During the fall and winter birding season we share the testimonials of the different user groups in Skagit whose lives intersect with the wild birds in and on the landscape. This month we are talking to Maia Tekle, a local small business owner living in La Conner, whose love for her new community (she moved to Skagit in June, 2024 from Oakland, California) compelled her to take over the volunteer organizer role for the La Conner Birding Festival, an annual education and community event drawing on the connection between Skagit’s farmland and the migratory birds that visit every winter. Maia shares her perspective as someone new to the community how Skagit is distinct for its landscape and the presence of wild birds.

I had already taken over the birding festival before I started to notice the birds! When I moved here in the summer of 2024, I visited the La Conner Chamber of Commerce to ask what I could do to get involved and start making local business connections. They immediately handed me the birding festival. It has been the single best “Yes,” I have said since moving to Skagit.

I admit I was somewhat influenced by one of my best friends for the decision to say yes to a birding event. She is a birder, as well as being one of my go-to people for big life decisions. Her passion for birding as a hobby was something I always noticed, and her encouragement that I could find a similar community and focus through this particular topic convinced me.

Soon after taking on the festival, I attended a lecture about Be Bird Wise at the La Conner Swinomish Library, and the message I heard there totally fast-tracked the foundational intent of the festival: honor the landscape and educate visitors for what that landscape supports. Be Bird Wise’s Code of Conduct is the festival guiding principle, in fact. I reiterate that code and reference Be Bird Wise as a foundational resource for both the festival and people interested in birding.

The La Conner Birding Festival has been going on mostly continuously since 2018. It was originally the Skagit Birding Festival/Birds of Winter, started by local birder Jed Holmes. Now it’s hosted by the La Conner Chamber of Commerce. After a lull during the Covid pandemic, it started up again last year as a site-based educational event with tables and an evening keynote speaker. We want to grow it to include more programming and lectures in addition to the central location at Maple Hall like last year.

The biggest learning curve in organizing this festival in Skagit is the pace of things here compared to a city; the way people connect and network is different. A contact will tell me, “Stop by my house,” in lieu of a text, for instance. This is wonderful in theory as I love in-person interactions, and the invitation to see where people live. This approach takes more time, but ultimately might lead to a deeper connection. I might stop by someone’s place several times before one day seeing them on their tractor and waving to them to have that conversation.

It’s a lesson to me in meeting people where they are, and not assuming everyone has the same intent. Organizing the festival touches so many interests, from residents, farmers, local vendors and artists, to the visitors who come to see the birds, participate in the programming, and spend money here. I have to demonstrate that we’re going to present a festival that serves and satisfies everyone. My goal is for the festival to be a place for an open dialogue about what the wild birds bring to Skagit, and emphasize how the farming landscape is why so many birds are here.

I assumed the wild birds here were universally beloved, that idea was my baseline. I’ve learned that there are an equal number of folks here who view the birds as a management issue for their livelihoods, and their voices and opinions are incredibly important.

I have never met more passionate bird lovers than in taking over the festival organizing. I’ve met people whose excitement for birding ignites a passion in me, too. It’s rare to come into a community and step into a cultural niche like this that’s so diverse with personality and knowledge. I have lived all over the country, and the connection between birds and landscape here is distinct from other regions. I last lived in California, where farmland is more industrialized. You drive for miles without seeing ecosystems overlap like you see in Skagit. In Skagit that dynamic between farming and biodiversity is so much more visible.

Here you can also know the individual farmer. You are part of farming life just driving down the road, you might have to wait for someone with equipment to make their way. Traffic in Skagit is oriented around agriculture–as you would expect–except as someone coming from a city, I hadn’t thought about this!

I’m a lifelong environmentalist and nature lover, and now a budding birder. I grew up in a small town in Massachusetts. We farmed small-scale, canned, and composted. I love soil, I love what the earth produces. My involvement in the festival organizing accelerated my understanding of the dynamics between this working landscape and the environment, and that it’s about people as much as it’s about birds.

My own most memorable interaction with birds since moving here was while swimming in Lake Sixteen in Conway, on the east side of Interstate 5. A group of us were swimming in the lake in October, and a flock of Canada geese shared the same space. There we were, three humans and 20 geese, swimming alongside each other in this quiet lake. It was a real lesson in coexisting with nature!

I can’t wait to get out into the field more to see birds! I am learning more about birds themselves by their presence, right here in La Conner where I live, and the repetition of seeing them regularly. There's a Great Blue heron I see all the time (maybe the same individual?) at the marina when I walk my dogs. I see other common birds regularly now, too. Even though they may be common, they are new to me. Being from a city, I wouldn’t have been able to identify a heron a year ago.

And I am now getting to know other birders. I’m an extrovert, and the community of people is where I lean. This involvement with the festival has been such a gift to further expand my love of community and nature.

Edited by: Bryony Angell

Bird Wise Observations: Festival Organizer Maia Tekle

Bird Wise Observations: Photographer Nancy Crowell