Contributors

I'm a birder from the Chicago area with a keen interest in studying gulls; the challenge is immense but very rewarding as well. I hope to provide an emphasis on identification issues and also share stories from my travels. I consider myself a toddler on the learning curve and learning about gulls has been very humbling. I teach Math for a living and so I appreciate the use of patterns and deductive reasoning. For me, the disarray that gulls present is what makes them so interesting and fun to watch.

Greg Neise developed his interests in birds, photography and conservation as a youngster growing up in Chicago, across the street from Lincoln Park Zoo. At the age of 13, he worked alongside Dr. William S. Beecher, then Director of the Chicago Academy of Sciences and a pioneering ornithologist, and learned to photograph wildlife, an interest that developed into a career supplying images for magazines, newspapers, institutions and books, including National Geographic (print, web and television), Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun-Times, Boston Globe, Nature, Lincoln Park Zoo, Miami Zoo, Jacksonville Zoo, The Field Museum and a host of others. He has served as President of the Rainforest Conservation Fund, a volunteer organization dedicated to preserving the world’s tropical rainforests.

I am a 16 year old birder from Raleigh, NC. Ever since I can remember, I have been interested in nature, but turned into a “real” birder in the spring of 2008, after being introduced to it by a neighbor, and then reading Kingbird Highway. Since then, I have birded extensively in my home state, as well as Florida, Georgia, and New York, and hope to travel to some other ABA hotspots in the near future. I have also been on quite a few big days, lots of CBCs, and am a member of the Carolina Bird Club, American Birding Association, and the Audubon Society. I love nature photography as well, and it is a hobby that has evolved alongside my interest in birding. In addition to birding, I am an active butterflier, oder, and herper.

I'm a rabid birder from the north suburbs of Chicago. I'm pursuing a career in environmental education, and hope to trick people into paying me to do what I love.

Bo Beolens is an Englishman in his sixties (the photo lies) who has birded for more than half a century without becoming any more skilled. His enthusiasm has led him to a large (sic) web presence (www.fatbirder.com) writing articles in US and UK bird magazines, and a regular column as 'the grumpy old birder'. He is currently writing (with co-authors) his fourth work on taxonomic eponyms ('Whose Bird' 2003, 'The Eponym Dictionary of Mammals' 2008, 'The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles' 2011 he hopes). He also founded the international 'disabled birders association' (now called 'Birding For All') a decade ago. His passion is birding and he also organises and leads overseas trips for disabled birders & others. He has birded in Australasia, Asia, Europe, Africa, Central America and North America. Favourite bird - Common Swift - alleged to spend its first two years continuously on the wing.

Christian Walker is 19 and is now a freshman at the University of Dallas, majoring in biology under Dr. Marcy Brown-Marsden in order to go on to graduate school for ornithology. He began birding seven years ago under the mentorship of Bill and Judy Quick, in Austin, Texas, and since then has been all over the United States, and has visited Belize and Israel. He started the 4-H Central Texas Young Birder’s Club in 2008, and has assisted with some banding projects conducted by Dr. Brent Ortego of Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. Christian is active in several science-based birding events including several Texas Christmas Bird Counts, and the Great Texas Birding Classic - last year he was captain of the winning TOS/TAS Towhees GTBC team. He attended the ABA Young Birder’s Conference in the summer of 2009, and is a devoted eBirder. He is very interested in “local-patch” birding, (his patch is now the University of Dallas campus), and exploring and learning about birds by sketching and taking notes.

A Birder, photographer, naturalist, writer, and sometimes crazy twitcher, Chris lives entirely for birds and birding. The sport has already taken him not only across the US, but to 3 tropical countries as well in search of as many of earth's 10,000 species of birds as possible. Along with his love of birds comes a love of sharing what he knows with others. He started a birding blog in '06 and led his first field trip in '07. He now regularly leads trips with the Madison Audubon Society and occasionally with other organizations. A summer guiding in southern AZ in '09 and a month-long stint at Tandaypa Bird Lodge, Ecuador in '10 have given him opportunity to share birding experiences from deserts and mountains to Paramo and the tropics.

