Instructors and guest speakers

This list of instructors includes only those who have been confirmed as attending in 2013.  More will be added as they are announced.  You can also view our full instructor pool from recent years.  

Seth Benz - Director, Migration and Monhegan Island II

Seth has amassed nearly 30 years of experience in conservation science and environmental education leadership. He has guided Road Scholar birding trips in Maine, directed Hog Island Audubon Camp (1999-2008), worked as an island supervisor for Project Puffin, served as Education Director of the Audubon Expedition Institute and as Assistant Curator of Hawk Mountain Sanctuary in Pennsylvania. He is now the director of the Schoodic Bird Ecology Lab, a collaborative field station focused on bird migration, phenology studies, and public participation in scientific research at Acadia National Park. His hands-on work includes raptor and songbird migration research, hawk watching, tern restoration efforts, bird flight altitude and wind energy studies, telemetry of wintering bald eagles, catching migratory peregrine falcons at Assateague Island National Seashore, next box monitoring projects with American kestrel, eastern screech owl, and eastern bluebird, and, ecotourism scouting trips to Peru and Mexico. Seth has held appointments as a board member of the Mid-coast Maine Audubon Chapter, and is currently the Christmas Bird Count Compiler for North Penobscot Bay, Maine.

David Owen Brown - The Arts of Birding

David Brown works worldwide as a producer, videographer, photographer and lecturer specializing in marine wildlife and issues.  He holds degrees from Cornell University and the Brooks Institute of Photography. His work has aired on NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN, the Discovery Channel and National Geographic television. His award-winning photography has appeared in numerous exhibits and publications, including imagery for the Smithsonian's Ocean Planet and Ocean Hall, and the American Museum of Natural History’s Water display. He has authored a variety of articles, two children's books, and was as a consultant for National Geographic’s "The World's Wild Shores."  As a member of the Cousteau team, David participated in filming expeditions with the vessels Calypso and Alcyone for seven years, exploring above and below water environments from Papua New Guinea to Alaska. He also represented the Cousteau Society lecturing on ocean subjects to universities, trade associations and aboard cruise vessels around the world. From 2002-2007,David worked for the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s Macaulay Library, capturing high definition footage of a wide range of birds.  http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/07/science/blaschka-glass-menagerie-inspires-marine-expedition.html?ref=science

Kurt Budliger - Educator's Week
Kurt Budliger is a full-time professional photographer specializing in landscape, outdoor lifestyle and fly-fishing photography.  He is a frequent contributor to Vermont Life Magazine and Eastern Fly Fishing and works with a variety of other editorial, commercial, and conservation non-profit clients throughout the year.

 His fine art prints of the Vermont and New England landscape can be found in many private collections around the country.  Kurt teaches several digital photography classes at Vermont State Colleges and is the founder and lead instructor at Green Mountain Photographic Workshops.  Kurt’s commitment to conservation and education has guided his career since the beginning.  Prior to becoming a professional photographer Kurt received a BS from Colorado State University in Natural Resources with a concentration in Interpretation and later a MS in Teaching from Plattsburgh State.  He spent many years working as an environmental educator and most recently middle school science teacher in central Vermont.  Kurt Budliger Photography is a proud member and supported of 1% for the Planet.

When he’s not out photographing, teaching, hiking, biking or fly-fishing he can be found spending time with his wife and two small children in central Vermont. To see more of Kurt's work please visit www.kurtbudliger.com

Benjamin Clock - Field Ornithology
Stay tuned for more information about Ben!

Ted Gilman - Educator's Week

Ted Gilman is a naturalist and environmental educator at Audubon Greenwich, where he has inspired a love of nature in generations of children and helped train educators from across the country. Ted received his bachelors degree in Biology from Earlham College and did graduate work in Science and Environmental Education at Cornell University. He has led Audubon trips to Trinidad & Tobago and Kenya, as well as served as an education volunteer for the International Crane Foundation in northern China. Ted began teaching on Hog Island in 1974 and has returned over the past four decades to serve as an instructor for ornithology and family camp programs.

