Monterey Seabirds Trip Leaders

From left to right: Martijn Verdoes, Todd Easterla, Matthew Dodder, Dan Singer, Don Roberson, Roger Wolfe, our chummer girl Tayla Easterla and her friend Amelia, Fritz Steurer between them and on the far right Tim Amaral.

Don Roberson

Don Roberson is the author of five published books on the birds of Monterey and California. He has also authored a compendium of information on birds on his prodigious website CREAGRUS.

In 1989 Don served as seabird surveyor on the NOAA research vessel McArthur on a four-month journey throughout the Pacific. He has published major identification papers on Cookilaria petrels, small black and white shearwaters and boobies. He served on the California Bird Record Committee for 13 years and managed to do all this in addition to his extensive world birding adventures.

Don has the uncanny ability to tell when we venture out of Monterey County waters without using instrumentation!

For more details, see the bio on Don Roberson's website.

Seabird trip leader Steve Bailey

Steve Bailey

Stephen. F. Bailey has a combination of education, world birding experience and museum work on Pacific seabirds that is unique. He holds a PhD in zoology from UC Berkeley and has curated or studied more than 400,000 bird museum specimens. He is one of the top listers in the Pacific Region and has served two terms on the California Bird Records Committee and fourteen years as Regional Editor for the journal North American Birds. He was Director of the Pacific Grove Museum of Natural History before taking an early retirement to concentrate on doing more world birding and bird tour leading. Steve is well known for his research and expertise on Pacific seabirds. He also leads trips for Rockjumper Tours to Papua New Guinea. In 2007 Steve became only the second person ever to see more than 3,000 species (3,110) in the course of a World Big Year.

Seabird trip leader Dan Singer

Dan Singer

Dan Singer embodies the expression, "Still waters run deep". You won't read his posts on the listservs very often. He's not into bragging. But if you engage him in a conversation about birds you will come to realize the depth of knowledge he has. Dan is the former Chairman of the California Bird Records Committee. He has also served as regional editor for North American Birds magazine. He has a great affinity for being out on the ocean and for seabirds and enjoys sharing this appreciation with others. We are very fortunate to have him as part of our team. His latest travels have been to Baja California, Chiapas and Peru.

Seabird trip leader Roger Wolfe with Yellow Warbler

Roger Wolfe

Roger Wolfe is a 40-year resident of the Monterey Bay area. He has a profound respect for the ocean from years of surfing, swimming, kayaking, sailing, fishing, seabirding, whale watching and walking the beach.

Roger works as a naturalist for Monterey Bay Whale Watch and is out on the bay on a weekly basis. He has seabirded from the Bering Strait to the Sea of Cortez where he led trips on a live-aboard boat. Roger was featured on the National Geographic Channel's program Whale Attack! His most recent trips have been to the Galapagos Archipelago and New Zealand in search of seabirds.

Richard Ternullo, Monterey Seabirds skipper

Richard Ternullo

Richard Ternullo is a second-generation sea captain born and raised in Monterey. With a degree in biology, he has led natural history trips on the bay for 33 years, 16 of those as a skipper for Shearwater Journeys. His familiarity with the marine mammals and seabirds of Monterey comes from firsthand experience. He is on the water and in communication with other skippers nearly every day with Monterey Bay Whale Watch.

The research Richard conducts with Nancy Black on Killer Whales has been the subject of feature programs on the BBC, the Discovery Channel and National Geographic Explorer. He is the best seabird skipper on the west coast, bar none.

Richard is also king of the one liners with a vast repertoire of jokes he hears over the radio.

Todd Easterla, seabird trip leader

Todd Easterla

Todd Easterla has been birding since he was eight years old, not counting the earlier days when his dad would stop the car on vacations to collect fly-by specimens. His father, Dr. David Easterla, teaches at the University of Missouri and is co-author of Birds of Missouri. Todd was raised on birds and birding.

He has worked as a tour leader and contract biologist and operated Pterodroma Tours to pursue offshore species. He has been leading pelagic trips in California for 18 years. His birding has slowed a bit recently as he is a full time single father for chummers Tayla and Tanner.

