Click on a staff member name in order
to obtain more information.
Steve
Kress
Terry
Mingle
Sandy
Podulka
SFO
Field Trip Leaders (click to jump
to individual listings)
Several other Lab staff (as well as
various field trip
leaders) also devote guidance, support, and time to Spring
Field Ornithology
Class. Cornell staff members include Rick Bonney, Director of Program
Development and Evaluation; Dr. Kimberly Bostwick, Curator
of Ornithology
& Mammalogy at the Cornell
Vertebrate Collections; Dr. John Fitzpatrick, Director
of the Lab of Ornithology; Tina Phillips, Project
Leader of The
Birdhouse Network; Ron Rohrbaugh, Director of the
Ivory-billed Woodpecker
Research Project; Dr. Ken Rosenberg, Director of Conservation
Science; Chris Wood, Project Leader of eBird.org;
Jacie Spoon, Librarian at the Lab's Adelson
Library; and Dr. David
Winkler, Professor
in the Department of
Ecology &
Evolutionary Biology at Cornell.
To contact a member of the SFO staff, please send an
email message to sfoclass@cornell.edu
or call 607-254-2452.
 |
Dr.
Stephen W. Kress, Audubon
Course Instructor
|
Stephen W. Kress is Vice
President for Bird Conservation for the National
Audubon Society and Manager of the Society's Maine
Coast Seabird Sanctuaries. He is a Visiting Fellow at
the Cornell
Lab of Ornithology. He is also the author of Chapter 2
of the Lab's
Home Study Course in
Bird Biology.
As director of Audubon's
Seabird Restoration Program, Steve advises and manages
the development
of techniques for re-establishing various Maine seabird
colonies, such
as Atlantic Puffins, Leach's Storm-Petrel, and Arctic,
Common, and Roseate
Terns. In the Pacific region, he has studied the role of
vocalizations
in attracting endangered Dark-rumped Petrels to artificial burrows in
the Galápagos Islands, and Short-tailed Albatross to decoys on
Midway Island. He is also the author of many
popular birding books, including The Audubon Guide
to Attracting
Birds, The National Audubon Society's Birder's Handbook,
The Bird Garden,
Project Puffin: How We Brought Puffins Back to Egg Rock,
Saving Birds,
Golden Guide to Bird Life, and others. He also has
authored numerous
scientific papers on seabird biology and conservation.
During most of the year Steve lives on 33 acres of woods and meadows
near Ithaca, New York with his wife Elissa Wolfson, where he manages
his land for songbirds. He spends summers on the Maine
coast, continuing
his lifelong interest in restoring nesting seabird colonies.
Top
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Terry
Mingle
Course Coordinator |
Terry is in charge of day-to-day course operations
such as processing enrollments and other requests,
assembling materials
for lectures and field trips, planning special outings, and
overseeing
web development. Terry also assists with course quality by
keeping track
of comments and suggestions from previous student surveys.
She is also
the Course Coordinator for the Lab's Home
Study Course in Bird Biology. In addition, Terry works
part-time as Assistant to the Director (Steve Kress) for the National
Audubon Society's Seabird
Restoration Program/Project
Puffin, as a part-time DJ/board op for a cluster
of local radio stations, and has performed in many local musical groups. Terry
obtained a B.A. in Music Merchandising (Music/Business/Marketing)
from
Mansfield
University, Pennsylvania.
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Sandy
Podulka
Field Trip Coordinator and Lab Education
Associate |
Sandy coordinates the field trips sections
of the course.
She chooses field trip leaders and organizes leaders and participants
into various groups. She received a B.S. in Wildlife
Biology from Cornell
University and an M.S. in Zoology (Animal Behavior) from
the University
of Maryland, where she studied the function of song
repertoires in Song
Sparrows. Sandy is also one of the editors of the Lab's Home
Study Course in Bird Biology.
Top
SFO
FIELD TRIP LEADERS
Spring Field Ornithology's field trip leaders vary from year to year,
but each and every one of them plays an important role in the success
of the course's field trips section. They are chosen because they are
among the most knowledgeable, experienced birders in the Cayuga Lake
Basin. Here are a few names of present and former SFO field
trip leaders:
 |
Mike
Andersen |
Michael Andersen, 20, is a junior in
Cornell University's
Department of Natural
Resources.
