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Many thanks to our fabulous
BLOG TEAM |
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BLOG TEAM ORGANIZER
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 About
Dawn Fine . . .
Biggest Week Blogger & Field Trip Leader
In 2001 Dawn and her husband Jeff sold
their home packed up their belongings
and hit the road. They have been living
the Nomadic lifestyle in their motor
home "Homey" ever since. Dawn started
blogging as way to show her family where
she was and what she was doing. In 2004,
while in Arizona, she saw her spark bird
~the Vermillion Flycatcher. From then on
Dawn and Jeff find time to bird as they
travel. Dawn, a self professed amateur
birder, says she often finds Wood Owls
and shouts out the wrong names for
birds. While Dawns blog is mostly a
travel blog, she blogs about birds and
birding as well. Dawn is a big proponent
of Social Media for Bird and Nature
Lovers. You can find her on Facebook as
Dawn Simmons Fine and Twitter as
DawnFine. You can follow Dawns
travels at
Dawns Bloggy Blog. If Dawn is in
your area give her a shout via her blog,
Facebook or Twitter, She and Jeff would
love to meet and bird, hike, bike, pick
mushrooms with you. Dawn also writes for
Birdingblogs.com where she features
other Bird Bloggers.
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BLOG TEAM MEMBERS |
 About
the Birds & Blooms Blog Team . . .
The team from Birds and
Blooms Magazine is coming to The Biggest
Week! The #1 Bird & Garden Magazine in
America, Birds & Blooms, offers
up great tips, ideas and solutions for
birding and gardening in the backyard.
Their
Birds and
Blooms Blog is
just another outlet for us to share the
information readers like you want to
read. Also, check out their Birds
& Blooms website. The
Birds & Blooms team is coming to NW Ohio
for The Biggest Week, and they'll be
blogging about it before, during, and
after the festival! They'll be hosting
Hummingbird Haven at Black Swamp Bird
Observatory, a special booth filled
with all kinds of goodies, raffles,
great tips on feeding hummingbirds and
other feathered visitors, and much more!
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About Jennifer Callaway . . .
Our Northwest Ohio Birdfreak
Friend
 Veery
- Jennifer Outcalt (Birdfreak's sister),
a 34-year old birder with a 12-yr old
boy that is also into birding and quite
excellent at spotting birds. Veery
enjoys photgraphy too but claims to not
be that good at it. However, she is
super quick at spotting birds and is
devoted to conservation.
Veery earned a degree in Geography with
an emphasis on Natural Environmental
Systems and a GIS Certificate at
Northern Illinois University in De Kalb,
Illinois. She helps
Birdfreak
write many of the posts and brainstorm
for new ideas about conservation. She
currently works as a Cartographer for
the NRCS (Natural Resources Conservation
Service) in Findlay, Ohio.
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 About
Laura Erickson . . .
Biggest Week
Blogger, Field Trip Leader, & Keynote Speaker
Living in Duluth Minnesota
with her husband and three children,
Laura has dedicated her
professional life to the love,
understanding, and protection of birds.
She is author of five books about birds,
including 101 Ways to Help Birds,
The Bird Watching Answer Book,
and National Outdoor Book Award winner
Sharing the Wonder of Birds with Kids.
Since 1986, she has written and produced
“For the Birds,” a 3–5 minute radio
program broadcast on several public and
community stations mostly in the Upper
Midwest from Powell, Wyoming, to
Jamestown, New York; the program is also
podcast on iTunes. Laura was science
editor at the Cornell Lab of
Ornithology, is a contributing editor
for BirdWatching magazine, blogs
for the American Birding Association and
BirdWatching, and blogs at
Laura's Birding
Blog.
She writes regularly for a rural
newspaper, The Country Today, and
has contributed articles to Birding,
BirdScope (which she edited for
the Cornell Lab of Ornithology from
2008-2011), Audubon, Wisconsin
Trails, The Passenger Pigeon,
The Loon, the Wisconsin State
Journal, Duluth News-Tribune,
and the Minneapolis Star Tribune.
She serves as the “American Robin
Expert” and the “Whooping Crane Expert”
for the Webby-Award-winning website
Journey North. She was Awarded the 2007
Bronze Passenger Pigeon Award “for
significant contributions to Wisconsin
ornithology,” and the Conservationist of
the Year award by The Raptor Center in
St. Paul, Minnesota.
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 About
Anna Fasoli . . .
Biggest
Week Blogger
Anna is a field biologist
who has traveled all over the US working
on different research projects. She has
worked with Whooping Cranes, Northern
Saw-whet Owls, Least Terns, Piping
Plovers, Wilson's Snipe, Whimbrel,
Yellow-billed Cuckoos, migrant eastern
raptors, Crested Caracara, and
Long-billed Curlew. She
is also on the
Nemesis Bird
blog team. |
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 About
Dale Forbes . . .