Todd is a gifted birder with a set of eyes that are legendary. He often sees things on the horizon well before anyone else. In May of 2005 he was part of the team that set a new county Big Day national record in San Diego County of 217 species.

Tim Amaral

Tim Amaral is an introduced hybrid species seen throughout the Central Coast region. Primarily ground-dwelling and non-migratory, this species is often seen bringing food to two young and nesting materials to his mate around the nest site in the hills of Prunedale. His song heard in the breeding season is "She's the One" by Bruce Springsteen, and his winter call note is said to be wry and lighthearted with a descending sarcastic trill. Best identified by dark eye rings and absence of neck tie. Previously know as the "Bearded Twit", but he shaves now.

Tim is a teacher and amateur naturalist who has been birding in Monterey County for more than a decade. He has been leading bird watching trips for the Wild Bird Center, the Monterey Peninsula Audubon Society, and various national conferences in the area since 1996. Tim considers birding a contact sport, so always look for him on the bow of the boat.

Bruce Elliot

Bruce Elliot is a retired Senior Biologist with the California Department of Fish and Game. He has taught classes in field biology at the University of California and Cabrillo College for the past 35 years. Bruce is a skilled field trip leader who conducts a variety of tours and explorations of local birds and mammals. He is a former marine and famous for his booming voice and red suspenders. He has been actively birding for more than 55 years.

Matthew Dodder

A birder since the great Boston blizzard of '78, Matthew returned to California after 14 years of bitter cold east coast winters and hot muggy summers. He began teaching birding at the Palo Alto Adult School in 1999 where he met his future wife "Cricket". They have had many birding experiences together but she particularly remembers the time Matthew got too close to a Southern Cassowary. He survived, and currently sits on the Santa Clara Valley Audubon Society board of directors. He wishes he didn't have to work during the week when all the rare birds are reported.

See his website www.birdguy.net

Martijn Verdoes

Born in The Netherlands and raised in the coastal village and migrant trap Katwijk, Martijn started bird watching and photography at the age of ten. Sea watching from land, staring at a usually empty North Sea with the occasional Sooty or Manx Shearwater just behind the horizon, he has always been intrigued by sea birds. A pelagic trip out of Kaikoura, New Zealand meant the beginning of a new era; no more seawatching from land, from now on only from a boat! When not in lab or on a boat, Martijn's free hours are spent on photography and the lure of the list.

See a collection of Martijn's photographs at http://agamiblog.blogspot.com/search/label/Martijn%20Verdoes

Blake Matheson

Blake Matheson is a fourth generation resident of the Monterey Peninsula with a deep and life-long devotion to the marine wilderness of Monterey Bay. He was born and raised near Point Pinos on the outer Peninsula where he grew up hand-lining the kelp forests for his dinner in the happy company of rorquals and great whites. An active birder since high school, he has traveled extensively across the globe from the high arctic to the old world tropics to pursue his passion for being in the presence of our planet's most magnificent and endangered birds and mammals. He is an environmental lawyer by training and devotes much of his free time to writing and wildlife photography. Blake currently serves as president of the Monterey Audubon Society and sits on the board of the Pacific Grove Museum of Natural History.

Out of the 98 pelagic trips I've taken since 1986 the last 23 with Monterey Seabirds have, by far, been the most enjoyable and rewarding. Passenger numbers are limited, rather than maxed out, insuring optimal comfort and quality birding for all. The spotters are informed, helpful and always accessible and the cost per person has remained much lower than the norm for west coast pelagic trips. As a seabirder/photographer I've found on-board conditions to be ideal and quite liberating. Elbow room for panning and space for spontaneous movement about the deck is a given. Monterey Seabirds' skipper/seabirder, Richard Ternullo, who has been ferrying naturalists and seabirders out on Monterey Bay and beyond for 3 decades, has, without a doubt, been indispensable to the success of every trip. Roger Wolfe, experienced leader and coordinator of Monterey Seabirds and present on every trip, is notorious for his energy and enthusiasm.
Jeff Poklen (Santa Cruz, CA)