He started watching birds on Cape Cod, Massachusetts at the
age of twelve.
His passion and excitement for birding is as varied as the
birds themselves.
He has always found enjoyment in photography, traveling, and studies
of bird identification. More recent endeavors have seen him dabbling
in butterfly and dragonfly watching. As always, Michael
loves to share
his enthusiasm for birds and nature with others and is
excited to come
back for his second season as a SFO field trip leader.
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Bill Baker |
Bill Baker is an enthusiastic Cayuga Lake Basin birder. He has taken SFO in the past, and shortly after obtaining course alumni status, was asked to join the staff. Nine out of ten students agree - Bill is a top-notch staff member!
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Jaiganesh
Balakrishnan |
Jai is an avid birder and spends most of
his spare time
watching birds. In the Summer of 2001, he spent a few weeks
on an island
off the coast of Maine, working with Steve Kress as a research intern
for the Seabird Restoration
Program with the National Audubon
Society. In the year 2001 he was the winner of the McIlroy
(birding competition) Award, held in Ithaca, NY.
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Gladys
Birdsall |
Gladys was introduced to birding while in
college. She
loved what she was seeing, and found it was a wonderful way to relax.
Gladys has taken three of the Lab's
courses, and shortly after taking Spring Field Ornithology, she
joined the Cayuga
Bird Club. She enjoys participating in the local bird
counts, such
as the Audubon
Christmas Count; the Ithaca June Count; and the Great
Backyard Bird Count. Gladys says "I love traveling
and birding
in new areas and habitats. Learning birds by sight and sound really
opens up the world in ways I hadn't realized before I avidly birded.
And, there is so much other wildlife that you encounter
while birding."
Gladys is currently participating in the second Breeding
Bird Atlas, a project of the Federation
of NYS Bird Clubs and the NYS
DEC. By day she works at Cornell's Dairy
Cattle Research Facility. She enjoys leading trips, because she
knows how thrilling it can be to see a new birds for the
first time.
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Mark
Chao |
Mark Chao has been one of Ithaca's more active birders
since moving here in 2001. Though he birds everywhere, Mark has
a special fondness for Sapsucker
Woods, where he has seen more than
170 species. Past SFO participants have widely noted Mark's enthusiasm
and his uncanny knack for remembering people's names. Mark's profession
is promoting energy efficiency; he serves as the senior staffer
for the Institute for Market Transformation,
a nonprofit environmental organization that he helped to found in
1996. He and his wife Miyoko Chu (Science Editor at the Lab of Ornithology)
have two young children.
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Benjamin
Clock |
Ben is employed with
the Cornell
Lab of Ornithology's Macaulay
Library Visual Media Collections as a Video Archivist,
editing and
archiving video footage of birds. He began birding at the
age of twelve,
in the foothills of the Berkshires in northwestern Connecticut. He is
an active birder in the Cayuga Lake Basin, and will be returning to
SFO this year as field trip leader.
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Laura Erickson |
Laura Erickson is the Science Editor at the Lab. She’s
been an avid birder since she used two field guides and a recording
to identify her first Black-capped Chickadee on March 2nd, 1975.
She’s birded over much of the United States and also in Costa Rica,
Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico, and Trinidad and Tobago, but spring
migration is still her favorite birding experience of each year.
She writes regularly for Birder’s World and is author of 101
Ways to Help Birds, For
the Birds: An Uncommon Guide, and Sharing
the Wonder of Birds with Kids. She once was a winner in the American
Ornithologists' Union's bird-calling contest in the repertoire category
for her owl calls.
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Bob
Fogg |
Bob Fogg is a local birder who volunteered his time
in order to lead some field trips for the 2002 Spring Field
Ornithology
Course.
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Jeff
Gerbracht |
Jeff originally hails from northern Indiana where he
became interested in
birds and birding at the age of 9. He received a B.S. in
Wildlife Management
from Purdue University and has spent most of his time since working
in the
computer industry and watching birds. In early 2001, he and
his family
moved
from the Texas heat to Ithaca where he is a programmer with
the Information
Science group at the Lab
of Ornithology.
