2025 Wings over Whidbey Bird Festival: A Gift to the Community

By Pam Nodus, head event organizer

After 10 months of planning, it’s hard to believe that the 2025 Wings over Whidbey Bird Festival has happened. I’ve gotten a lot of feedback feeling that it was a huge success. We heard many comments like: “This was truly phenomenal. I can’t believe it was free.”

In spite of the inclement weather, we had 345 visitors.
Twelve affiliate organizations participated, as well as four food vendors and four bird related vendors.
74 volunteers helped.
The Coupeville Lions Club and the Seattle Marathon Association loaned us tents.
Teens and adult leaders from the Coupeville Lions LEOS club helped with face painting and parking.
Central Whidbey Lions Club sold food.
The Washington Native Bee Society and Pacific Rim Institute conducted walks.

By the time the event took place, we had sponsorship donations of $6,000.

A huge thank you to those of you who attended, volunteered and sponsored the 2025 festival. We gave our community and visitors a wonderful gift.

Join us in 2026!

We’re looking for a team to plan and organize the next festival! Contact us!

Programs 2025 in review

This presentation by Dr. Mark Borden, falconer, will give a synopsis of falconry, answering the basic questions “everyone” asks, and then will give a thumbnail sketch of the raptors one can expect to see on Whidbey, focusing on the insights gained by having each species on his glove afield, and in his home, for years. Mark Borden has been a falconer since he was 12 years old. He has lived on Whidbey for over 20 years.

Bats on Whidbey

A Falconer’s Gestalt of Whidbey Island Raptors

Discovery Bay Wild Bird Rescue’s Education Raptors

As night falls, the nine species of bats on Whidbey Island fly into many niches that birds occupy by day. Bats help to maintain a healthy ecosystem as they hunt moths, beetles, mosquitoes and other insects in our night skies. Learn about these fascinating and useful mammals and how to create an attractive environment for them so that they can do their best for you. The presenter is local naturalist and bat biologist Sarah Schmidt.

Meet some of the ambassador birds from Discovery Bay Wild Bird Rescue (DBWBR) and learn more about the wild bird rescue. DBWBR receives 400-500 birds of all types each year from our community by people who find these injured and orphaned wild birds. These raptor ambassadors may have come from the wild but have been trained in captivity for the job of meeting people. Hear their stories and learn more about the issues wild birds face today. Joseph Molotsky has been with the Rescue for ten years handling and training these raptors and will be presenting them.