Dave Brown has been birding extensively for the last 12 years. A passion which started after taking an Ornithology course, as a means of impressing a bird loving ex girlfriends father, soon spiraled out of control and blossomed into a full fledged obsession. While interested in all forms of birding he can usually be found on some headland or beach chasing down rarities in his native Newfoundland. During the winter months he's the guy you see every day at Quidi Vidi Lake in St.John's, frozen to the side of a snow bank with bins and a camera in hand. A true Larophile, he's logged thousands of hours watching gulls over the last decade and now shares his knowledge with others in the form of identification articles and workshops. Over the last two years Dave has sought to make birding his profession and now works as a professional guide, offering a selection of tours and personal birding vacations in Newfoundland.

Dan and Barbara met on a birding tour to Attu Island in 1988 and have been birding neck and neck, eye to eye, hand in hand and toe to toe ever since. They are active in local, state and national birding organizations, coordinate Christmas counts and tend to vacation in remote, bird infested places. They are casual photographers who are interested in the broad spectrum of natural history. Mammals, insects, wildflowers and trees, as well as birds, all get their share of attention. They have recreated prairie and maintain butterfly gardens where they live in Rockford, IL.

Dave is a relatively new birder, having started in March of 2008. He is lucky enough to bird in Texas, where he can see birds from the east and west as well as birds from the border that are not seen in most of the U.S. Dave spends alot of the spring migration at High Island, a world renowned hot spot for warbler migration. Most of his birding is done with a camera and so he tries to get some decent pictures for his blog entries. He just got a new scope and is trying to find what works best for him in terms of birding and digiscoping. He has a series of posts that will document his birding life from the beginning in March of 2008 until now. Look in the Categories box on the right and click on New Birder and you will find a list of those posts.

Dawn Keller is the Founder and Director of Flint Creek Wildlife Rehabilitation, a not-for-profit organization with three Chicago-area locations that admit more than 2,600 birds annually. In addition to caring for injured and orphaned wild birds–everything from hummingbirds to eagles–until they can be released back to the wild, she and many dedicated Flint Creek Wildlife volunteers rescue migratory birds that collide with windows of downtown Chicago’s skyscrapers through coordinated volunteer teams that converge on downtown each pre-dawn morning during spring and fall migration. She also coordinates Flint Creek Wildlife’s education efforts that provide public outreach and education using non-releasable birds of prey and teaches care and handling of captive raptors through training and internship programs. She probably cannot identify many birds in the field since her birding perspective is usually in the hand.

As long as I can remember, my family has been feeding the backyard birds. I remember, every winter, waiting for the juncos to come, and they were probably the first native bird I learned how to ID. My interest in birds continued to grow, catalyzed by my brother getting some pet parakeets. In 7th grade, I went on my first chase, which was of the Beliot Green-breasted Mango, but have been "really" birding since around 5th grade. In the past 2 years, I've gone to 2 young birder camps (Camp Chiricahua by VENT and Camp Colorado by ABA), and have been more active and known in the young birder community. I am now in Sophmore year of highschool, and go birding every weekend, and often once or twice a week after school at my local park. I also was converted to a devoted eBirder when I went to Camp Colorado, and always have my notepad with me while I bird.

Elliot Schunke has always enjoyed the outdoors. Growing up, he and his father spent a lot of time in the woods, camped and fished. It wasn't until the 8th grade when his specific interest in birds sparked. This moment occurred in a bird unit put together by his science teacher, Mr. Richard Gibson. Casual birding not too far from home continued through high school and his time at Eastern Illinois University, where he received a Bachelors in Biological Sciences. Since college, he has traveled the globe assisting on various bird-related field studies. He's worked for Wisconsin and Alabama A&M Universities, Archbold Biological Station, Maui Forest Bird Recovery Project, Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center in Jamaica and a couple environmental consulting companies as well as volunteering for Life Net Nature in Ecuador on a bird banding project. He's always looking to travel for work and never knows where he'll end up next. His blog entries will describe the bird research he dose at various field job, interesting things he sees while birding for fun and updates on his favorite little local haunt, the Milford Water Treatment Plant.

I began my nearly life-long interest in birds at age 9, when my family took a trip to the Tropical Island nation of Trinidad. Since then, birds and wildlife have been my life's career focus. Though travels and work have taken me to over 30 countries thus far, my new position as New World Director and Head Guide for Rockjumper Tours should allow me time to expand on my personal interests in writing, as well as expand my horizons to new countries, cultures, and birds.