2011 Mono Basin Bird Chautauqua Program Leaders and Presenters

Karen Amstutz lives on the edge of Yosemite National Park with her husband and their three daughters. Like many creatures, Karen and her family undertake a seasonal migration upslope to Tuolumne Meadows where she works each summer as a seasonal Ranger-Naturalist. Karen earned her M.A. from Humboldt State University in Environmental Education, and studied Marine Biology and Human Development at UC Davis. She has been fortunate to have worked as a naturalist in beautiful places for most of 25 years. With her binoculars always around her neck, Karen has traveled extensively in Asia, Central America, and Europe looking for adventures and feathered life forms.

Charles Atkinson has taught writing at UC Santa Cruz, for 30 years. He's the author of four volumes of poetry, three of which have won national awards. His poems appear regularly in literary magazines and anthologies around the country.

Ted Beedy has spent most of his life birding in the Sierra, including the Mono Basin. He authored the wildlife chapters of the Water Rights EIR for Mono Lake, and spent three years doing field work in the Mono Basin. He is currently authoring Birds of the Sierra Nevada, which will include color illustrations of about 270 species by Keith Hansen. Ted received his PhD in Zoology from UC Davis in 1982.

Peter Bergen was first introduced to nature awareness and primitive skills in 1987 and since then he has been learning, practicing, and enthusiastically sharing these time-tested skills and activities. He has enjoyed working with school and scouting groups, nature preserve docents, bass guitar players, and others in places like New Jersey's Pine Barrens, Tennessee's rolling hills, and coastal California. Currently Peter is associated with Regenerative Design Nature Awareness and Riekes Center for Human Enhancment.

Ryan Burnett is the Sierra Nevada Director for PRBO Conservation Science. He has been working for PRBO for 15 years and currently directs about a dozen projects studying the ecology and conservation of birds across the Sierra Nevada. He is especially interested in using birds as indicators of ecosystem health to help guide land management and conservation. His interest in birds has taken him, for both work and pleasure, around the world. He currently lives along Lake Almanor in the northern Sierra Nevada with his wife and son.

Pamela Conrad is an astrobiologist and mineralogist working on planetary habitability at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. She has worked for the past several years on development of approaches and measurements for assessment of habitability on planetary surface environments and the development of non-invasive optical methods for the in situ "triaging" of potential rock sample targets. Her planetary science interests are in the stability of organic molecules and of minerals on the surface of Mars and the comparative early evolution of Earth and Mars. She is Deputy Principal Investigator and Investigation Scientist for the SAM suite that will fly on the Mars Science Laboratory payload. Her extensive field experience revolves around characterizing the edges of the habitable zones in polar deserts and testing rock targeting (triage) tools. She has participated in seven arctic expeditions as well as two Antarctic expeditions (one as PI), and explored deep-sea hydrothermal vents in the Pacific Ocean from a submersible. Earth-based interests include applying habitability assessment measurements to the development of models predicting the advance and decline of habitable environments, both terrestrial and near-shore marine.

Pete Devine has directed the non-profit Yosemite Conservancy's education programs for the past six years, organizing the diverse field seminars and custom adventures that the Conservancy offers each year. Before coming to work for the Conservancy, Pete directed the education program of Yosemite Institute for 13 years. Born and raised near Boston and schooled in biology in Colorado, Pete has been a park ranger in Utah, an archeologist in New Zealand, a river guide on the Colorado River, and a teacher in Chile. He makes annual studies of the Lyell Glacier, has biked with Lance Armstrong, and is married to a National Park Service archeologist. He's the guy in the "Yosemite Frazil Ice" video, and he leads the Conservancy's trips to Yosemite's sister national parks in China. Pete loves Steller's Jays.

Chef Linda Dore began her cooking career at Roget's Restaurant (now Nevados) in Mammoth, and has worked in several other Mammoth restaurants including Nevados, The Matterhorn, and Anything Goes Café. She delighted Eastern Sierra visitors and locals alike with her talents as chef at The Mono Inn at Mono Lake for four years. She studied for eight years under a graduate of the Culinary Academy in San Francisco. She says, "I like to think that my diploma comes from 'Catastrophe Cooking 101A—out of the frying pan and into the fire'... that great school of experience!" Linda has been serving the Chautauqua's Friday night dinners since they began.