Phillip Hoose - Educator's Week  

Phillip is the widely-acclaimed author of books, essays, stories, songs, and articles, including the multi-award winning title,The Race to Save the Lord God Bird, and the Christopher Award-winning manual for youth activism It’s Our World Too!.  A graduate of the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Sciences, Hoose has been a staff member of The Nature Conservancy since 1977, dedicated to preserving the plants, animals and natural communities of the Earth by protecting the lands and waters they need to survive.  A songwriter and performing musician, Phillip Hoose is a founding member of the Children’s Music Network and a member of the band Chipped Enamel. He lives in Portland, Maine.http://philliphoose.com/

 

Tom Johnson - Migration & Monhegan Island II

Tom Johnson is a recent graduate of Cornell University who spends almost all of his time pursuing birds, occasionally forgoing food and sleep. Birding from a young age, Tom has participated in programs at Hog Island as both a student and an instructor. Since graduating college, he has been exploring various methods of tricking others into paying for his birding adventures. Recently, Tom has enjoyed surveying birds on National Park Service lands in Arizona, counting seabirds and mammals for NOAA in the Gulf Stream, and monitoring fall songbird migration at Cape May, NJ. In addition to serving on two state bird records committees, Tom writes for several birding and ornithological publications. He loves to learn something new whenever he steps outside, and is particularly thrilled to return to Maine and Hog Island.

Kenn Kaufman

Kenn Kaufman - Field Ornithology, Teen I
Kenn Kaufman is the originator of the Kaufman Field Guide series and author of Lives of North American Birds , Kingbird Highway , and Flights Against the Sunset , among other books. Long recognized as an expert on bird identification, Kenn has been teaching popular workshops on birding since 1980 and has written hundreds of ID articles forBirder's World , American Birds , and other publications. A field editor for Audubon and a contributor to every major birding magazine, he has also led nature tours on all seven continents. He and his wife Kimberly make their home in northwestern Ohio.

Kim Kaufman - Field Ornithology, Teen I
Kim Kaufman is Executive Director of the Black Swamp Bird Observatory, a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting sound stewardship of avian resources in the Lake Erie Marsh Region of northwest Ohio. In 2006 she started the Ohio Young Birders Club, a group for teens that has drawn national attention and inspired similar clubs in other states. She and her husband, Kenn Kaufman,  travel and teach extensively and write a popular blog about their birding adventures .

 

John Kricher - Field Ornithology
John is a Professor of Biology at Wheaton College, Norton, Massachusetts. A graduate of Temple (B.A.) and Rutgers Universities (Ph.D.), John has conducted Earthwatch-sponsored research on

migrant birds on their wintering grounds in Belize and is the author of over 100 papers and articles in scientific journals, magazines, and newspapers. His recent book, The Balance of Nature: Ecology's Enduring Myth, was published by Princeton University Press in spring of 2009. He has also authored Galapagos: A Natural History, three Peterson field guides (Eastern Forests, Pacific Northwest, and Rocky Mountain & Southwestern Forests) and the very popular, A Neotropical Companion. The recently completed textbook, Tropical Ecology, was published by Princeton University Press in 2011. John is a Fellow in the American Ornithologists Union and has served as president of the Association of Field Ornithologists, president of the Wilson Ornithological Society, and president of the Nuttall Ornithological Club, and is currently on the Council of the Massachusetts Audubon Society. John has led trips throughout the western hemisphere. He and his wife Martha Vaughan divide their time between Pocasset, Massachusetts, on Cape Cod and Sunbury, Georgia.

Stephen Kress - Director of Seabird Bio & Conservation, appears in most sessions

Stephen Kress is Director of the Seabird Restoration Program and Vice President for Bird Conservation of the National Audubon Society. He received his B.S. in Zoology, M.S. in Wildlife Management from Ohio State University and his Ph.D. in Environmental Education from Cornell University. Steve began Project Puffin in 1973 and has remained its director since the beginning. Steve is also the manager of National Audubon's Maine Coastal Island Sanctuaries. He was an Ornithology Instructor at the Audubon Camp in Maine on Hog Island from 1969 through 1981, and Director of the camp from 1982 through 1986. Steve is also author of many popular books on birding and backyard conservation, including The Audubon Society’s Guide to Attracting Birds: Creating Natural Habitats for Properties Large and Small, Audubon Pocket Backyard Birdwatch  and the Birder's Handbook.

