 |
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. |
Tim
Amaral, Trip Leader
Tim Amaral is our multilingual leader and coordinator
who has lived in the Monterey region since 1990. He has been a guide
for local bird festivals and conferences and has served as the vice-president
of the local Audubon. An educator by training, Tim is now a professional
guide who loves to teach folks about the natural history of his favorite
"patch"--the Monterey Bay.
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.
Roger Wolfe
Roger Wolfe has resided in the Monterey Bay area for more than 40 years.
He has logged more than 200 days at sea including trips to Ecuador,
New Zealand, Alaska and the Sea of Cortez. He has personally led more
than 120 seabird trips on the Monterey Bay since 2001. He has also served
as a naturalist on many whale watch trips.
You might have seen him on the National Geographic Channel program
Whale
Attack!
Roger is known for his energy and enthusiasm. He likes to keep everyone
in good humor on our trips.
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.
Christian Schwarz
Christian Schwarz is a Santa Cruz resident who spends most of his time
identifying fungi, but molts into birder plumage after the end of the
rainy season. He finds pelagic birding rewarding because it is so radically
different from landbirding (and frustrating for mostly the same reasons).
Always looking forward to the question mark that is a day of birding
on Monterey Bay, Christian is excited to join Monterey Seabirds for
his first season. Cheers!
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.
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
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.
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.
Rod
Norden
Rod Norden started birding back in his college days
with legendary birder Ted Parker. Doug Stotz was also his birding
mentor (and housemate) in 1970's Tucson. Some of his photographs appeared
in Rich Stallcup's book Birds of the Nearshore Pacific (1990)
and the Stokes Eastern and Western Field Guides (1996).
He got the photo of the first documented Stejneger's Petrel in North
America (Nov. 17, 1990) that he shot with a manually focused film
camera mounted on a gunstock. He and Steve Bailey also sighted the
first record for Dark-rumped Petrel (prior to it being split).
Rod is also an avid astronomer and docent at the Lick Observatory.
He is a favorite with visiting birders. He likes getting to know people
and really enjoys helping folks sort our seabird identifications.
After a long stint in high tech and world travel (with pelagic trips
in all three oceans), Rod is now teaching computer science at Cabrillo
College.
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) |