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Dan
Graybeal |
Dan is a Research Climatologist at Cornell's
Northeast Regional Climate Center with an avocation in
birding that
spans nearly 15 years. As an undergraduate he assisted a professor in
field study of vireos and has participated in Citizen
Science programs of the Cornell
Laboratory of Ornithology. He has led several bird
walks in various
venues. From having grown up in the Southern
Appalachian Mountains, his favorite group of birds is
the wood warblers.
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John
Greenly |
Dr. John Greenly is a physicist and
musician at Cornell
University. He has loved birding for more than 30 years, across
North America, in Europe, Central America and Asia. He has
been leading
SFO field trips for more than 10 years, and looks forward
to every new
SFO year as a wonderful springtime ritual, seeing again the
tremendous
rivers of birds flowing back into our part of the world for another
breeding season. He also treasures the pleasure of helping
to introduce
new people to the amazing life of birds.
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Scott
Haber |
Scott Haber is a student at Cornell
University, majoring in Natural
Resources with a concentration in Applied
Ecology, and is also Vice President of the Cornell
Student Birding Club. He has been an avid birder for
almost 10 years,
and has particularly enjoyed leading field trips locally for both
SFO and the Cayuga
Bird Club, as well as participating in Ithaca birding traditions
such at the David
Cup. Scott also volunteers as a curatorial associate at
the Cornell
Museum of Vertebrates, which has led to a broad interest in birds
of the new world tropics. He has spent a good deal of time
birding all
over the United States, as well as in Argentina, Costa Rica, Ecuador,
and England.
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Stefan
Hames |
Stefan Hames is a Research
Associate in the Conservation
Science department at the Lab
of Ornithology, where
he studies the effects of habitat loss and fragmentation, as well
as the effects of pollution, on forest birds. Stefan got his start
in ornithology as a volunteer hawk counter, trapper, and bander
at the Golden Gate
Raptor Observatory for
six migration seasons and studied forest-nesting hawks in Tompkins
County as a part of his doctoral dissertation. He is interested
in ALL birds, but really likes hawks.
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Meena
Haribal |
Meena, a former officer for the Cayuga
Bird Club, is a Research Associate within the Bird
Population Studies group at the Cornell
Lab of Ornithology. Meena is an excellent birder. In addition to
her birding expertise, she also enjoys sharing her
knowledge about other
subjects (such as butterflies and astronomy) with the
Spring Field Ornithology
field trip participants.
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Wes
Hochachka |
Wes is a Research Associate and Data Analyst with the
Lab's Bird
Population Studies program. He has co-authored many research
articles that were featured in several scientific publications.
Despite his busy writing schedule, he sometimes has time to
lead a trip
or two for SFO.
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Pete
Hosner |
Pete is a senior undergraduate in the Natural
Resources department at Cornell. He has been birding since he was
in middle school, and 2003 is his second year as a SFO trip leader.
Pete has been involved with several ornithology projects as
an undergrad,
including Tree Swallow biology in Ithaca with Dr. David Winkler, and
Snow Goose habitat degradation in the Canadian Arctic. His academic
interests include neotropical ornithology, conservation,
and movements
of seabirds. Pete is planning to pursue a Ph.D and become a
professor.
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Steve
Kress |
In addition to leading
field trips, Steve is also the Course Instructor for Spring
Field Ornithology.
To read more about him, just click HERE.
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Lynn
Leopold |
Lynn
has
been birding since her early 30ssome 30 years, though she says
that she often still feels like a beginner around the likes
of the Cornell
"Sapsuckers"
birding team! She says "It's fun going out with new-to-birding
folks, because it helps me remember the excitement I felt when first
begin spotting and identifying species on my own. That first loon or
merganser or Ferruginous Hawk was a great experience. Birding keeps
me alert to what's happening around me. It's shocking to
see how poorly
connected most people are to their natural worldhow much they
miss. As long as my eyesight and hearing are still pretty sharp, I'll
always be happy to lead some field trips for
SFO!"
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Jay
McGowan |
Jay McGowan has been an active birder in our area
for some time. He is a past recipient of the Lillian
Stoner Award (which
he won in 2004, in honor of his leadership among bird enthusiasts
and his accomplishments as a birder and digiscoping pioneer) and
along with his father Kevin, was previously a member of the Digiscoping
Hawks, a fledgling World Series
of Birding team that came in 7th place in 2006 (their first year)
for digitally photographing the highest number of species (124 in
24 hours) through a spotting scope. For 2007, Jay opted to join the
Lab's student birding team, The
Redheads.
