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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.

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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.

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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 Bill Baker Jaiganesh Balakrishnan Gladys Birdsall
Mark Chao Benjamin Clock Laura Erickson Bob Fogg
Jeff Gerbracht Dan Graybeal John Greenly Scott Haber
Stefan Hames Meena Haribal Wes Hochachka Pete Hosner
Steve Kress Lynn Leopold Jay McGowan Kevin McGowan
Bob McGuire Harold Mills Ann Mitchell Jason Mobley
Mike Morgan Tom Nix Dave Nutter Bill Ostrander
Mike Pitzrick Sandy Podulka Alan Poole Mike Powers
Bard Prentiss Ron Rohrbaugh Ken Rosenberg Dave Russell
Marty Schlabach Laura Stenzler Brian Sullivan Ben Taft
Chris Tessaglia-Hymes Bruce Tracey Mark Witmer Rachel Vallender
Matt Young  

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 30s—some 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 world—how 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 ornithology—he’s an associate professor of management at Cornell’s Hotel School—he 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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