Chris Lewey - Director, Joy of Birding

Chris Lewey is Executive Director and Founder of RAVEN Interpretive Programs, a provider of international tours and programs focusing on wildlife and ecology. He leads natural history tours for  the Maine Audubon Society, Smithsonian Study Tours and the National Wildlife Federation. Chris is also a naturalist for the Appalachian Mountain Club. A native New Englander and licensed Maine Guide, Chris is very much at home on the coast or in the mountains where his fascination with wildlife is always enthusiastically shared. Chris holds a masters degree in Environmental Studies from Antioch University and  has taught biology, ecology and ornithology in both New Hampshire and Maine. As a nature photographer and master bird-bander, he continues wildlife research in his region.  

Laura McCarthy - Arts of Birding

Laura oversees the grassroots efforts of the conservation and policy programs for Audubon New York, and also coordinates volunteers for some of Audubon’s science initiatives, working closely with the 27 Audubon chapters in NY.  For the past two years, Laura has helped lead an Audubon Chapter Leadership Camp for chapter leaders in the Atlantic Flyway on Hog Island, facilitating workshops including advocacy and media training, and how to effectively engage volunteers. Laura lives in Albany, NY where she enjoys skiing, kayaking, and hiking and she dabbles in a variety of arts and crafts, including painting, jewelry-making, and photography. Inspired by a college art class in 2003, she’s been making (and filling!) her own hand-bound sketchbooks and travel journals for years, and has recently begun teaching these bookbinding skills through small workshops with friends.

Kevin McGowan - Spring Seabird Biology and Conservation

]Kevin is the instructor for the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s Home Study Course in Bird Biology and a new online short-course, “Courtship and Rivalry in Birds.” Kevin received a Ph.D. in Biology from the University of South Florida for work on the behavior of Florida Scrub-Jays.  He was the co-editor and primary author for the recently-published book, The Second Atlas of Breeding Birds in New York State.  He also helped create the Lab of Ornithology's award-winning All About Birds website and wrote the original Bird Guide section.  He has been studying the Ithaca population of crows since 1988, and has followed the life stories of over 2,000 banded birds. An avid birder, as well as a professional ornithologist, Kevin enjoys all aspects of birds (especially crows), from behavior to physiology, and from ecology to evolution.  He is interested in spreading the appreciation of birds to all possible audiences, through all possible avenues.

Laurie McLaughlin - Teen I Leader

Laurie McLaughlin is a faculty member at Penn State University and a Program Coordinator at Shaver’s Creek Environmental Center, Penn State’s Nature Center in central Pennsylvania.  Laurie teaches  facilitation and teambuilding skills, environmental education, and is the director of the Maple Harvest Festival.  Laurie earned her B.S. in Environmental Interpretation from Penn State and an M.A. in Experiential Education from the University of Colorado. In addition to helping young people learn about and enjoy the natural world, her interests include birds, the ocean, traveling, canoeing, cooking, reading, and, most of all, spending time with her husband, Mark, and their two sons, Brian and Sean.

Steve Morello - Family Camp

Steve Morello is the Director of Mondo Verde Expeditions, a wildlife tour company that specializes in wildlife expeditions and endeavors to make a positive difference in the places where they travel. His enthusiasm for sustainable tourism is matched only by his passion for conservation of wildlife through photography. Well known as a professional wildlife photographer, Steve’s work has appeared in National Geographic Magazine, National Geographic Books, National Geographic World Magazine, National Geographic Traveler, International Wildlife, The New York Times, Martha Stuart’s Living, Popular Photography, and Outdoor Photographer as well as numerous other magazines, books and calendars. Steve is a major contributor to the photo collection of the World Wildlife Fund and to-date has contributed more images to their photo library than any other photographer. Steve is the author of the acclaimed book, The Traveling Nature Photographer.

Sara Morris Field Orn., Teen I

Sara R. Morris is a professor of Biology and the Director of the Environmental Science Program at Canisius College in Buffalo, NY. She earned her MS and PhD in zoology at Cornell University.  Her research focus is bird migration, specifically in how birds use sites in-between where they breed and winter to successfully complete their migrations. At Canisius, Morris teaches classes in ornithology, vertebrate zoology, ecology and evolution.  She regularly takes her undergraduate research students to ornithological conferences to present their research projects and class students on extended field trips to areas like Fort Myers, FL, and the Galapagos Islands to study wildlife.   Morris is a Fellow of the American Ornithologists’ Union (AOU), the Secretary of the AOU, a council member of the Wilson Ornithological Society, and a research associate at the Buffalo Museum of Science.

