VENTFLASH #308

July 26, 2024

Dear friends:

It has been a while since you’ve heard from us, and much has happened in the last several months. A rundown of recent events begins with news concerning our office staff, specifically the retirements of Tour Operations Manager Greg Lopez and Assistant Manager Rene Shields, respectively. One of the hallmarks of VENT is the longevity of our staff. Greg and Rene were with us for so many years that it didn’t seem possible that they could ever retire, but their time finally arrived this spring. As the saying goes, however, where there is loss there is also opportunity, and on that front we are pleased to introduce three new faces to the VENT community: Sharon Green, Sean Bibby and Catherine Mock. This edition of VENTFLASH is dedicated in part to Greg and Rene, and of course to their successors.

VENT enjoyed another solid spring travel season, notable for the robust offering of tours we operated near and far. The highlight of the year to this point may have been our Totally Texas Solar Eclipse tour, our second-ever tour based around a total solar eclipse. For this remarkable event, we assembled a superb group of tour leaders and office staff, an astronomer, and forty-two guests in the famous Texas Hill Country west of San Antonio. The eclipse was the centerpiece of a program that included several days of field trips and evening social hours. On the day of the eclipse, our previously cloudless skies had given way to partial overcast with a hint of rain. The point of totality was to occur at approximately 1:30 p.m., and right at the most critical moment, the clouds parted, and for twenty seconds we were able to view the eclipse in full! The release of nervous energy was almost palpable. After two years of planning, we felt immense pride in knowing that what had begun as an idea converted as a hugely successful event. Executing a program like this one requires intense planning, innovation, and a willingness to try new things, the very things that VENT is known for.

VENT's Eclipse group waiting for the clouds to part, Uvalde, April 8, 2024 - Brian Gibbons

Our spring and early summer season saw us operate a range of trips across North America and to a variety of destinations in Europe, Africa, and Asia, while our latest voyage aboard the Sea Cloud offered a remarkable combination of birds, history, and culture in Spain and Portugal.

Earlier this year we announced that we were developing a brand-new website to replace our existing site. The work on this project continues, but we hope to launch in September. More updates will be provided as the summer unfolds.

As always, we thank you for choosing to travel with VENT. Your support is greatly appreciated.

IN THIS ISSUE:

FOND FAREWELLS AND NEW FACES AT VENT
REMEMBERING BRAD SCHRAM AND DR. PAUL WOODRUFF
FALL TRAVEL OPPORTUNITIES
NEXT WEBINAR—COLOMBIA: A TRILOGY OF WINTER TOURS
CLOSING THOUGHTS

FOND FAREWELLS AND NEW FACES AT VENT

This spring we bade farewell to two of VENT’s longer serving office staff, Greg Lopez and Rene Shields, both of whom recently retired.

Greg Lopez joined VENT as an Assistant Tour Operations Manager in 1990. He served VENT in that capacity before elevating to the full Tour Operations Manager position about fifteen years later. Among the forty or so tours Greg managed in his portfolio each year were many of VENT’s most important and logistically complex departures, including all of our cruises, train trips, and major anniversary celebrations. Greg had actually informed us a year ago of his intention to retire, and that important day finally arrived this year on April 30.

Greg Lopez and Rene Shields

Rene Shields joined VENT in the summer of 2000 as an Assistant Tour Operations Manager and worked in that capacity for the duration of her career at VENT. Rene’s portfolio involved work on approximately eighty tours a year. On top of that, Rene put in massive time driving some of our most important technology upgrades, including our current CRM (database) and our new website (still in development). Rene’s last day at VENT was June 21.

Both Greg and Rene were known for their reliability and commitment to their jobs. Each of these longtime employees anchored very important positions in the VENT office as the company continued its trajectory of growth. Those same attributes served VENT equally well during the harder times (9/11/2001; Great Recession 2008–2009; COVID pandemic 2020–2021) when their steady hands and cool heads were important elements of our getting through each of those crises. Together, Greg and Rene possessed a combined fifty-seven years of experience. While sorry to see them go, we wish them well in retirement.

Although we will miss these two longtime stalwarts, we welcome their successors to the VENT community.

Earlier this year, Sharon Green joined our staff as our newest Tour Operations Manager. Sharon trained with Greg and worked in that capacity until May 1, when she officially took the reins. A resident of Austin, Texas, Sharon has a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration. A few of her passions are traveling, event planning, and enjoying natural environments. Sharon has two adult children who keep her in non-stop laughter!

Soon after, we were pleased to welcome Sean Bibby as an Assistant Tour Operations Manager. Sean brings experience in customer relationships and community outreach, blended with a passion for travel and time in the natural world. Sean has lived in Austin for 14 years and is proud to raise his son as a die-hard Austin FC (soccer) fan.

