New River Birding and Nature Festival

Katie is the author of the nonfiction book Cerulean Blues: A Personal Search for a Vanishing Songbird (Ruka Press, 2011). Katie’s essays have appeared in a variety of literary journals and magazines, including The Bark, Fourth Genre, River Teeth, Ecotone, Appalachian Heritage, Now & Then, Isotope, New River Gorge Adventure Guide, and elsewhere. The editors of Fourth River nominated her for a Pushcart Prize for her essay “Lost,” and her essay “Hill of the Sacred Eagles” was a finalist in Terrain.org’s 2011 essay contest. Katie has taught creative writing at West Virginia University in Morgantown and at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, VA.
Katie’s first word was “bird.”

website: www.katiefallon.com

blog: ceruleanblues.wordpress.com

David FitzSimmons is a free-lance photographer and writer as well as a university professor. David photographs and writes for various magazines, including Popular Photography, Professional Photographer, Outdoor Photographer, and Shutterbug, newspapers, and online publications. His 100+ calendar credits include numerous titles by BrownTrout and Barnes & Noble. David is currently at work on a handful of books. His most recent books include Animals of Ohio’s Ponds and Vernal Pools (Kent State UP, 2011) and Curious Critters (Wild Iris, 2011).

One of four Sigma Pro photographers in North America, David presents seminars and workshops to a wide variety of audiences, from public school groups and college classes to nature centers and civic organizations. His works have been exhibited at the Roger Tory Peterson Institute, the National Center for Nature Photography, and at the Telluride Photo Festivals, among other venues.

David, a former high school English teacher, has been teaching for 20 years. He is a professor at Ashland University, Ashland, Ohio. He holds a Ph.D. in English from Ohio State University, with a specialty in narrative theory—investigating the components of storytelling—something that influences his photography and writing.

David was inspired to photograph and write about nature by his parents, Mick and Judy FitzSimmons, active environmentalists and life-long teachers, and he is assisted in his natural history endeavors by his wife, Olivia, a naturalist, and his two daughters, Sarah and Phoebe.

To see more of David’s work and to know more about seminars, photo workshops and his children's picture book, Curious Critters, visit www.fitzsimmonsphotography.com and www.curious-critters.com.

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Mark S. Garland is a naturalist who has been sharing his enthusiasm for nature with others professionally for over 30 years.  He holds B.S. and M.S. degrees from the University of Maryland’s College of Agriculture  Work experience includes 6 years as a Ranger/Naturalist with the National Park Service, 17 years with the Audubon Naturalist Society (based in the Washington, DC area), and 4 years with New Jersey Audubon Society’s Cape May Bird Observatory.  He has also led tours for the Smithsonian Institution, for the Massachusetts Audubon Society, and for Betchart Expeditions.  He has taught at the Maine Audubon Society’s camp at Hog Island and teaches week-long birding classes in Cape May for Road Scholar (formerly Elderhostel) each spring and fall.  He has led over 200 tours around the US and to various parts of the world, including over 30 trips to Costa Rica.

He is the author of the book Watching Nature: A Mid-Atlantic Natural History, published by the Smithsonian Press in 1997, and of the chapter Canal Walk in the Anthology City Birding, published by Stackpole Books in 2003.  He founded the Cape Charles Monarch butterfly research project of the Coastal Virginia Wildlife Observatory and currently assists with the Monarch Monitoring Project in Cape May, New Jersey.  He has co-authored with Andrew K. Davis 3 scientific papers on the Cape Charles monarch migration project.

He is the Nature Editor for the weekly radio program Metro Connection, heard Fridays from 1 to 2 p.m. on Washington’s public radio station WAMU.  He has written regular columns for the Cape May Star and Wave, for birdcapemay.org, and for the Audubon Naturalist News; one of the latter pieces was awarded the Excellence in Mass Media Award by the American Association of University Women in 1995.  He is a frequent speaker at various events, ranging from nature and birding festivals to bird club monthly meetings. 