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Kevin
McGowan |
Kevin is a co-editor of the 2nd New York
State Breeding
Bird Atlas, based at the Cornell
Lab of Ornithology. He was a creator of the Lab's All
About Birds web site, and the author of the Online
Bird Guide. You can read all about his ornithological research by
visiting his web site at: http://www.birds.cornell.edu/crows.
Kevin has been interested in birding since he was a child.
He has traveled
throughout North America, as well as to Europe, Central
America, South
America, and Africa, watching and studying birds. He has led birding
field trips for groups of all skill levels in Ohio, New
York, New Jersey,
Florida, Hawaii, Costa Rica, and Peru. He is a past president of the
Cayuga Bird
Club,
a past president and former webmaster for the New
York State Ornithological Association, and a former member of the
New York State
Avian Records Committee (NYSARC). Kevin was formerly a member
of the Cornell Lab
of Ornithology's
birding team, The Sapsuckers, but is now a member of the Digiscoping Hawks, who compete in the World Series
of Birding in New Jersey each May.
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Bob
McGuire |
Bob McGuire is an avid birder and longtime
SFO student.
After years of Bob participating in the SFO field trips as
an advanced-level
birder, we finally persuaded him to lead a few field trips
in 2005.
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Harold
Mills |
Harold is a
computer programmer
in the Bioacoustics Research
Program at the Cornell Lab
of Ornithology. Since joining the Lab in 1994, he has developed
a strong interest in birds, both recreational and
scientific. He enjoys
sharing this interest with others, and especially beginning
birders.
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Ann Mitchell |
Ann signed up for the Lab's Spring
Field Ornithology course
in 1998 and immediately became hooked on birds. After taking the
SFO field trip sections for a couple years, she joined the Cayuga
Bird Club where she is an active member. Ann has been a volunteer
for Project Puffin and the Breeding
Bird Atlas. She starts each year
by participating in the Christmas
Bird Count. Most weekends she can
be found somewhere around the Cayuga
Lake Basin with her binoculars
in hand. Each fall, time permitting, Ann enjoys visiting the Cape
May, NJ area.
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Jason
Mobley |
Jason has worked in the natural history museum at
the
University of Kansas,
studied the behavior
of loons in Michigan's
Upper Peninsula,
and worked with a diversity of bird species in Panama,
Colombia, Venezuela,
and Brazil. He came to the Lab
of Ornithology from the University
of California, Berkeley, where he earned his Ph.D. studying the
evolutionary history of tyrant flycatchers. Jason was previously
employed with the
Lab as a Home
Study Course Instructor and Research Associate. He also served
as Interim Director for the
Lab's Education Program. In addition,
he leads field trips for SFO. His expertise and enthusiasm for sharing
knowledge about birds make him a perfect fit as a field trip leader
for any student
wanting to know more about birds.
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Mike
Morgan |
Mike is a Wildlife Ecologist who is the
leader for Audubon's
grassland bird project. He has an office at the Lab
of Ornithology. Mike earned his Bachelor's degree in
Fisheries and
Wildlife from Utah State University in Logan, UT, and then attended
SUNY Brockport while earning his Master's degree.
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Tom
Nix |
Tom has
led several birding trips for Spring Field Ornithology over the past
few years.
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Dave
Nutter |
In a Lorenzian ethology
experiment gone awry, Dave Nutter imprinted on birds as a child.
For years he has led trips for this course as part of his ongoing
rehabilitation into human society. Growing up in suburban Maryland,
he attributed his sanity to the amount of time spent in Rock
Creek Park a few blocks from home. Dave began birding by taking
a course for kids (that was very similar to Spring Field Ornithology)
through the Smithsonian
Associates in Washington, DC. This was back
when Peterson
Guides had black-and-white plates interspersed among
text. The course was run by John Trott, an educator who believed
that kids learn best from their peers. Dave was next a student and
teacher at the George Whittel Field Ecology Center of the Audubon
Naturalist Society of the Central Atlantic States under one
of Trott's disciples, Holly Wagner, with whom he later helped teach
the same Smithsonian Associates course. For Dave, this course is
not simply a way to learn about birds, it is a glimpse at the incredible
variety of life with which we share this planet. Indeed, finding
the birds again every spring is reassurance that we do still share
the planet.
