital photographs of birds through his spotting scope, a technique known as "digiscoping.” He blogs regularly at lenblumin.blogspot.com.
Naturalist Daniel Edelstein will lead a trip Birding Rodeo Lagoon & Beach, Marin Headlands. Daniel is a freelance consulting biologist based in Marin County. He specializes in songbird and raptor nest search and monitoring surveys, including recent and current bird survey and bird monitoring projects in Lake County along Walker Ridge Road, in Mendocino County for the Willits Bypass Project, and ongoing Moffit’s Canada Goose nest finding. He has presented his adult birding classes, bird slide shows and birding by ear and raptor identification field training workshops in more than 20 states.
Noted bird artist Keith Hansen will be leading a trip Birding Bolinas Lagoon. He was raised in a family of artists and lovers of all things natural. He was first introduced to birds when his older brother showed him a Cedar Waxwing in the leafy woods near their home in Maryland. His Bolinas art studio is a must see for anyone visiting Marin. He will also be showcasing his artwork in the Lyford House during the duration of the festival.
By Daniela Ogden
HOTSPOT: Flyover of California's Birds and Biodiversity
California is a global biodiversity hotspots, with one of the greatest concentrations of living species on Earth.