Mark is currently working free-lance, leading tours and field trips for various organizations, including the Audubon Naturalist Society and the New Jersey Audubon Society.  Mark uses Nikon Optics and is a member of the Nikon Birding ProStaff. 

Follow his activities at Website for Mark S. Garland: http://www.mgnature.com

Bill Hilton Jr.’s job allows him to do all day what he likes best, so his vocational activities are almost indistinguishable from his hobbies.

Among Hilton’s awards are: South Carolina Science Teacher of the Year, and SC’s Outstanding Biology Teacher; one of “50 Best Brains in Science”  in the December 2008 issue of Discover magazine; Carolinas Guardian of the Environment; the Outstanding Alumnus Award and the Alumni Ring Award from Newberry College; the Luceo Mea Luce Award;  and the Prize for Excellence from Yamagata University in Japan in an international competition for projects involving “Nature and Human Symbiosis.”

Hilton’s education consists of a BA in Philosophy from Newberry College, Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) in Biology from Winthrop University, and an M.S. in Ecology & Behavioral Biology from the University of Minnesota.

Hilton has studied extensively and trained students, teachers, biologists, and “citizen scientists” in the U.S. and six other countries. Hilton continues his work as an educator through lectures and workshops; as a consultant in science curriculum design and implementation and in outdoor learning; and as a widely published author on nature and education.

In 1999 Hilton launched “Operation Ruby Throat: The Hummingbird Project,” a cross-disciplinary initiative that builds international collaboration among students and teachers. An active field researcher, Hilton is authorized to capture wild hummingbirds and has banded and released over 4,000 Ruby-throated Hummingbirds at Hilton Pond Center. Since 2005, Hilton has led field expeditions into Central America to band and observe ruby-throats on their wintering grounds in the Neotropics.

Hilton also works with outdoor learning and nature centers to design trails, interpretive exhibits, and comprehensive education programs. In 2008, Hilton began exchange work as Consulting Director for New River Birding & Nature Center at Wolf Creek Park in Fayette County WV.

Hilton is based near York, SC at Hilton Pond Center for Piedmont Natural History, a non-profit research, education, and conservation organization.

Operation Ruby Throat: http://www.rubythroat.org

Hilton Pond Center: http://www.hiltonpond.org

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A lifelong Ohioan, Ethan began birding at the ripe age of 10 when he literally woke up one morning and decided to become a birder. Since then he's worked field jobs from Ohio to Alaska, traveled to nearly 20 countries on 4 continents, and lead birding trips in Canada, United States and South Africa (where he also lived for two years).

Previously the Education and Outreach Specialist for Black Swamp Bird Observatory, he is now a board member of the Ohio Ornithological Society, eBird reviewer for South Africa and the Ohio editor of North American Birds - Spring Season.

Nomadic Birder: nomadicbirder.blogspot.com

As the sales manager for Eagle Optics, Ben has an extensive knowledge of and field experience with the current optics being produced by all the major players in today's sport optics industry. Through his years of work at Eagle Optics, Ben has developed a familiarity with the principals of how optics work and what to consider when purchasing optics for the best birding experience.

As a former restoration ecologist, Ben first fell in love with birds and birding while involved with vegetation studies on the prairies and oak savannahs of Southern Wisconsin. He's been an avid birder for ten years and continues to pursue this interest through his travels to birding and nature festivals across the country. Having witnessed and appreciated much of the avian diversity of North America while on the road, he still maintains a fondness for those grassland birds that first piqued his interest 10 years ago.

Eagle Optics eagleoptics.com

Jim works for the Ohio Division of Wildlife, specializing in nongame wildlife diversity issues, especially birds. Prior to that, he was a botanist with the Ohio Department of Natural Resources. He was inaugural president of the Ohio Ornithological Society, and served for seven years as secretary of the Ohio Bird Records Committee. Jim was the 2009 recipient of the Ludlow Griscom award, given annually by the American Birding Association to individuals who have made significant regional contributions to ornithology. He is author of Birds of Ohio (Lone Pine 2004); The Great Lakes Nature Guide (Lone Pine 2009); and Wild Ohio: The Best of Our Natural Heritage (Kent State University Press 2009). The latter won the 2010 Ohioana Book award. Jim writes a column, Nature, for the Columbus Dispatch, and has authored or co-authored over 100 scientific and popular articles in a variety of publications.