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Bill
Ostrander |
Bill Ostrander is vice-president of the Chemung
Valley Audubon Society, the Finger Lakes Region editor
for The
Kingbird (journal of the Federation
of New York State Bird Clubs), and a FNYSBC board
member. Bill received
a B.S. in Wildlife Science from Cornell
University, worked for 14 years as a naturalist at Tanglewood
Community Nature Center in Elmira, and is currently a
GIS Technician
for Weiler Mapping, Inc.
Bill has 37 years of birding experience, primarily in the
Finger Lakes
Region.
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Mike
Pitzrick |
Mike is a notable local birder who works at
the Lab
of Ornithology. He has led several field trips for Spring Field
Ornithology.
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Sandy
Podulka |
In
addition to being a field trip leader, Sandy is also a Spring Field
Ornithology course (and Home
Study Course in Bird Biology) staff member - to read more about
her, just click HERE.
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Alan
Poole |
Alan is a
Research Associate
at the Lab of Ornithology,
where he edits the Birds
of North America (BNA), an 18 volume series documenting the
life histories of our continent's breeding birds. Before
BNA, Alan worked
on Atlantic coastal birds, particularly terns and Ospreys, and wrote
a life history of Ospreys for Cambridge
University Press. His interests lie in life history
aspects of birds,
and he likes to encourage students to think about where a particular
species has been, where it might be going to, as well as
what it eats,
where it nests, and how it raises its young. Alan signed on
as a Field
Trip Leader for SFO in 2004.
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Mike
Powers |
Mike works in the Conservation Science department at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology on projects using acoustic monitoring, including searching for the Ivory-billed Woodpecker and studying flight calls given by nocturnal migrants. He has enjoyed studying birds in many different areas and habitats over the years, but his current passion is birding closer to home with his daughter, Reina (who, like all three-year olds, is a budding naturalist).
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Bard
Prentiss |
Bard's
professional career
was in visual arts education, however he has watched, drawn, studied
and otherwise enjoyed the natural world as long as he can remember.
As an active member (and club president for 2 terms) of the
Cayuga
Bird Club since 1991, Bard has regularly lead club field trips,
initiated the construction and installation of the Osprey
nest platform
at Dryden Lake, compiled and presented the "Cayuga
Birdline"
for 2-3 years, and has also coordinated the Dryden portion
of the CBC
Christmas bird counts and June bird counts. During the spring in
1998 and 1999, he scouted portions of New Jersey for the
(Cornell) "Sapsuckers"
birding team. Bard is also a Regional Coordinator for Region 3 of the
2000 NYS Breeding
Bird Atlas Project, and serves on the Atlas Steering Committee,
chairing its Illustration sub-committee.
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Ron
Rohrbaugh |
Ron is the Director of the Ivory-billed
Woodpecker Research Project at the Lab
of Ornithology. Ron holds B.S. and M.S. degrees in
Wildlife Biology
from Penn State University, and much of his research has been focused
on the breeding biology of American Kestrels, grassland ecology, and
using citizen science to study and monitor bird
populations. In addition,
Ron is also one of the main editors of the Lab's Home
Study Course in Bird Biology. In his "spare
time" he sometimes
leads field trips for Spring Field Ornithology.
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Ken
Rosenberg |
Ken is the Director of Conservation
Science at the Lab of Ornithology,
where he oversees several Citizen
Science projects focused on bird conservation issues, as well as
the search for the Ivory-billed Woodpecker. Ken is an active leader
in Partners in Flight and other national and international
bird-conservation
initiatives. In addition to being an excellent field trip leader (and
a member of the Cornell Lab's famous SAPSUCKERS
birding team), Ken has also been a longtime guest speaker for Spring
Field Ornithology's annual songbird conservation lecture.