In addition to Sharon and Sean, we also welcome Catherine Mock in the position of Front Office Coordinator. Catherine brings fifteen years of experience in various receptionist/administrative assistant positions. Catherine’s is the voice you hear when calling our office. With a bright and cheery personality and a desire to help, she is an excellent person for this role.

Sharon Green, Sean Bibby, Catherine Mock

REMEMBERING BRAD SCHRAM AND DR. PAUL WOODRUFF

Although we are more than halfway through the year now, we pause to reflect on the passing of two people in 2023 who led or co-led tours for VENT over many years: Bradford “Brad” Schram and Dr. Paul Woodruff.

Brad Schram (1943–2023)

Brad Schram led or co-led VENT tours on a part-time basis for approximately twenty years, starting in 1996. Brad was a lifelong resident of California and an important member of the Southern California birding community for many decades. Brad came to VENT through his close friendship with longtime VENT tour leader Kevin Zimmer.

Brad Schram

Brad was admired and respected by many. Among his birding peers he was known for his superb field skills and love of California and its birdlife. As a tour leader, he was esteemed for his competency, reliability, and ability to get along with everyone. In his personal life, he was a loyal friend and dedicated family man. In short, Brad was the consummate professional and a gentleman.

Please read Brad’s full obituary here.

Following is a remembrance of Brad and how he came to VENT, by Kevin Zimmer:  

“I met Brad shortly after moving to San Luis Obispo County, California, in September of 1985. He was the SLO County bird guru, and suggested getting together so he could introduce me to some of the better birding spots in the county. Brad quickly became my most regular local birding companion, and those first several years after our move to California were a whirlwind of shared local birding, punctuated by longer chases up and down the state for super rarities, whenever the appearance of such birds coincided with my time at home between guiding tours.

That also led to shared birding adventures much farther afield. In January of 1987, Brad joined me for a scouting trip to the Llanos region and Coastal Cordillera of Venezuela, in advance of a private tour that I was going to be guiding immediately thereafter. Our singular birding highlight of that trip, which was basically one continuous highlight reel, was finding a Scallop-breasted Antpitta, a species which, at that time, was basically known only from museum specimens, and had been seen in life by virtually no birders or ornithologists. In October of 1992, Brad joined me in Brazil for another scouting trip, this time to a barely known and recently opened lodge along the Rio Cristalino at Alta Floresta in the southern Amazon Basin, followed by a week of high adventure and hair-raising drives through the arid badlands of Bahia. Sandwiched in between those epic trips, in May of 1991, Brad joined me and my brother-in-law for several days of birding around Nome, Alaska, prior to the start of my Alaska tours. I believe that was Brad’s first trip to Alaska, and it started off with a bang, when on the very first evening, after eight hours in the field, and at nearly 11:00 p.m., we found a vagrant Whooper Swan. Brad kept marveling at the fact that we could prolong our marathon birding session for another eight hours, and it still wouldn’t be dark!

Brad was able to retire in 1995, at age 52, after a successful career at Pac-Bell. Shortly thereafter, I received a call from our then office manager at VENT. A VENT leader, who was scheduled to lead our January 1996 Antarctica tour, had suffered an injury in a fall and would be unable to lead the trip. We were suddenly faced with a fully subscribed tour that was departing in little more than a week, and it currently had no leader! Our office manager was in a panic, because Victor was out of the country and not reachable, and every one of our regular leaders, myself included, had some sort of conflict that would prevent them from taking over the trip. She called me for suggestions, and, after digesting the predicament for a moment, I said, “I might have just the person for the job, but I’ll have to check with him first.” Knowing that Brad was retired, and knowing his love of pelagic birding, I called him up, and, right off the bat, asked him if he had any special plans for the next three weeks. When he said, “None that I can think of, why?” I said, “Well, have I got a deal for you! How would you like to be paid to spend the next few weeks pointing out birds in Antarctica, South Georgia, and the Falklands?” It took Brad only a second or two to respond, “Where do I sign up?”

That led to Brad becoming a part-time VENT tour leader for the next 20 years, as well as a regular side-gig as a shipboard naturalist with Society Expeditions on a number of their cruises to Antarctica and other far-flung destinations. Brad developed his own California Specialties Tour for VENT, which he guided every year for many years, and co-led, by design, numerous other tours to Alaska, Antarctica, and the Galapagos. But for much of his association with VENT, he was known to our office staff as our “break glass in case of emergency guy”—a reliable and capable leader who could step in on short notice and substitute for a leader who was sick, injured, or otherwise unable to work, pretty much anywhere in North America. In this capacity, Brad ended up co-leading trips over the years to such diverse destinations as Alaska, Colorado, Hawaii, Arizona, Texas, New Mexico, and Florida.”