Ohio Birds and Biodiversity: http://jimmccormac.blogspot.com

Michael O’Brien is a freelance author, artist, and VENT tour leader living in Cape May, New Jersey. He has a passionate interest in bird vocalizations and field identification, and a serious addiction to migration and nocturnal birding. His travels have taken him throughout North and Central America and beyond. At home in Cape May, Michael serves as an Associate Naturalist with Cape May Bird Observatory for whom he conducts numerous workshops, and, for many years, conducted a fall songbird migration count.

He is co-author of The Shorebird Guide, Flight Calls of Migratory Birds, and America’s 100 Most Wanted Birds, and is primary author of Larkwire.com, an online and handheld application for learning bird sounds. His illustrations have been widely published including in National Geographic’s Field Guide to the Birds of North America and the new Peterson field guides.

Michael also has an intense interest in butterflies and leads several “Birds & Butterflies” tours with his wife, Louise Zemaitis, and is coordinator of the Cape May Butterfly Count.

Jim is a naturalist and tireless promoter of nature and heritage travel experiences on the peninsula that comprises the State of Delaware and the Eastern Shores of Maryland and Virginia (known regionally as "Delmarva"). He started birding in 1989 while attending Salisbury University, and became active in Delmarva's birding community after attending the Eastern Shore of Virginia Birding & Wildlife Festival in 1991.

Jim was employed as Executive Director of the Salisbury Zoological Park from 1994 through 2007. During his service as zoo director, Jim helped develop innovative wildlife education programs, and earned accreditation on three separate occasions from the Association of Zoos & Aquariums. In addition to managing the daily operations for a living collection, buildings, and grounds that hosted 200,000+ annual visitors, Jim also found time to help found and manage the award-winning Delmarva Birding Weekend.

Now in it's 16th year, the Delmarva Birding Weekend celebrates the spring migration of thousands of warblers, shorebirds, waterfowl and raptors. The Weekend combines boat trips, paddling treks, and expeditions by foot, and is held in conjunction with the Ward Museum of Wildfowl Art's Word Championship Competition during late April/early May. A typical Weekend tally usually hovers around 200 species, and the event's 400 annual participants are responsible for $100,000 in direct spending with area hotels, restaurants, and outfitters.

For the past three years, Jim was employed as Executive Director of Delmarva Low-Impact Tourism Experiences (DLITE). Under Jim’s direction, DLITE received tourism awards from the Maryland Office of Tourism and the Maryland Tourism Council for the innovative social media-marketing program Host Our Coast, and from the Delaware Office of Tourism for the Delmarva Birding Weekend. With much assistance from the DLITE Board of Directors and regional partners, Jim also led efforts to: create water trails for Smith Island, the Nanticoke River, and Maryland's coastal bays; develop interpretation training programs for Delmarva nature and history; and establish the Smith Island cake as Maryland's official state dessert.

Jim currently serves as director of the Hazel Outdoor Discovery Center in Eden, MD. The 525-acre preserve is a resource for outdoor exploration by local youth organizations. Jim continues to consult with regional tourism partners to develop new and exciting ways to attract travelers interested in Delmarva's nature and history.

Please visit www.dliteonline.net to learn more about Jim and DLITE.

Dr. Scott Shalaway is a certified wildlife biologist who makes his living as a nature writer and broadcaster.  He has been a part of the New River Birding and Nature Festival since its inception.

Scott received his Ph.D. in wildlife ecology from Michigan State University, and M.S. in biology from Northern Arizona University, and B.S. in entomology from the University of Delaware.   Since 1986 he has written a weekly nature column that reaches more than one million readers in newspapers such as the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Charleston Gazette, and the Wheeling News-Register. 

