SEQUIM – As people on the North Olympic Peninsula turn their eyes skyward this weekend, Jim Karr hopes they’ll also gain a fresh view of themselves.

The Olympic Peninsula Audubon Society’s annual Birdfest, he said, isn’t only a celebration of winged life.

The three-day event presents us with an opportunity to find our place in the grand living system – and, Karr hopes – feel our connections with one another.

Karr, 63, spent more than 20 years in the Earth’s most bird-rich zones: the tropics.

In Panama he studied and banded scores of species and worked with the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute.

He’s also explored Africa, India, Southeast Asia, Australia and New Guinea, lived and learned at universities in the United States’ East, West and Midwest, and for the past 15 years taught biology and environmental science at the University of Washington.

Now, a self-described “recent immigrant to Sequim,” Karr is as passionate as ever about the splendor – and fragility – of the forests, strait and streams around us.