Dr. Paul Woodruff (1943–2023)

Paul Woodruff was a professor and Administrator at the University of Texas, Austin, where he taught philosophy and classics over a career that spanned fifty years. Paul was a close friend of Victor Emanuel, and it was through their friendship that Paul would join VENT as a staff member on our birding, history, and culture cruises to Greece and Turkey.

Paul Woodruff

Paul was not a birder, but rather a revered scholar and professor of ancient Greek history, philosophy, and culture. He translated works of the greatest philosophers and playwrights from the world of ancient Greece, including Plato, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, and Thucydides. Paul authored a number of books on philosophy and wrote dozens of peer-reviewed articles. Paul was known as a serious scholar and a brilliant lecturer, qualities that led to his receiving numerous awards, honors, and recognitions.

Please read Paul’s full obituary here.

Following is a remembrance of Paul, by Victor Emanuel: 

“When I was introduced to Paul and Lucia Woodruff at a dinner party here in Austin, more than twenty-five years ago, we quickly figured out we had the shared interests of classical music, nature, and the world of ancient Greece. We soon became good friends, and thereafter I arranged for the Woodruffs to join our cruise to the Lesser Antilles aboard the sailing ship Sea Cloud. It was a beautiful trip, and they loved the history, scenery, and birds.

In 2005, VENT chartered the Sea Cloud for a voyage from Athens to Istanbul. That trip marked the first occasion of a VENT-designed cruise program that gave equal emphasis to birding and history and culture. I asked Paul to serve as our resident expert and lecturer on that trip, and he would end up stealing the show. Based on the success of that trip, Paul joined our staff in the same capacity for subsequent trips to Greece and Turkey over the following sixteen years.

Paul came to Austin and the University of Texas as an assistant professor of philosophy in 1973. As his stature grew, he would serve as the director of the Plan II Honors Program among many roles at the university. Paul loved his students and they loved him. He loved Shakespeare and attended performances of his plays.

Paul and Lucia loved Maine. They continued to own property there, where in the summer they would gather with their children and grandchildren. He loved watching the loons on a lake near their house. In Austin, Paul would occasionally accompany me on birding outings to Hornsby Bend, one of our top local birding sites, to watch shorebirds. Occasionally we had great looks at Buff-breasted Sandpipers, one of the scarcer shorebirds in our area. Though not a birder, Paul loved birds and nature and kept a feeder in his yard.

I have fond memories of being with the Woodruffs on Paul’s birthday, when he read poetry aloud. One of his favorites was On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer by John Keats:

Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold,
And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;
Round many western islands have I been
Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.
Oft of one wide expanse had I been told
That deep-brow'd Homer ruled as his demesne;
Yet did I never breathe its pure serene
Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold:
Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken;
Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes
He star'd at the Pacific—and all his men
Look'd at each other with a wild surmise—
Silent, upon a peak in Darien.

Paul and Lucia Woodruff have been two of my closest friends. Paul’s passing left a big hole in my life. I miss him greatly.”

FALL TRAVEL OPPORTUNITIES

After a fine spring and first half of the summer at VENT, we now set our sights on the fall travel season. In the September–December period, VENT will operate more than forty tours to some of the most wonderful areas of the world. A number of our upcoming tours are sold out, but space is still available on an array of other departures.

Our domestic tour program is lighter in the fall, but opportunities to travel in the U.S. are available through our excellent tours to Washington State; Cape May, New Jersey; and the central Texas coast; in addition to our first-ever tour to Cape Cod, Massachusetts and Rhode Island. Those who seek an internationally themed getaway may be delighted by the diversity of tours from which to choose, including tours to Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Australia, Panama, and Madagascar.  

We hope to see you on one or more of these enticing tours this fall!

Domestic

Washington: September Migration in the Pacific Northwest, September 8–17, 2024 with Kevin Burke and a second leader to be announced; $4,995 in double occupancy from Seattle. Limit 12. 5 spaces available.

Black Skimmers, Cape May City beach - Michael O'Brien

Cape May: The Magic of Fall Migration, September 15–21, 2024 with Louise Zemaitis and Michael O’Brien; $3,995 in double occupancy from Philadelphia. Limit 12.

Cape Cod & Rhode Island, October 16–22, 2024 with Kevin Burke and Brad McKinney; $4,795 in double occupancy from Providence. Limit 12. 2 spaces available.

Rockport, Texas: A Bonanza of Wintering Birds, November 11–15, 2024 with Michael O’Brien and Louise Zemaitis; $2,295 in double occupancy from Corpus Christi. Limit 12.