Biggest Week Blogger
Dale got his first pair of binoculars
for a very early birthday after his dad
realized that it was the only way to be
left in peace. Many robins, eagles and
finches later, he ended up at university
studying various biology things and
wrote a thesis on vertebrate
biogeography in southern African
forests. While studying, he also worked
on various conservation/research
projects (parrots, wagtails, vultures,
and anything else that flew) and ringed
thousands of birds. Dale studied scarlet
macaws, and worked in their
conservation, for three years in
southern Costa Rica, followed by a year
in the Caribbean working on Whale
Sharks. After meeting the woman of his
dreams, he moved to Austria where he now
has the coolest job in the world making
awesome toys for birders (Swarovski
Optik product manager). He happens to
also be obsessed with photography,
particularly digiscoping, and despite
all efforts will almost certainly never
be a good birder. He blogs for
10,000 Birds
and for
birdingblogs.com.
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 About
Cheryl Harner . . .
Biggest Week
Blogger & Field Trip Leader
Cheryl is interested in all forms of
flora and fauna and fascinated by the
connections between botany and wildlife.
She is an avid gardener and life-long
wildflower and butterfly enthusiast.
President of Greater Mohican Audubon
Society and Richland County’s Soil and
Water District’s Conservationist of the
year ‘10, she also enjoys volunteering
at Kingwood Center and Gorman Nature
Center. A great enthusiast for
conservation, Cheryl promotes
environmental education and the use of
native plants in the home landscape.
Visit Cheryl's
Weedpicker's
Journal blog for
more of her adventures in nature.
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 About
Jerry Jourdan
. . .
Biggest Week
Blogger
Jerry is a Michigander who has been
birding for over 30 years. His passion
is bird photography. Like most avid
birders unable to afford 'the big glass'
he discovered the art of 'digiscoping'
or photographing birds through a
spotting scope with a point and shoot
camera. Since then he has developed the
technique to produce stunning results.
His photos have appeared in numerous
local and international publications
including Michigan Birds and Natural
History, Birder’s World Magazine,
Swarovski Optik’s Digiscoper of the Year
Competition, and he took 1st
Place in the Digiscoping competition
hosted by WildBird Magazine in 2008. He
is a member of Michigan Audubon Society,
Whitefish Point Bird Observatory, Erie
Shores Birding Association, the American
Birding Association, and is the compiler
for the Monroe Christmas Bird Count. He
is also a member of the Detroit River
Hawk Watch Advisory Committee. He is
also an active blogger who keeps an
online field journal of his adventures
and photos found at his
Jerry Jourdan
blog
and a second blog dedicated to Digiscoping which you can find
HERE.
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 About
Alex Lamoreaux . . .
Biggest Week
Blogger
Alex currently resides in
Pennsylvania and is a student at
Penn State University, majoring in
Wildlife Biology. Most of the time,
he is out birding when he should be
studying. His favorite group of
birds are the birds of prey which he
loves studying and photographing.
He is also on the
Nemesis Bird
blog team.
Some of his
photography can be seen at his
Picasa site
HERE.
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 About
Greg Miller . . .
Biggest Week Blogger, Speaker & Field Trip
Leader
Greg Miller has been birding for almost
50 years and has birded in all 50
states. He was formerly on the board of
directors for Southern Maryland Audubon
Society and the board of directors for
the Ohio Ornithological Society. In
1998, Greg did a Big Year in an effort
to see as many species of birds as
possible in one calendar year. Two other
birders and he broke the 700 mark. Their
individual stories, as well as the
interactive competition, are documented
in Mark Obmascik’s book, The Big Year,
2004. The book made the USA Today’s Best
Books of 2004, New York Times Best
Seller #35, and it was an Amazon Top 100
Seller for weeks. Filming was completed
the summer of 2010 for a comedic movie,
The Big Year, was released in 2011.
Stars include Jack Black, Steve Martin
and Owen Wilson. To learn more about
Greg, visit
www.gregmillerbirding.com.
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 About
Kelly Riccetti . . .
Biggest
Week Blogger
Kelly is a lifelong
artist and student of nature with a
specific interest in ornithology. In
2009 Kelly launched the popular bird
and nature blog “Red and the Peanut”
where she shares her nature
research, photographs, and
paintings, along with product and
book reviews. When not blogging, she
can often be found hiking the banks
of the Little Miami River in
Cincinnati searching out birds,
wildflowers, insects and turtles.
Rewarding to Kelly is the community
of birders she has connected with
worldwide through blogging. She’s
made many birding friends and has
met up with many other bird bloggers
and followers at birding events in
Ohio and while traveling. Kelly has
degrees in Animal Sciences and
German Literature from the
University of Cincinnati.