Santiago Escruceria is a Colombian-born American citizen residing in California for the past 30 years. He graduated with a BA in Cultural Anthropology and a minor in Environmental Studies from Sonoma State University in northern California. He has taught environmental education, in Spanish and English, for the past 16 years, 11 of which he has spent with the Mono Lake Committee. At Mono Lake he manages an outdoor education program for Los Angeles inner-city youth. Santiago is an avid birder, leading bird walks in Colombia during the winter and walks for school groups and the public in the Mono Basin during the summer. He has been birding the Americas since 1986.

Lisa Fields is the wildlife biologist for the Sierra District of California State Parks; she is in charge of wildlife management in parks extending from Plumas-Eureka State Park in the north to Mono Lake Tufa State Natural Reserve in the south. Her main emphasis is on raptor management, which includes Osprey, Northern Goshawk, Bald Eagle, and California Spotted Owl. At Mono Lake, she has been leading the Osprey nest monitoring program since 2004.

Drew Foster has a broad and holistic view of California from his time spent at the beaches of Malibu, the redwood forest, the city by the bay, and the Eastern Sierra. He is a lumberjack, a floral enthusiast, professional rock skipper, balloon aficionado, and an avid climber of trees. He has worked on sustainability issues and ecological restoration for Friends of the Inyo for several years, and is committed to teaching others about the natural world, and fostering a deeper respect for and excitement about the land.

Tom Hahn is a field biologist with Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Biology from Stanford University, and a PhD in Zoology from the University of Washington. He's been studying crossbills, White-crowned Sparrows, and other songbirds all over the west since the mid-1980s, and has spent countless hours in the field around Tioga Pass. He enjoys observing animals in their natural habitats, sharing what he knows with fellow naturalists, and learning from his students. Tom is currently on the biology faculty at UC Davis, and lives in Davis with his wife Julie and his seven-year-old son Lyle. You can find out more about his research at his UC Davis faculty page.

John Harris began his interest in Mono's mammals while working as an undergraduate assistant in a study of chipmunks in 1975. He went on to study small mammals on Mono's dunes as a graduate student and has worked on small mammals in the Sierra Nevada and San Joaquin Valley of California. John is the author of Mammals of the Mono Lake-Tioga Pass Region and is currently teaching at Mills College in Oakland, California.

Debbie House is a watershed Resources Specialist for the Los Angeles Department of Water & Power in Bishop. She has a Master's in Biological Sciences from California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, where she conducted research in avian community ecology. She is conducting long-term monitoring studies at Mono Lake, Bridgeport Reservoir, and Crowley Lake Reservoir in order to evaluate the response of waterfowl and shorebird populations to increases in the elevation of Mono Lake.

Ann Howald was trained as a plant ecologist. She is a consulting botanist who also does volunteer work for the California Native Plant Society. She lives in Sonoma and spends some of each summer studying plants in the Eastern Sierra. Ann is a talented and inspiring teacher. She has been a popular Mono Lake Committee field seminar instructor for over a decade.

Burleigh Lockwood has been a field biologist since the age of four (smashed worms and crumpled caterpillars in inquisitive hands). She pursued biology through high school and into college. While she was finishing her degree in Environmental Biology, she began working for California Fish & Game as a seasonal biologist. It was a career shift to the Forest Service that brought her into contact with owls. As an official "hooter" on Spotted Owl surveys for the Forest Service, she learned the habits and hoots of the owls in the Sierra. She is currently a biologist for the Education Department of the Chafee Zoo in Fresno.

Chris McCreedy has worked in the Great Basin, Mojave, Sonoran, and Antarctic deserts with PRBO Conservation Science since 1999, and in the Mono Basin since 2001. He enjoys ecology, illustration, writing, and talking to lizards and penguins. His current graduate work at the University of Arizona researches the impacts of drought on Sonoran Desert passerines. He coordinates PRBO's land bird projects in the Mojave and Sonoran deserts, and has been working on the Rush Creek Willow Flycatcher population since he found them nesting there in 2001.

Steve McLaughlin is a botanist, a University of Arizona Professor Emeritus, and past-president of the Bristlecone Chapter of the California Native Plant Society. He also serves on the board of Friends of the Inyo. Steve and his wife, botanist Janice Bowers, live on Birch Creek south of Big Pine, spending as much time as they can birding, botanizing, and hiking throughout the Eastern Sierra.

Peter Metropulos has spent 21 years exploring and birding throughout Mono County and has an intimate knowledge of Mono Basin birds. He has served as one of the sub-regional editors of North American Birds magazine for over 26 years, and has co-authored several articles and bird-finding guides. Peter is a practicing horticulturist and is therefore able to identify and share with us many of the area's botanical wonders as well.