Craig Newberger - Family Camp Director, Educator's Week

Craig Newberger  has served as the Lower School Science Coordinator at Germantown Academy for over 25 years. During the summers he directs their Wildlife Discovery Camp, which he started in 2003. Craig has also designed and directed Germantown Academy's Summer Science Institute for Girls. He is a recipient of the "Exemplary Teacher of Elementary Science Award" from the Montgomery County Science Teachers Association. Craig directed the Audubon Youth Ecology Camp on Hog Island for seventeen summers and co-directed Audubon's Family Camp on Hog Island for four summers. Craig has worked as a naturalist at the Cape Cod Museum of Natural History and he served as director for the National Environmental Education Development (N.E.E.D) residential program at the Cape Cod National Seashore. Craig is the author of over a hundred nature columns, which have appeared in many newspapers and magazine. He is also a contributor to the book, A Guide to Nature on Cape Cod and the Islands. Craig's expertise on the hammered dulcimer, banjo, and guitar has played an important role in engaging his students.

Wayne Petersen - Joy of Birding

Wayne is a Massachusetts native and director of the Massachusetts Important Bird Area (IBA) Program for the Massachusetts Audubon Society. Throughout his illustrious career, Wayne has lectured extensively, conducted birding workshops across North America, and led tours for Mass Audubon and Field Guides, Inc. that have taken him from arctic Canada to South America, Iceland, Svalbard, Africa, Madagascar, Antarctica, Australia, and New Zealand. A founding member of the Massachusetts Avian Records Committee (MARC), Wayne is also a New England Regional Editor for North American Birds magazine and editor for the New England Christmas Bird Counts. In addition to writing a bird identification column for thirty-five years for Bird Observer magazine, his writing projects have included writing or co-authoring the National Audubon Society Pocket Guide to Songbirds and Familiar Backyard Birds (East), Birds of Massachusetts, Birds of New England, and the Massachusetts Breeding Bird Atlas. He also contributed accounts to The Audubon Society Master Guide to Birding, The Sibley Guide to Bird Life and Behavior, and Arctic Wings. Wayne is currently a member of the Massachusetts Natural Heritage and Endangered Species Program Advisory Committee, and in 2005 he received the American Birding Association's Ludlow Griscom Award for outstanding contributions in regional ornithology. Wayne is especially interested in seabirds and shorebirds and he derives great satisfaction from sharing his knowledge of the natural world with others.

Trudy Phillips - Family Camp Director, Educator's Week

Trudy Phillips is the Director for Environmental Education at the Perkiomen Watershed Conservancy.  Holding an M.S. in Environmental Education, Trudy has been an elementary school teacher, an Expedition Guide for the National Audubon Society’s (NAS) Expedition Institute, Assistant Director for the NAS Youth Ecology Camp and Family Camp in Maine, and the Assistant Director for Education at the Schuylkill Environmental Education Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.  Awards for teaching excellence include the Early Childhood Professional Award from Scholastic, Inc., the Outstanding Environmental Educator from the Pennsylvania Alliance for Environmental Education, and the Dr. Ruth Patrick Award from the Water Resources Association (WRA) of the Delaware River Basin for outstanding early childhood, youth and adult environmental education programs.

Joshua Potter - Teen II Leader

Joshua Potter is the Marketing Coordinator and a naturalist at Shaver's Creek Environmental Center in Central PA. He received his BA degree from Penn State in Integrative Arts, blending multimedia and environmental education. He has recently moved back to Pennsylvania with his wife Sarah, son Ellory, and daughter Lucy. Previously Joshua worked as a naturalist and Outreach Coordinator for Tin Mountain Conservation Center in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. Joshua spent his summers at Tin Mountain as director of their backpacking and canoeing camps for teens, where he strived to inject natural history into each day on the trail or water.

John Pumilio - Joy of Birding

John first stepped on Hog Island in the early 1990's as a student assistant.  By 1993, he had become one of the youngest camp instructors in Hog Island's history at age 21.  During this time, John conducted several annual breeding bird surveys of the island carrying on the historic work of Allan D. Cruickshank.  Since his early days at Hog Island, John gained extensive national and international guiding experience including environmental sustainability work in Alaska, the Florida Everglades, Canadian Rockies, Tanzania, Galapagos Islands, Machu Picchu, and Patagonia, Chile among other places.  While in the Everglades, John was a field biologist on the Red-cockaded woodpecker and Florida panther recovery projects.  He also spent time in the West Indies researching avian biodiversity and persistence in different habitats.  Currently, John is the Director of Sustainability at Colgate University in Central New York.  He received his bachelor's degree in environmental and forest biology from ESF at Syracuse University and graduate degree from The Evergreen State College in Washington State.  John is thrilled to return to Hog Island and looks forward to sharing his knowledge and passion of coastal Maine's birds with others.