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 About
Rob Ripma. . .
Biggest Week
Blogger & Field Trip Leader
Rob, a life-long Indiana resident,
has birded extensively in the
Midwest for more than ten years. He
counts Southwest Florida, Southeast
Arizona, the Rio Grande Valley,
Goose Pond FWA (Indiana) and Magee
Marsh (Ohio) as some of his favorite
birding locations. Rob has also
travelled to Hawaii, Alaska,
California, South Dakota, Colorado,
the Upper Peninsula of Michigan,
North Carolina and Cancun, Mexico to
bird, as well as taken pelagic trips
into the Atlantic and Pacific
Oceans.
When he’s not birding, Rob works for
Wild Birds Unlimited and manages a
birding blog and website,
nuttybirder.com. He
has served on the executive board of
the Indiana Audubon Society for
three years (currently as Vice
President) and is a co-founder of
the Indiana Young Birders Club. Rob
speaks at a variety of organizations
and schools about birds and birding
to share his knowledge and
experiences in the field. He loves
working with new and experienced
birders of all ages and believes
that teaching people about birds
will not only increase interest in
birding but also help them better
understand why we must work to
protect birds and their habitats.
Rob graduated from Indiana
University’s Kelley School of
Business in 2008 with a degree in
Marketing and lives with his wife
Stephanie in Carmel, Indiana.
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 About
Linda Rockwell . . .
Biggest
Week Blogger
Linda is a New Mexican
who has been birding for fun
throughout her entire life. She was
fortunate to grow up near Bitter
Lake National Wildlife Refuge in
Roswell, New Mexico and to have
parents who loved birds. In 2009 she
began photographing birds with a
borrowed camera. This casual hobby
became an avid one, and she now
travels to birding areas across the
US in pursuit of her interest. One
of her photos is on the cover of the
2012 issue of Habitat, the yearly
publication for Bosque del Apache
National Wildlife Refuge. She blogs
and shares her bird photos at her
Photo
Feathers blog, and her other photos
can be found at her
Photo Flurries
blog.
She is a monthly guest blogger for
Birding Is Fun! She describes
herself as a "social birder." Like
Dawn Fine, she is a proponent of
social media for birders. You can
find her on Twitter as LRockwellatty
and on Google Plus and Facebook as
Linda Rockwell. When she is not
birding and taking photographs,
Linda practices law in Albuquerque,
New Mexico. She is a dog lover, a
cyclist, a fly fisher and an
inspired cook.
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 About
Drew Weber . . .
Biggest Week Blogger
Drew is a young
ornithologist living and birding in
Pennsylvania. He is pursuing a
master's degree at Penn State
University studying grassland birds
and their relationships with
different agricultural practices.
When he is not working feverishly on
his thesis, he enjoy adding new
birds to his county, state and life
lists, digiscoping and getting
outdoors. Drew is active in the
Pennsylvania birding community as a
member of the bird records
committee, as well as a reviewer for
sightings submitted to eBird.org in
central and southeastern PA. He is
also on the
Nemesis Bird
blog team. Some topics that really
interest him include migration, bird
distributions and vagrancy.
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 About
Chris West . . .
Biggest
Blogger & Week Field Trip Leader
Chris is a lifelong birder who can't
remember not having a pair of
binoculars in his hands. His love of
birds and traveling has taken him to
every corner of the US and Canada as
well as to the American tropics.
Almost even more than birding, Chris
loves to share what little bit of
knowledge he has managed to soak up
over years of birding.
Besides being a birder/field trip
leader/guide, Chris is also a
blogger/writer and photographer. He
has written essays on subjects
ranging from identification and bird
finding to trip reports and
conservation topics. His bird
photography has appeared in both
paper and online publications
ranging from birding magazines to
quarterly journals to online
articles on conservation and
recognizing newly split species. He
particularly enjoys
photo-documenting vagrants whenever
and wherever they show up. Chris blogs
at
Swallow-tailed Kite.
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 About
Susan
Williams
. . .
Biggest
Week Blogger
Susan is the director of education
at RAPTOR, Inc.,
www.raptorinc.org,
a
Cincinnati-based bird of prey
rehabilitation center. After seeing
her spark bird in 2000 (a male Downy
Woodpecker) she's gone around the
bend for birds, and especially birds
of prey, sharing her enthusiasm for
anyone who will listen. When
encountered in the field, Susan will
generally be heard before she is
seen, as she is of the opinion that
birding should be fun, fun, fun!
Susan's blog, "Susan Gets Native"
began in 2005 as a way to connect
with family and to educate about the
importance of native plants, and has
morphed into a blog about birding,
raptors and breaking apart the
stereotype of “birdwatcher".
Susan can be found on Facebook as
Susan Kailholz-Williams.
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