David Ascanio, a Venezuelan birder and naturalist, has spent the last 22 years guiding birding tours throughout his native country, Trinidad and Tobago, Suriname, Guyana, northern Peru, western Ecuador, and Panama. He is especially interested in bird vocalizations, and has a private library containing sounds of more than 70% of all the birds of Venezuela, including some which are the only ones known to science. David speaks excellent English and combines superb birding skills with an astonish...
Robert Bateman, born in Toronto, has been a keen artist and naturalist from his early days. His work is in many public and private collections, and several art museums. He was commissioned by the Governor-General of Canada to create a painting as the wedding gift for HRH The Prince Charles from the people of Canada. His work is also represented in the collection of HRH The Prince Philip, the late Princess Grace of Monaco, and Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands. He has had many one-man museum ...
David Bishop loves his vocation and cannot imagine anything better than exploring wild and beautiful places in Asia and the Pacific in the company of friends and clients. He has spent much of the past 33 years studying the birds and natural history of the Oriental region, in addition to New Guinea and the Southwest Pacific. David was once a police officer amid the streets of London's West End, but has emerged as an acknowledged authority on the birds of these exotic regions. His enthusias...
Alice Boyle began her birding career in Costa Rica while she was a professional musician in the Costa Rican National Symphony. After several years of combining music, travel, and biology in Latin America, she now devotes her energies full-time to the study of Neotropical birds. She is especially interested in migration and how birds interact with the plant communities in which they live. Alice earned her Ph.D. studying short-distance migration in fruit-eating birds in Central and South Americ...
Brad Boyle is an ecologist who has done extensive research on cloud forest ecosystems. He holds a B.Sc. in zoology from the University of British Columbia and a Ph.D. in ecology from Washington University in St. Louis, where he studied under the legendary Al Gentry, one of the world's foremost authorities on Neotropical forests. He is currently a Research Associate at the University of Arizona where he studies the effects of climate change on tropical forests. Brad also coordinates field ...
Kitty Coley is a geologist, naturalist, and avid birder who has led natural history tours for the National Geographic Society and Smithsonian Institute for over 10 years. Tour destinations have included Costa Rica, Panama, Mexico, the Galapagos, the Peruvian Amazon and Andes, Chile, Antarctica, Alaska, Newfoundland, Labrador, and Iceland, as well as the western United States and Canada. Other nature travels have taken her to East Africa, Australia, Belize, Honduras, Ecuador, and Bolivia. Her ...
Cal Cuthbert was born in Portage la Prairie, Manitoba and raised on the family farm beside Lake Manitoba's renowned Delta Marsh. He became interested in natural history and especially birds at an early age. After graduating from high school in Portage la Prairie he attended Kelsey Institute of Applied Arts and Sciences in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan taking Renewable Resources Technology. Following graduation in 1975 he was contracted by both the Manitoba Museum and Manitoba Conservation. Duri...
Rob Day became interested in birds and natural history at an early age. His fascination for birds started in Norway with the chance appearance of an elusive and striking pair of Eurasian Black Woodpeckers on a woodlot near home - a vivid childhood memory to this day. Birding in earnest started at age 10 in the then widespread suburban woods of Alexandria, Virginia, still rich in Neotropical migrants in spring and irruptive northern species in winter. Rob earned a degree in zoology at the Univ...
Pete Dunne is a birder/writer, founder of the World Series of Birding, Director of Natural History Information for the New Jersey Audubon Society, and Director of the Cape May Bird Observatory. An experienced tour leader, he is well-known for his columns and contributions to publications such as American Birds, Birding, Living Bird, Wildlife Conservation, and WildBird. He is also the author of numerous books, including Hawk-watch, A Guide for Beginners; Hawks in Flight: A Guide to Identificat...
Kim Eckert, with over 40 years of birding experience throughout the U.S. and Canada, has now been guiding birders or teaching bird identification classes for more than 25 of those years. Since the 1980s, he has annually led VENT tours to Newfoundland, Churchill, various locations in the Great Lakes and Great Plains, and to Texas—a favorite and frequent winter destination. He has authored four editions of A Birder’s Guide to Minnesota, and has written numerous articles, notes, and ...
