SEABIRD FEST

Leaders and Speakers

Jim Danzenbaker - Jim started birding in New Jersey at age 6 and quickly grew interested in all facets of birding.  In 1970, he took his first pelagic trip off Virginia Beach and the pelagic bug has been coursing through his veins ever since.  This interest has led to studying seabirds off the East and West coasts of North America as well as overseas off Japan and Chile.  He is a staff naturalist on an annual cruise to the Falkland Islands and South Georgia and the Antarctic Peninsula where he lectures on seabird identification.  He has been privileged to co-lead over 250 pelagic trips for Shearwater Journeys for the last 25 years and has led more than 15 neotropical birding tours to Panama, Venezuela, and Ecuador.  Jim’s enthusiasm for the great outdoors, respect for the environment and his speaking experience have given him a willingness to share his knowledge of seabirds.   Jim lives in Washington State where he is the Sales Manager for the Americas at Kowa Sporting Optics.
Shawneen Finnegan - Though interested in birds since her childhood in Palo Alto, California, Shawneen Finnegan didn’t get serious about birding until her mid-twenties, when she became consumed with a passion to become an expert at bird identification. Her career in birding has included leading and managing tours for WINGS, Photo Editor for Birding, and leading workshops, bird and butterfly walks for Cape May Bird Observatory. She was the first woman elected to the California Bird Records Committee and later served on the New Jersey Bird Records Committee. Shawneen is also an accomplished artist. Her bird illustrations are featured in numerous publications, t-shirts, and private collections. Over the past 20 years Shawneen has managed the Bird Area database for Santa Barbara Software. Since moving to Portland, Oregon in 2007 to be closer to her family, she has completed a B.S. in Geography at Portland State University. She is currently the lead illustrator for the upcoming Birds of Montana. More recently she has been doing contract work for BirdFellow.com, a social media website for birders and doing bird survey work for the City of Portland’s Dept. of Environmental Services.
Greg Gillson - Greg founded The Bird Guide, Inc. in 1994, and serves as president, secretary, marketer, web master, and pelagic guide. He has organized and led about 137 West Coast pelagic trips through 2010. In addition, he has attended dozens of other pelagic trips off the Pacific and Atlantic coasts of North America and off western Mexico. Greg began birding in 1972 for a junior high school science project and never stopped. He enjoys teaching others about birds--both their identification and natural history. He has volunteered for shorebird and Marbled Murrelet surveys. He served on the steering committee of the Oregon Breeding Bird Atlas Project (1995-1999). Greg contributed more than a dozen seabird accounts to the 2003 book, Birds of Oregon: A General Reference, edited by Marshall, et al.. He enjoys birding the Cascade Mountains and enjoys the challenging groups of birds, such as Empidonax flycatchers, shorebirds, gulls, and (of course) seabirds. He is adept at identifying Western birds by their calls and songs. He lives in Beaverton, Oregon.
Paul Guris - Paul is the founder of See Life Paulagics. His first experience on salt water was during his mother's third trimester, so he comes by his obsession honestly. He has been birding since he was 12 years old and is the Team Captain of the Nikon/DVOC Lagerhead Shrikes World Series of Birding team. He has been going on pelagics since the late-70s, began running his own trips in the mid-80s, and has also led many trips for others since the mid-90s. Other interests include fishing (salt-water, of course), beer, travel, beer, other life forms (non-UFO related), and beer.
Dave Irons - Dave started birding in Indiana at age six. After his family moved to Oregon his affliction became progressively more "serious." At age 17 he began meeting other birders close to his own age and soon birding became a focal point in his life. By age 21 he was serving on Oregon's Bird Records Committee (OBRC). He moved back to the Midwest in 1991, living in Indiana and Illinois through 1998. The lure of “home” brought Dave back to Oregon in 1998. In addition to rejoining the OBRC, he reviewed the entire manuscript for Birds of Oregon: A General Reference (Marshall et al. eds) before it was published in 2003 and later that year became a regional editor (Oregon and Washington Region) for North American Birds. He has been a member of multiple record-setting Big Day teams, including a June 2, 2007 effort (219 species) that stands as the Oregon state record and the June record for North America. In 2006 Dave and others set the July record for North America (213) along a similar route. He also set a single-county year list record for Oregon by finding 289 species in Lane County during 2007. Recognizing that virtually everything he knows about birds was learned from someone else, Dave enjoys passing his knowledge forward through writing and leading field trips. In addition to his day job with the Schwan's Food Company, Dave has been moonlighting as the Content Editor for the BirdFellow.com website since December 2008.
Todd McGrath - Todd has logged more than 365 days at sea, leading trips in both the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans. He is the co-author of the 2005 monograph Pelagic Birding in the Southern California Bight and the 2010 scientific paper The Occurrence and Identification of Leach's Storm-Petrels off Southern California. Todd is extremely knowledge about identification, status and distribution of marine mammals as well. He is the Senior leader for all Audubon pelagic trips from Los Angeles, Ventura and Santa Barbara, is a Senior Leader on many Buena Vista Audubon pelagic trips and leads trips for Brian Patteson from Cape Hatteras and Debi Shearwater out of Monterey, Half Moon Bay, Bodega Bay and Fort Bragg.
John Puschock - John's still working on writing something witty for his bio.  In the meantime, check out the About Z page for more info about him and Zugunruhe Birding Tours.
Brenda Rone - Brenda works for the Cetacean Assessment and Ecology Program at the National Marine Mammal Laboratory in Seattle, Washington as a research biologist conducting studies on Alaska's large whales including the critically endangered North Pacific right whale.  Since 1998, Brenda has participated in marine mammal studies including both aerial and shipboard surveys and has had the opportunity to conduct research in exciting places including Oman, the Arctic and the Caribbean.  Her research interests pertain to conservation and management issues with particular focus on anthropogenic impacts.  Brenda graduated with a Masters in biology from the University of Massachusetts Boston.