Jon Reis - The Arts of Birding

Jon Reis is a professional photographer in Ithaca, New York in the heart of the Finger Lakes Region.  He takes on commercial assignments for regional and national magazines, where his work has appeared in Time, Newsweek, Business Week and the New York Times.  He also photographs for architects interested in historic preservation and sustainability.   His social documentary fine art photography is in personal collections. Well-known for his portraiture and photojournalism, he will be busy taking publicity photographs of the Arts of Birding course this summer at Hog Island.  He is an avid birder but prefers to leave the photography of birds to others.

Heather Richard - Teen I & II Leader

Heather is an educator and graduate student in Marine Science at San Francisco State University's Romberg Tiburon Center. As a native Mainer, she has always had a strong connection to the outdoors, and as a Student Assistant on Hog Island in 2003 she developed a passion for sharing her connection to the outdoors with others. She graduated with a B.S. in Biology from Clark University and served as an education intern for Project Puffin in 2005. With nearly 10 years of experience in outdoor education, her experiences include backpacking with students in West Virginia, snorkeling with school groups on Catalina Island in California, and leading public trips out to the Farallon Islands in search of whales and seabirds. By far, she feels most at home living by the tides on islands such as Hog Island where she has specialized in teaching marine science since her time as a Student Assistant. She feels fortunate to have made her passion her career, and is also an avid biker, explorer, artist and musician.

Anne Rosenberg - Educator's Week 

Anne is the Coordinator for Youth Education and Outreach for the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. She has designed and led numerous children's classes and activities, and works with a variety of formal and informal educators to deliver environmental education programming. In particular, Anne is interested in activities that combine art and nature to foster inquiry-based learning. Anne earned a BS in animal ecology from University of California, Berkeley and a MS in plant community ecology from Tulane University. She has been a member of the Education Department at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology for 16 years, during which she helped to develop several educational web sites and curricula.

Pete Salmansohn - Educator's Week Director, appears in most sessions

Pete Salmansohn received his M.S. in Teaching from the Environmental Studies Department at Antioch/New England and his M.S. in Social Ecology from Goddard College. He has been an instructor at Hog Island during adult, family, and youth camps since 1980, and is the Program Director for this year’s Sharing Nature program for educators. Pete is the Education Coordinator for the Seabird Restoration Program and created our school outreach program in Maine about seabird conservation, which is now in its 14th year. Pete coordinates the Audubon seabird tours aboard commercial boats each summer.   He  co-authored, with Steve Kress, Project Puffin: How We Brought the Puffins Back to Eastern Egg Rock, Giving Back To The Earth and Saving Birds: Heroes Around the World.

Susan Schubel - appears in most sessions

"Seabird Sue" Schubel is Project Puffin's own Disney Hero , and has been the Outreach Educator for Project Puffin since 2000. She loves to engage her students in exciting learning activities and share real data from the seabird islands with them. Her acquaintance with Project Puffin began in high school, when she saw Marlin Perkins rowing ashore with Steve on Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom episode Return of the Puffin. She started working with Project Puffin as a volunteer on Matinicus Rock in 1984, and since then has spent many summers on islands in Maine,California and the Galapagos. Sue loves islands and beasts, and recently acquired a dog with very familiar little black triangles over its eyes.

Jerry Skinner - Spring Seabird Biology and Conservation

Jerry is a professor of biology at Keystone College, an educator for the Keystone College Environmental Education Institute, and the resident naturalist and volunteer steward at the Nature Conservancy’s Woodbourne Forest and Wildlife Sanctuary in Susquehanna County, PA. Jerry  began as an instructor at Hog Island in 1981 and finds every excuse he can to get back.  He spent several years with Project Puffin working in the Galapagos and closer to home on Stratton Island, Maine. At home in Pennsylvania, he was a regional coordinator and species account author for the 2nd Pennsylvania Breeding Bird Atlas.