Stella Moss came to the Mono Basin in 2005 to work for PRBO Conservation Science on Mono Lake's tributary streams. She has returned to the Eastern Sierra every season since and now leads PRBO's Eastern Sierra projects. Stella has a BA in Outdoor Experiential Education and Natural History from Prescott College. Her work with PRBO in the Eastern Sierra provides critical information on breeding songbirds in sagebrush, aspen, pinyon pine and riparian habitats. The results of this research are used to guide land management decisions in the Eastern Sierra. Stella is grateful to call the Mono Basin her home and is eager to further the understanding of bird conservation in the region.

Lisa Murphy is the lead ranger naturalist at White Wolf, Yosemite National Park. Her first foray into star programs was in 1993 assisting with a planetarium and observatory for sixth grade students at the Clemmie Gill School of Science & Conservation in Tulare County. Lisa is enchanted by the night sky, especially as seen from the open spaces in Yosemite's high country and the Mono Basin.

Kristie Nelson has had a love for birds since some of her earliest memories. She has conducted ornithological fieldwork throughout much of the state, serves on the California Bird Records Committee, and has been the project leader for the California Gull research at Mono Lake for several years. She lives in the Mono Basin and is very familiar with its assemblage of bird life. When not engaged in birding activities, she is busy running a small diversified farm with her husband Joel.

Karyn "Kestrel" O'Hearn began following birds around during Natural History Field Quarter through UC Santa Cruz. After graduating in 1996 with a BA in Natural History, she worked at several outdoor schools as a naturalist and seasonally assisted in ornithological fieldwork. Kestrel finally settled at an outdoor school just outside of Yosemite National Park, where she worked as a naturalist for eight years, recently leaving to pursue life as a classroom teacher where she entices seventh graders into the world of science. Since 2002, she returns each summer to live and work as a Ranger Naturalist in Yosemite's high country where birds are her guides and natural environments her teachers.

Bob Power is the Executive Director for Santa Clara Valley Audubon Society. Bob is a leader for the Golden Gate Raptor Observatory's HawkWatch program, and has been a field trip leader for Golden Gate Audubon, the San Francisco Bay Bird Observatory, the Oakland Bird Club, the Wild Bird Center, and trip co-leader for Paradise Birding and Elder Hostel International. Bob has been the instructor for Introduction to Birding at Palo Alto Adult School for the past seven years.

Mike Prather is a past president of Eastern Sierra Audubon and is on the Board of Directors for Friends of the Inyo. He actively works on Owens Valley and Owens Lake water and wildlife issues and has been a resident of Inyo County (Lone Pine) for over 30 years. He's a long-time Monophile too!

Pete Pumphrey: biography coming soon.

Sarah Rabkin is a writer, editor, visual artist, and keeper of illustrated field journals. She has led dozens of field workshops in beautiful settings around the American West, with a special focus on the Sierra Nevada and environs. A longtime teacher of writing and environmental studies at UC Santa Cruz, Sarah has a BA in biology from Harvard University and a graduate certificate in science communication from UC Santa Cruz. She finds inspiration in landscapes, places, and the natural world, and enjoys helping others cultivate the power in their own voices and visions.

Marie Read, Ithaca, New York-based wildlife photographer, first visited the Mono Lake Basin over ten years ago, when her husband, Cornell biologist Peter Wrege, was studying the lake's California Gull population. She fell in love with the region and longed to return. Last spring the time was right, so she packed up her camera gear and headed west to spend six weeks here, photographing the local wildlife and scenery. So began her ongoing quest to photograph the birds of the Mono Basin. Marie's photos are published in numerous magazines, calendars, and books worldwide. She's the author of Secret Lives of Common Birds: Enjoying Bird Behavior Through the Seasons.

Will Richardson has been birding and conducting field research in the Sierra Nevada since 1994, including several seasons working for PRBO Conservation Science in the Mono Basin and elsewhere in the Eastern Sierra. Will received his PhD in Ecology, Evolution, & Conservation Biology from the University of Nevada—Reno, studying bird communities in Sierra Nevada aspen habitats. He resides in Truckee and now focuses most of his attention on the natural history of the Lake Tahoe region. He is currently authoring a status and distribution guide for the birds of the Lake Tahoe basin, and is co-founder and Co-Executive Director of a fledgling research, education, and outreach organization: the Tahoe Institute for Natural Science.