Scott writes feature stories for a variety of magazines, including Wonderful West Virginia and Birding Business; he has written eight books, including Building a Backyard Bird Habitat (2000, Stackpole), and he contributed an essay to Good Birder’s Don’t Wear White: 50 Tips from North America’s Top Birders (2007, Houghton Mifflin). 

Every weekend he hosts nature-themed radio shows in Wheeling, WV (Saturday, 9 to 11 a.m. on 1370 WVLY, www.wvly.net) and Pittsburgh (Sunday, noon to 2 p.m. on 1360 WMNY, www.wmnyradio.com).  And Scott contributes essays on nature for Inside Appalachia on West Virginia Public Radio.

And on occasion, Scott leads nature tours to places such as the Galapagos Islands, the cloud forests of Ecuador, Hawk Mountain, Maine, and the Everglades.

Early in his career Scott was on the zoology faculty at Oklahoma State University and taught ”Ornithology” for eight summers at the University of Oklahoma Biological Station at Lake Texoma.  He has also taught “Ornithology for Teachers” at Ohio State University’s Stone Lab in Lake Erie and at the Audubon Society’s camp at Hog Island, Maine.

Throughout the year Scott speaks to dozens of groups on a variety of natural history topics.  He lives on a wooded ridge top in Marshall County, WV with his wife, Linda, and their dog Pip.

Birds and Nature with Dr. Scott Shalaway: http://drscottshalaway.blogspot.com

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Pat has been a working naturalist since 1977 with a Masters Degree from Rowan University in Environmental Education and an undergraduate degree in Literature from the State University of New York at Oneonta. Today, she is a free-lance writer, photographer, naturalist, educator, lecturer, tour leader, and wildlife garden consultant. She is a passionate advocate and wildlife gardener for butterflies, moths, birds, and other critters.

Clay 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 for the past decade as a self-employed environmental consultant, naturalist and field biologist. He is a writer, naturalist, lecturer, tour leader, and was a long-time instructor for the American Birding Association’s Institute for Field Ornithology.

Pat and Clay together have co-authored How to Spot Butterflies (1999), How to Spot Hawks & Eagles (1996), and How to Spot an Owl (1994), and their landmark book, Birds and Birding at Cape May (Stackpole Books, 2006). Clay is a co-author, with Pete Dunne and David Sibley, of the classic Hawks in Flight (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1988; 2nd Edition 2012).

Articles and photography by Pat & Clay have appeared in New Jersey Audubon, Peregrine Observer, New Jersey Outdoors, Sanctuary, American Butterflies, Wild Bird, Bird Watcher’s Digest, Birder’s World, Birding, Living Bird, Defenders, and others.

Visit their website patandclaysutton.com

Bill Thompson, III is the editor of Bird Watcher's Digest, the magazine founded by his parents more than 30 years ago, in 1978. He is the author of numerous books about birds and nature, including, most recently Feeding and Identifying Birds  and The Young Birder's Guide to Birds of Eastern North America, both part of the Peterson Field Guide Series from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing. Bill has led birding trips all across North America and has spoken or performed at more than 100 birding and nature festivals worldwide. He has watched birds in more than 25 countries and on five continents.

Bill writes a daily web-log (blog) called “Bill of the Birds.” He also creates and hosts a podcast called “This Birding Life” which is available as a free download on the Bird Watcher’s Digest website and in the podcasts section of the iTunes store. The podcast receives more than 600,000 episode downloads per year.

In 2008 Bill was awarded a Service Citizen Award from the U.S Fish & Wildlife Service for his contributions in making the National Wildlife Refuge system more bird and birder-friendly. He was also awarded the Robert Ridgley Award for Excellence in Ornithological Publications from the American Birding Association.

In 2009 he was nominated for a "Heart of Green" award by thedailygreen.com for his work in fighting Nature Deficit Disorder by helping introduce kids to bird watching.

