Speaker Bios
Rayna Holtz has served as the Conservation Chair, Newsletter Editor, and President of the Vashon Audubon Society, and has worked on the Landmark Trees Committee. Currently, Rayna is helping with a project to replace the old Quartermaster Harbor Important Bird Area Sign with a new one looking at what has gone wrong, and how it can help the harbor recover.
A retired librarian, Rayna now volunteers for the Vashon Heritage Museum's Collections Committee, works in the garden, and walks the woods and beaches, trying to learn more about Vashon's native heritage.
Adria Magrath M.S. is the current Vice-President of the Vashon-Maury Island Audubon Society, a biology professor, naturalist, mom, and farmer. She has completed Ed Swan's Advanced Birder class series and regularly hosts Vashon-Maury Audubon's programs on Zoom.
Ed Swan is a writer, guide, and avid birder. As a child, he learned to enjoy birds from his grandmother and continued growing his passion as an adult. Ed refined his birding techniques through decades of observation, identification, and field practice. As an accomplished Master Birder, he observes and records species around the world.
Ed writes about the natural history of birds. As Editor for Washington Birds, the journal of the Washington Ornithological Society, he curates literature for the Pacific Northwest. His sentinel work, The Birds of Vashon Island: A Natural History of Habitat Transformation, documents the natural history of birds and habitat transformation over a century.
Ed leads birding tours exploring bird diversity throughout the Puget Sound area, including hot spots such as Mount Rainier, Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge and the Skagit Delta. He has led field trips for Audubon Society chapters and other conservation groups for more than twenty years. In addition, he offers on-site consultations to help residents identify birds, increase species diversity, improve enjoyment of their natural surroundings.