Caitlin Robinson-Nilsen is the Waterbird Program Director at the San Francisco Bay Bird Observatory. Her graduate work looked at Western Snowy Plover use of the salt ponds in the San Francisco Bay. She now spends much of her time researching one of the plovers main nest and chick predators: California Gulls.

Cathy Rose, an experienced botanical guide in the deserts, coasts, and mountains of California, has led plant excursions for the National Park Service in the Tuolumne Meadows/Tioga Pass area for 12 years. A native California, Cathy owns a cabin in the Eastern Sierra. She has explored the local areas and is eager to share the joy of discovery with participants at all levels of knowledge.

Michael Elsohn Ross lives with his wife in El Portal at Yosemite's western boundary, perched on a bluff overlooking the Merced River where they hear dippers sing and watch herons hunt. For more than 30 years he has led field classes and custom hikes for the Yosemite Conservancy, including many programs for children and families. He wrote and illustrated his first two children's books in 1979 and has written 40 more since then. Rolypolyolgy, Become a Bird and Fly, Snug as a Bug, Bird Watching with Margaret Morse Nice, and Baby Bear Isn't hungry are a few of the titles inspired by his life and work in the mountains. Michael graduated with a BS in Conservation of Natural Resources, with a minor in Entomology, from UC Berkeley and earned a teaching credential in early childhood education from Fresno State University.

Ali Sheehey is the Outreach Director for Audubon Kern River Preserve. Her favorite thing is the Earth itself, so an exploration with her is an experience in everything this great planet might offer. From geology to archeology to biology ... come explore nature with Nature Ali.

Dave Shuford is a biologist with PRBO Conservation Science's Wetlands Ecology Division and became immersed in avian studies at Mono Lake in 1983 when he began research on California Gulls nesting on the lake's islands. Dave has conducted breeding bird atlas projects in Marin County and the Glass Mountain region of Mono County and has surveyed shorebird and waterbird populations throughout the interior of California. He has spent countless hours exploring the hinterlands of the state and has a passion for understanding and adding to knowledge on the status and distribution of California's diverse avifauna. He regularly teaches classes with the Mono Lake Committee and with San Francisco State's Sierra Nevada Field Campus at Yuba Pass, and he looks forward to sharing his knowledge with you and learning from you as well.

Stephen Shunk rode his first Mono Lake Bike-A-Thon without ever having seen the lake itself. After his first view of the Mono Lake shoreline, Steve became a Monophile for life. Since then, Steve has become an accomplished professional birder, leading birding tours from California to Sicily and speaking at birding festivals and meetings across North America. Since 1997 Steve has studied woodpeckers on the east slope of Oregon's Cascade Mountains, and he recently completed the Peterson Reference Guide to Woodpeckers of North America. When he is not watching woodpeckers, Steve can be found at home in Central Oregon's Metolius River basin where he is surrounded by woodpeckers. Steve's infectious enthusiasm for birds and the outdoors will leave you with many fond memories.

Zach Smith grew up in San Diego and spent much of his youth honing his soccer skills. A move to Davis, California for college eventually introduced him to the world of science, particularly raptors. After graduation, he embarked on a life of vagrancy as a freelance field biologist that has led him to many wild parts of California, the gulf coast of Texas, the southern New Jersey shore, Chile's Atacama Desert, the humid lowlands of Veracruz, and the Canary Islands, among other locales. In the end, Zach considers the Eastern Sierra one of his favorite spots and was introduced to the wonders of the region on a camping trip with his father up Convict Canyon (still a favorite spot). In recent years he has become interested in dragonflies, and is somewhat obsessed with photographing these predatory insects. Currently, Zach lives in Davis with his wife Elizabeth.

Rich Stallcup is a wildlife biologist (specializing in birds) who has many years of field experience throughout western North America including the Mono Basin and Sierra. A good friend of David Gaines and a Mono Lake warrior from the beginning, Rich has also been a senior tour leader and owner of WINGS, a teacher at Point Reyes Field Seminars, and author of several scientific papers and books like Ocean Birds of the Nearshore Pacific. Rich co-founded the Point Reyes Bird Observatory in the late 1960s, and now serves as a naturalist for PRBO Conservation Science.