International

Southern Ecuador Hummingbird & Tanager Extravaganza, August 18–29, 2024 with Paul Greenfield and Remi Grefa; $4,995 in double occupancy from Guayaquil. Limit 8. Register now and receive a $500 discount.

Southern Peru: Feathers & Traditions: An Exquisite Journey of Birds & Culture, September 2–13, 2024 with Doris Valencia and a local leader; $6,395 in double occupancy from Lima. Limit 12.

Grand Bolivia Part I: Eastern Lowlands, Beni Grasslands & Inter-Andean Valleys, September 8–22, 2024 with Andrew Whittaker and a local leader; $7,995 in double occupancy from Santa Cruz. Limit 9. 4 spaces available.

Titicaca Grebe, Bolivia - Andrew Whittaker

Grand Bolivia Part II: Foothills, Cloud Forests, Puna & the Altiplano, September 20–October 1, 2024 with Andrew Whittaker and a local leader; $6,425 in double occupancy from Cochabamba (ends in La Paz). Limit 9. 2 spaces available.

Grand Australia Part I: New South Wales & the Northern Territory, September 28–October 14, 2024 with Scott Baker and a local leader; $9,845 in double occupancy from Sydney (ends in Ayers Rock). Limit 10.

Panama: Fall at El Valle’s Canopy Lodge, October 6–13, 2024 with Erik Bruhnke and a local leader; $3,195 in double occupancy from Panama City. Limit 12.

Panama’s Darien Lowlands: Canopy Camp, October 12–20, 2024 with Barry Zimmer and a local leader; $4,495 in double occupancy from Panama City. Limit 12.

Slaty-tailed Trogon, Panama - Erik Bruhnke

Fall at Panama’s Canopy Tower, October 19–26, 2024 with Barry Zimmer and a local leader; $3,795 in double occupancy from Panama City. Limit 12. 3 spaces available.

Ecuador: Avian Jewels of the Northwest Andes, November 3–12, 2024 with Paul Greenfield and Remi Grefa; $4,695 in double occupancy from Quito. Limit 10. 5 spaces available.

Madagascar Highlights, November 6–21, 2024 with Dion Hobcroft and a local leader; $10,495 in double occupancy from Antananarivo. Limit 8. 3 spaces available.

NEXT WEBINAR—COLOMBIA: A TRILOGY OF WINTER TOURS

Our program of VENT Webinars continues in August as David Ascanio showcases a trilogy of Colombia tours that will operate in January 2025.

The world’s most avian-diverse country, Colombia offers the traveling birder almost unlimited opportunities for exploration and discovery. From the pioneering work of longtime VENT tour leader Steve Hilty, who established VENT’s modern tour program, to the expansion of the program under the charismatic David Ascanio, Colombia has been, and remains, a naturalist’s dream.

White-naped Seedeater, Inirida, Colombia - Steve Hilty

Please join David for a close look at three January tours that will operate in succession. Undiscovered Eastern Colombia is the first in the series. This tour centers on the Inírida area, a region of white-sand habitats that plays host to nearly 450 species of birds—including many endemics. The second, A Birding Adventure in the Llanos of Colombia, explores the vast grasslands and gallery forests of Hato La Aurora, a private ranch in the north of Colombia. The trilogy completes with Diverse Western Bogotá, a varied tour of the Bogotá Plateau featuring páramo, cloud forest, and tropical dry forest habitats.

Please don't miss this opportunity to learn about each of these superb tours!

The webinar will begin Thursday, August 15, 2024 at 11:00 am PDT/12:00 pm MDT/1:00 pm CDT/2:00 pm EDT. 

Register for the webinar: Colombia: A Trilogy of Winter Tours

CLOSING THOUGHTS

Soon we will begin posting our 2026 tour schedule to our website. That year will carry added significance for us as it will mark VENT’s fiftieth year in business! To commemorate this very special milestone, VENT will host a 50th Anniversary Celebration event in Beaumont, Texas, April 19–24, 2026.

As with previous major anniversary events, we will assemble a large team of VENT tour leaders, office staff, and special guests. The event will accommodate 112 participants. Among the many highlights will be four days of field trips to the top birding locations on the Upper Coast, evening social hours, and an array of attractions including keynote speakers from the world of birding.

Information about our 50th Anniversary Celebration will appear on our website by August 15, but you may reserve your space now by contacting Patrick Swaggerty by email (patrick@ventbird.com) or phone (800-328-8368 or 512-328-5221).

Please watch for a larger announcement in another few weeks.

Best wishes from the VENT team!

Victor Emanuel Nature Tours  |  2525 Wallingwood Drive, Suite 1003  |  Austin, TX 78746
Phone: 800.328.8368 / 512.328.5221  |  Email: info@ventbird.com

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