Ron Smith - Family Camp

Ron is an environmental science educator from Merchantville, NJ where he teaches K-12 environmental science in the Haddonfield School District.. His programs and classes emphasize citizen science, field studies and ecological restoration. In the summer Ron leads the Life Science Field Training Institute for Pinelands Preservation Alliance – a program that offers teacher training and experience with field study techniques in the NJ Pine Barrens and regional coastal ecosystems. Ron has collaborated on science education projects with the Academy of Natural Sciences, Pinelands Preservation Alliance, Camden County Parks, Drexel University and Stockton College. Ron enjoys Irish fiddle, hiking, birding and exploring the natural world with his wife Lisa, children Lily and Gabriel and dog Linus.

Iain Stenhouse - Fall Seabird Biology & Conservation  

Iain Stenhouse is the Director of the Marine Bird Program for the BioDiversity Research Institute, based in Gorham, Maine, a non-profit organization working internationally to advance the conservation of wildlife. After receiving his Ph.D. in Cognitive & Behavioral Ecology from Memorial University of Newfoundland, Iain worked for the National Audubon Society. As the Director of Bird Conservation for Audubon Alaska, he completed the first state-wide assessment of significant sites for bird conservation, and produced the second edition of the Alaska WatchList . As Senior Scientist for the Important Bird Areas (IBA) Program, Iain developed Audubon’s approach to monitoring and assessment of IBAs. He has authored or co-authored many scientific papers, technical reports, book chapters, and popular articles on marine bird ecology and conservation. Recently, Iain’s work has focused largely on the migration and movements of marine birds at sea, using satellite transmitters and other tracking technologies, such as geo-locators. In collaboration with a Danish colleague, he tracked Arctic Terns from their breeding grounds in N ortheast Greenland to their wintering areas in Antarctica and back again – the longest animal migration ever recorded.

Clay Sutton - Joy of Birding

Clay Sutton is a life-long resident of Cape May, where he has worked as an environmental planner, environmental program administrator, vice-president of an environmental consulting firm specializing in threatened and endangered species, and as a self-employed environmental consultant, naturalist and field biologist. Clay is a writer, lecturer, and was a long-time instructor for the American Birding Association's Institute for Field Ornithology. Clay is a co-author, with Pete Dunne and David Sibley, of the classic Hawks in Flight, and Clay and his wife Pat have co-authored How to Spot Butterflies, How to Spot Hawks & Eagles, and How to Spot an Owl, all published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Their latest book, Birds and Birding at Cape May, is the in-depth result of their efforts over many years documenting and protecting the migration and the Cape May area that they so love. This landmark book is a complete guide to birds and birding for the Cape May region, covering what to see, when, where, and how to go, as well as the storied ornithological history of the Cape. For more information go to Pat and Clay's website:www.patandclaysutton.com.

Pat Sutton - Joy of Birding

Pat Sutton has studied the natural world for over 30 years, first as the naturalist at the Cape May Point State Park in the 1970s and 1980s and then for 21 years as the naturalist and program director at New Jersey Audubon's Cape May Bird Observatory (1986 to 2007). She and her husband (Clay Sutton) wrote the landmark book, Birds and Birding at Cape May, the in-depth result of their efforts over many years documenting and protecting the migration and the Cape May area that they so love. Other books by Pat and Clay include How to Spot Butterflies, How to Spot Hawks & Eagles, and How to Spot an Owl. Today Pat is a free-lance writer, photographer, naturalist, educator, lecturer, tour leader, and wildlife garden consultant. Sutton's own wildlife garden is a "teaching garden" featured in programs and workshops she teaches and is included on many tours, including tours of private wildlife gardens that she has led for twenty-one years. For more information go to Pat and Clay's website: www.patandclaysutton.com.

Bill Thompson III - The Arts of Birding

Bill Thompson III is the editor/co-publisher of Bird Watcher's Digest, America's longest-running magazine for birders. He's the author of numerous books on birds, including Bird Watching For Dummies, Identify Yourself: The 50 Most Common Bird Identification Challenges, Identifying & Feeding Birds, and the forthcoming Young Birder's Guide to Birds of North America.  He writes a weekly blog, Bill of the Birds and hosts a podcast called This Birding Life. Bill regularly speaks, guides, and performs at birding festivals across North America and consults internationally on ecotourism marketing. He has watched birds in 47 US states and in 28 countries. In his spare time he's the leader of the country-rock band The Rain Crows.