Victor Emanuel started birding in Texas 60 years ago at the age of eight. His travels have taken him to all the continents, with his areas of concentration being Texas, Arizona, Mexico, Panama, and Peru. He is the founder and compiler for 50 years of the record-breaking Freeport Christmas Bird Count, and served a term as president of the Texas Ornithological Society. Birds and natural history have been a major focus throughout his life. He derives great pleasure from seeing and hearing birds,...
Andrew Farnsworth developed a keen interest in birds at a young age. By age five he was birding around his home in Rye, New York. As his passion for birds grew, Andrew developed a particular interest in bird migration, fostered by many autumn days at local hawk watch sites. By age ten Andrew was regularly leading bird walks at Westchester County parks, especially at Marshlands Conservancy in Rye. In May 1990 Andrew captained the first youth birding team in the 24-hour World Series of Birding ...
John W. Fitzpatrick is a native of St. Paul, Minnesota, graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University in 1974, and received his Ph.D. from Princeton University in 1978. Since 1995 he has been Director of the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology and professor in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Cornell University. Previously (1988-1995), he was Executive Director of Archbold Biological Station, a private ecological research foundation in central Florida. From 1978 to 1989 he was Curator of...
Bob Fleming is one of the foremost experts on Nepal and India. He has spent most of his life in these countries studying birds and leading tours, treks, and study groups, and working in conservation. He operates his own company, Nature Himalayas. He and his father co-authored The Birds of Nepal. Bob is fluent in Nepalese, Hindi, and Urdu. He has a thorough knowledge of the fauna, flora, cultural mosaic, and human history of this fascinating region. He is skilled at handling logistics and imme...
Robert Gallardo grew up in California, and from an early age he loved nature. He started collecting butterflies at age 11 and has continued that passion ever since. He began birdwatching while attending Humboldt State University and, after graduating, went to Honduras as a Peace Corps Volunteer. During his service, he was taken in by the splendor of Neotropical birds. During the last 11 years he has seen 85% of Honduras' species, and has recorded 11 new ones. He is a contributor to North ...
Brian Gibbons was born and raised in Dallas, Texas. He took an interest in all things wild at a young age, but has specialized in birds since age 10. Brian graduated from Stephen F. Austin State University in east Texas with a B.S. in biology. Since that time he has worked on a variety of field ornithology research projects, from the Bering Sea and the midnight sun of the North Slope of Alaska to the Dominican Republic. From 1998 to 2000 he was an observer for the Migration Over the Gulf Proj...
Héctor Gómez de Silva began birding at age eight in New York City. He published his first article about birds at age 15 while in Kenya, where he lived for six years. Since his return to his native Mexico in 1985, Héctor has acquired one of the highest Mexico bird lists at over 950 species, and since 1993 he has led numerous tours in Mexico, Costa Rica, Belize, Panama, Ecuador, Peru, Kenya, Uganda, Papua New Guinea, and New Caledonia. Héctor has a Ph.D. in ecology f...
Paul Greenfield grew up near New York City and became interested in birds as a child. He received his B.F.A. from Temple University where he was an art major at the Tyler School of Art. Since 1972, he has lived in Ecuador where his fascination for birds and art has culminated with the completion of 20 years of work illustrating the book he co-authored with Robert Ridgely, The Birds of Ecuador. Paul is very involved in saving Ecuador's avian diversity and important habitats through his inv...
John Harrison is a travel writer and environmentalist, and a native of Liverpool, England. He took First Class Honors in geography at Cambridge University and a Masters Degree in planning at Liverpool University. For 20 years he worked for the UK government in various local and national capacities on planning and environment matters, and wrote fiction and articles. John's short stories have been broadcast on the BBC and collected in book form. His latest travel book, Where the Earth Ends,...
Brandon Hay has served as research assistant to Robert and Ann Sutton since 1996. Together they are conducting research on migrant land birds in Jamaican mangrove forests. Brandon is also the Scientific Officer for the Caribbean Coastal Area Management Foundation, an organization dedicated to the protection and sustainable development of Jamaican natural resources. At the University of the West Indies (UWI), where he earned a B.S. degree in zoology in 1995 and currently attends graduate schoo...