Born in Pella, Iowa, Bill encountered his spark bird there at the age of 8, when a snowy owl flew into the Thompson family's front yard. His favorite bird is the red-headed woodpecker.

• Bird Watcher’s Digest: http://www.birdwatchersdigest.com or http://www.birdwatchersdigest-digital.com

• Bill of the Birds (blog): http://billofthebirds.blogspot.com

• This Birding Life (podcast): http://www.birdwatchersdigest.com/site/podcasts/index.aspx

Connie Toops is an accomplished nature writer and photographer with more than thirty years of experience documenting natural history subjects. She is the author/principal photographer of nine nature books, including Hummingbirds: Jewels in Flight, Bluebirds Forever, Great Smoky Mountains, and Florida Everglades. One of Connie’s essays appears in the popular Houghton Mifflin book, Good Birders Don’t Wear White: 50 Tips from North America’s Top Birders, and she is currently co-authoring a Houghton Mifflin field guide to Attracting Backyard Hummingbirds and Butterflies with Bill Thompson III.

Since 1978 Connie’s articles and photos have appeared in dozens of conservation-oriented magazines. Her photography has graced trade and textbooks, advertising, annual reports, calendars, cards, and museum exhibits. Connie is a former contributing editor for Birder’s World magazine, occasionally writes for Bird Watcher’s Digest, and travels the country speaking on birding, wildlife gardening, and nature photography subjects. She has guided at the New River Birding & Nature Festival for the past 5 years and considers the week as an annual highlight on her spring calendar.

Connie is also a skilled naturalist. Before beginning her career in photojournalism, she worked at Colonial, Rocky Mountain, Shenandoah, Everglades, and Crater Lake National Parks. Her husband Pat was a career park ranger for 28 years. Connie and Pat landscaped several former suburban yards to attract “backyard” wildlife so Connie could photograph birds, butterflies, and other wild creatures in natural settings. In 2002 the Toops moved to Lost Cove, a 128-acre mountainside farm in the Big Pine area of western North Carolina, where they now live among numerous songbirds, hummingbirds, butterflies, and other wildlife they have invited into their yard.

Connie’s popular book, Bluebirds Forever, won the Midwest Independent Publishers Association Award for Best Environmental/Nature Book and the Mid-America Publishers Association Award for Best Photographic Book. Connie received the first Outstanding Service Award from the North American Nature Photography Association and was a semi-finalist for the 1998 Humanitarian Photographer of the Year Award.

Connie Toops, Photojournalist: agpix.com/toops

Lost Cove Farm: www.LasAves.biz

Julie Zickefoose is an artist, naturalist and writer who specializes in natural history. Her writing is based on keen observation of animal and human behavior, and she likes to interweave solid natural history information with larger philosophical themes to challenge and inspire the reader. An E.B. White quote best captures it: “I arise torn between a desire to save the world and a desire to savor the world. It makes it hard to plan the day.”

Julie contributes three-minute natural history commentaries to National Public Radio’s All Things Considered. She illustrates her books and magazine articles with her own sketches and watercolor paintings. Letters from Eden (Houghton Mifflin, 2006) will soon be followed by a memoir about the birds she has raised, healed, studied and followed throughout her life. She lives at Indigo Hill, an 80-acre wildlife sanctuary in Appalachian Ohio with her husband, Bill Thompson III, their children Phoebe and Liam, and their dog, Chet Baker, all of whom are festival regulars.

Julie's Blog: http://juliezickefoose.blogspot.com

Julie Zickefoose, Nature Artist & Writer: http://www.juliezickefoose.com

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Local talent tossed into the mix of experts on each field trip enhances the flavor of cultural and natural history shared with our guests. Their good humor, knowledge and love for the West Virginia mountains they call home are sincerely appreciated.

Dave Pollard
Geoff Heeter
Keith Richardson
Rachel Davis
Lynn Pollard
Lloyd Lewis
Paul Shaw
Gary Worthington
Wade Snyder
Gene Worthington
Al Waldron

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