Peter Vickery - The Arts of Birding, Migration and Monhegan I & II

Peter Vickery is President of the Center for Ecological Research, a non-profit company focused on conservation research. He is an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of Natural Resources and Conservation at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.  Peter’s research interests include habitat selection and breeding ecology of grassland birds, conservation planning on landscape and regional scales, and international conservation. He has a special interest in developing conservation strategies for species and ecosystems before they become endangered. He is writing a book on Maine Birds with Bill Sheehan and is collaborating on grassland bird research in Argentina.  Recent projects have included regional grassland bird conservation strategies in New England and the reproductive biology of the Northern Blazing Star, a rare grassland forb. Peter is co-author of A Birder’s Guide to Maine with Elizabeth Pierson and Jan Pierson.  He has also consulted on wind power and hydro-kinetics projects in Maine.  He loves being outdoors in Maine.

Scott Weidensaul - Director of Field Orn., Arts of Birding, Teen I & II, Fall Migration I

Author and naturalist Scott Weidensaul has written more than two dozen books on natural history, including Living on the Wind: Across the Hemisphere with Migratory Birds  (a Pulitzer Prize finalist), The Ghost with Trembling Wings and Of a Feather: A Brief History of American Birding. His next book, The First Frontier: The Forgotten History of Struggle, Savagery, and Endurance in Early America, is due out in the spring of 2012. Scott’s writing has appeared in publications including Smithsonian, the New York Times , Nature Conservancy, National Wildlife and Audubon . He lectures widely on wildlife and environmental topics and is an active field researcher, specializing in birds of prey and hummingbirds. Scott lives in the Appalachians of eastern Pennsylvania.

Doug Wentzel - Teen I Leader

Doug Wentzel is a program director, instructor and naturalist at Shaver¹s Creek Environmental Center in central PA. For nearly 20 years he has directed educational internships, summer camps and birding programs. As a Penn State instructor, Doug teaches natural history interpretation and is a certified trainer through the National Association for Interpretation. Since 2005, Doug has co-led with Laurie McLaughlin the Coastal Maine Bird Studies for Teens week. He has a BS degree in Wildlife Biology from Penn State, and has served four years in the U.S. Army Medical Corps. He and his wife Susan are raising their two sons, Dylan and Duncan, in Ennisville, PA. Doug's ongoing passion is to foster the awareness of the diversity of life in our own backyards.

Sherrie York - Educator's Week

Sherrie York is an accomplished artist with an international reputation for lyrical and expressive works on paper. Her fine art exhibitions primarily feature relief linocuts and she is currently expanding to include artist books based on her long practice of keeping illustrated journals and field sketchbooks. For the past ten years Sherrie has been the lead illustrator for Audubon Adventures, as well as writer and designer of the program’s Natural Journaling for Everyone packet. She provides illustrations and teaches workshops for a wide variety of conservation organizations and has been an invited artist on international expeditions of the Artists for Nature Foundation. Her original relief prints, watercolor paintings, and more can be seen on her website.

Julie Zickefoose - The Arts of Birding

Julie Zickefoose started off as an illustrator of natural history subjects as a college freshman in 1976. A six-year stint as a field biologist with The Nature Conservancy's Connecticut Chapter proved a strong motivator both to learn more about ecosystems and to go back to drawing. Along the way, she began to write her own essays, studded with observations of birds and animals, and writing slowly crept into the forefront of her interests. Bird Watcher’s Digest has been the major print venue for her writing since 1986, and she’s painted 21 covers for the magazine. In 2006 her first book of illustrated essays, Letters from Eden was published. She contributed natural history commentaries to National Public Radio’s All Things Considered from 2005-2010. Julie Zickefoose on Blogspot entertains around 19,000 visits per month. Her new book, The Bluebird Effect: Uncommon Bonds With Common Birds, will be published in early spring 2012.  Julie and her family (Bill Thompson III, Phoebe, Liam and Boston terrier Chet Baker) live in a ranch house topped by a 42 foot tall birdwatching tower. She and Bill perform in a band called The Rain Crows. With a dozen species of breeding warblers and more gardens than any one person should probably try to take care of, Indigo Hill has everything Julie needs to keep writing and drawing for a very long time.