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Dave
Russell |
Dave has been birdwatching for
approx. 23 years. During that time he has traveled to every county of
New York State looking at birds, and boasts a New York list of over
300 species. Currently he is the Statistician for the Chemung
Valley Audubon Society, and keeps records of all bird sightings
in the Chemung Valley, as well as organizes all field
trips, bird counts,
and other special events. Dave also maintains the club's web site and
listserv. In his "spare" time, he is also a
Region 3 Co-Coordinator
of the current NY
Breeding Bird Atlas Project. Duties include assigning blocks to
volunteers, compiling data, editing reports, and recruiting
more volunteers.
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Marty Schlabach |
Marty Schlabach isn't "just" a former Director of the Cayuga Bird Club, nor is he "just" a 2007 student of Spring Field Ornithology lectures or "just" a great lecturer/librarian at Cornell University, he's also a great SFO field trip leader!
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Laura
Stenzler |
Laura's not
only the proud
owner of a yard that is a fantastic habitat for Barred Owls, she is
also a great field trip leader for Spring Field Ornithology. To find
out more about Laura, visit her Evoluntionary
Biology Program info page.
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Brian
Sullivan |
Brian Sullivan was formerly the project leader for eBird,
an online database developed by the Lab
of Ornithology and the National
Audubon Society. eBird is very
popular for keeping track of bird sightings, and SFO now utilizes
the database to archive all of the field trip checklists
submitted by each
year's field trip leaders. Brian encourages EVERYONE to use
eBird,
so that your sightings also help us to keep track of all
the birds!
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Ben
Taft |
An avid birder in the
Cayuga Lake Basin area for some time now, Ben Taft has also led field
trips for Spring Field Ornithology on occasion.
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Chris Tessaglia-Hymes |
Chris is a
favorite among
field trip leaders and has been leading trips for some time. He took
some time off in 2002 in order to spend some time with his daughter
Aleta and his wife (The Lab's Graphic Designer) Diane, but
we are hoping
he will return to lead additional trips in future years. Chris also
works at the Lab of
Ornithology,
in the Bioacoustics Research
Program.
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Bruce
Tracey |
Bruce has been
an SFO field
trip leader since 1994. Although his professional interests are not
affiliated with ornithologyhes an associate professor of
management at Cornells Hotel
Schoolhe spends a great deal of time running
around the Cayuga
Lake Basin and elsewhere chasing whatever is coming
through.
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Mark Witmer |
Mark is one of SFO's newer field trip leaders. A Zoology
major, he received his Bachelor's Degree from Colorado
State University,
his Master's Degree from Texas A & M, and his Ph. D. from Cornell
University. He has taught biology, and much of this research
has dealt with studying the nutritional ecology of fruit-eating
birds (basically, understanding why birds, especially Cedar Waxwings,
eat particular fruits). Mark enjoys watching birds in his spare
time - when he is not busy fishing, maple sugaring,
golfing, or gardening!
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Rachel Vallender |
Rachel works in the Evolutionary
Biology Program at the Lab
of Ornithology where she uses genetic
tools to examine conservation problems facing birds. Her primary
research interests lie in the fields on behavioural ecology and
conservation genetics. She is currently conducting research on the
genetics of avian hybridization, and has a particular interest in
Golden-winged and Blue-winged Warblers. She has taught bird capture
and banding workshops for many years, and has instructed an undergraduate
field course entitled "Behavioural Ecology and Conservation
Biology of Birds". She has been a keen birder since her early
undergraduate days in Canada and has welcomed the opportunity to
bird the Cayuga
Lake Basin in recent years.
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Matt
Young |
Matt is an avid birder in the Central New
York area who has led
several field trips for Spring Field Ornithology since 1998. He has a
Master's Degree in Ornithology, and has taught his own field
ornithology class at Lime Hollow Center
for Environment & Culture where
is also acting president of their bird club. Matt won back to back David
Cups (Cayuga Lake Basin Birding competition) and nominated
Summerhill, Bear Swamp, and Great Swamp Conservancy (which was his
masters research site) as Audubon
Important Bird Areas. He currently
works with at-risk-teens at George
Jr. Republic as a program director
in addition to trying to implement an outdoor education/wilderness
therapy program. He is also noted as the founder of 2 Finger Lakes
Land Trust Preserves, 1 Cornell Natural Area Preserve and is land
steward for Dorothy McIlroy Bird Preserve.
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