Bob Steele is a professional bird photographer from Inyokern, California. He has been involved in birding and bird photography for over 20 years. Inyokern is in the bird-rich Kern County, an area centrally located at the convergence of multiple bio-regions, providing the opportunity to photograph many avian subjects. Bob has also traveled around the country, to Central and South America, Australia, and the Southern Ocean, photographing birds along the way. Bob's photos can be seen in many publications: Birding, Wild Bird, Birder's World, Ducks Unlimited, National Geographic Traveler, and National Wildlife magazines; books include: multiple National Geographic field guides, the Smithsonian Field Guide to Birds of North America, American Museum of Natural History Birds of North America, and the soon-to-be-published Stokes Field Guide to Birds of North America.

Susan Steele's interest in birds began as a child in Idaho with evenings spent on the porch listening to meadowlarks. This interest blossomed into a passion when she moved to the California desert more than 20 years ago. An accomplished birder with many state and county records, she spends her free time birding, hiking, and enjoying the flowers in the Eastern Sierra.

John Sterling is a professional ornithologist who has birded extensively throughout California for 40 years. He has served as a staff avian ecologist for the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center, research labs of the Forest Service and H.T. Harvey & Associates, among many other organizations. John is currently writing a book on the status and distribution of the birds of California, and leads tours, teaches classes, and conducts research as an independent biologist. John learned about the real magic of Mono Lake as a teenager on a trip with Rich Stallcup in 1976.

Greg Stock is the first-ever Yosemite National Park geologist. He received a degree in Geology from Humboldt State University and a PhD in Earth Sciences from UC Santa Cruz. A near-lifelong resident of the Sierra Nevada, Greg has studied and mapped the geology of the Sierra Nevada and Mono Basin for over ten years. He resides in Yosemite Valley with his wife Sarah and daughter Autumn.

Sarah Stock is a wildlife biologist at Yosemite National Park where she studies wildlife ranging from songbird population dynamics to Great Gray Owl ecology. Prior to joining the National Park Service, Sarah was a migratory field biologist working with endangered species in Hawaii and the Marianas Islands, breeding birds in Alaska, spring migrating birds in Louisiana, and conducting bird monitoring programs at Idaho Bird Observatory (six seasons) and Ventana Wildlife Society's Big Sur Ornithology Lab (four years). She earned her Master's degree at the University of Idaho in 2001 where she focused on the migration ecology of Flammulated and Northern Saw-whet Owls. Sarah has authored many technical reports and peer-reviewed publications on western landbird status, ecology, and management; and served on California Partners in Flight Executive Steering Committee. Now living in Yosemite Valley, Sarah's favorite past-time is building her six-year-old daughter’s life list.

Bruce Webb is a field technician for Swarovski Optik and gives digiscoping classes at birding events throughout the western states. Also, he is the US distributor of Wildlife Recorder listing software. In 1999, he started the Sierra Nevada Birds Yahoo group. Some earlier exploits include being the photo editor for Western Birds, studying small owls in Colorado and, presently in summers, guiding visiting birders and photographers around the Lake Tahoe area.

Erik Westerlund has worked as a naturalist in Yosemite since 1992. He received a Bachelor's degree in Biology from the University of Wisconsin—Eau Claire and a Master's in Natural Resource Management from University of Wisconsin—Stevens Point. He spends most of his free time studying the natural history of Yosemite's birds, plants, and insects, and is an avid observer of all that is beautiful.

Stuart Wilkinson is a long-time Mono Lake paddling guide and veteran kayaker. He and his wife Sue own and operate Caldera Kayaks, and have been operating on Mono Lake for about 15 years. When he's not kayaking Stuart assists with monitoring the Long Valley Caldera for the US Geological Survey.

James Wilson and his wife Kay have lived in Bishop in Eastern California for over 30 years. James is a graduate of UC Berkeley, a business owner, and a longtime birdwatcher. He is a founding member of Friends of the Inyo and the current president.

David Wimpfhemier worked for the Mono Lake Committee in the mid-1980s, accomplishing a variety of educational, lobbying, and promotional objectives. On eleven 350-mile fundraising Bike-A-Thons pedaling from Los Angeles to Mono Lake, he was known to peddle off-course to pursue birds. As a professional nature guide, David educates and interprets all aspects of the environment. For over 25 years, David has imparted much knowledge to private clients and for organizations such as Point Reyes Field Seminars, Mono Lake Committee Field Seminars, Oceanic Society, Elderhostel, Wild Wings and the Smithsonian Institution. David's seasoned focus and knowledge make for an enjoyable and educational outing.