Mark Welford

     Mark Welford is originally from Bedford, England and has lived in the US for the past 26 years. He is married to Terry and lives in Statesboro, GA, where he is the Associate Professor in the Department of Geology and Geography at Georgia Southern University, Mark also studied in Illinois, Idaho and England, and as well as teaching, he spends time researching Tropical Biogeography and Conservation, and Emergent Infectious Diseases. He has also coordinated several squares for the Georgia Breeding Bird Atlas, participated in Operation Raleigh, done bird-banding in the US and South America, co-led expeditions to Africa, and many other diverse projects. Mark has traveled to and birded in many countries in both eastern and western Europe including Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic. He also has extensive birding experience in South America and Africa and has spent a lot of time in Ecuador and Peru. Mark has led or co-led the following Venture tours: Coastal Georgia (co-led 2005); Ecuador (co-led 2006; led 2007; co-led 2008 Southern Ecu, led 2008 NW Ecu); Romania (co-led 2006); Colombia (co-led both 2008, 2009); South Africa (co-led 2010); Zambia reconnaissance tour (co-led 2011); and Ghana (co-led 2011-2012).

 Steve Ritt

     Originally a botanist, Steve was bitten hard by the birding bug after having the opportunity to travel for field research.  He began birding in North Carolina and has worked on the Ohio Breeding Bird Atlas II, a hawk-watch in eastern Pennsylvania, the endangered Southwestern Willow Flycatcher, and is now an Avian Biologist based in San Diego, CA.  He has concentrated on birding the perimeter of North America from Maine to Texas to northern California while scouring every under-birded mud puddle, kelp patty, and urban alley along the way.  He is just as thrilled by finding rare vagrants as he is by noticing new behaviors of common birds.

 Ron Clark

     Ron is a rarity in these parts, a North Carolina native. Born and raised in Charlotte, Ron has spent his whole life working and the last 18 years birding here in forests and woodlands of North Carolina. Like many of us he has started to stray into the world of butterflies.
Ron is the senior level rehabilitation volunteer at the Carolina Raptor Center, where he has been for the last 21 years with over 8000 hours to his credit. Maybe another "feather in his cap" is the fact that he has handled and released (also been bitten and "taloned" by) all of the Eastern raptors, and some of the western species as well.
Ron is the Immediate past president of Mecklenburg Audubon Society in Charlotte and is the current vice-president. He has also been the field-trips Chair for the past 4 years, and counting.  He has also been on the board of the Carolina Bird Club for the past 4 years and is the local coordinator for part of the Mecklenburg County, NC Breeding Bird Atlas and in his spare time has participated in 73 Christmas Bird Counts.
So when he's not racing around North Carolina, Ron has managed to go birding in most of the 50 states (with a ABA birdlist standing at 629!), plus escaping on overseas birding trips to Canada, New Zealand, Peru, Panama, and Trinidad and Tobago.

His domestic experience includes leading tours to North and South Carolina, Arizona, Ohio and Michigan, where he has endless patience and humor showing clients the birds and nature of the area – as long as there is an ice-cream stop somewhere en route!

Dwayne Martin

     Born and raised in the Hickory, NC area, Dwayne Martin has been a serious birder for about 15 years, although he has be interested in birds most of his life. He works as a park ranger for Catawba County Parks, where he holds a banding permit to band songbirds and Hummingbirds. He was one of the original folks who "discovered" how great of a birding spot and migration corridor that the Ridge Junction Overlook area is and therefore knows the area about as well as anyone. He loves to bird all over the country, but finds the birding in North Carolina to be among some of the best in the US.

Carlos Sanchez

     A graduate from the University of Miami, Carlos is striving to follow a career path involving bird guiding. He has had a strong love for birds (and all wildlife) since childhood, and an international perspective of the world that helps ease conversations with people wherever they may be from.

Carlos has been Freelance bird guiding in South Florida for the past few years searching for such ABA exotics as Spot-breasted Oriole, White-winged Parakeet, and Red-whiskered Bulbul and Caribbean specialties such as Mangrove Cuckoo, White-crowned Pigeon, Black-whiskered Vireo, and Antillean Nighthawk.
He has birded the entire state, has a Florida state list of 373 species and counting. He is a member of Tropical Audubon Society and leads local walks for them as well as contributing to the local magazine. He has also organized and conducted the first systematic survey of exotic bird species in Miami-Dade county (Nov 2011).
 
Carlos has also birded southern California with Tropical Audubon Society (June 2009), Southern Texas and Hill country (March 2011), performed systematic bird surveys on larids and shorebirds in Texas and Louisiana and participated on NOAA's Gordon Gunter month long pelagic bird survey in the Gulf of Mexico (August 2010).
 
Overseas he has worked as a bird guide at Bellavista Cloud Forest Lodge Bird Guide in Ecuador, as well as travelled independently throughout the country, birding the many regions of the country. He has also birded Costa Rica, Puerto Rico, and Australia.

He can also speak Spanish, English, and Italian fluently and can understand and speak conversational French.

 Jeff Click

     Jeff Click has been a birder all his life, learning from his father while growing up in central Florida.  He's been living in the South Carolina upstate for the past several years, where he has become active with the Carolina Bird Club (as SC Vice President) and the Greenville County Bird Club (as outings coordinator).  Jeff has traveled throughout the US and to several overseas countries, such as Costa Rica, Spain, Norway and Sweden, South Africa and Malaysia needless to say always in search of birds, and Jeff is always looking for the next adventure!  When he's not birding, he passes the time working as a chemical engineer.

 Aaron Steed

     Aaron Steed has been interested in birds and natural history his
entire life. Originally from Wilmington, NC, Aaron received his B.S.
in General Biology from the University of North Carolina at Asheville
in 2010. He has birded all over the southeastern US as well as New
Mexico, Colorado and Texas. He has worked with Audubon NC searching
for Piping Plover nesting sites, and with Texas A&M performing
territory mapping and monitoring of Golden-cheeked Warblers and
Black-capped Vireos on Fort Hood in the hill country of Texas. He has
also spent several seasons working for Southern Appalachian Raptor
Research (SARR), learning the art of passerine and raptor banding and
hawk-watching at Big Bald Banding Station in Mars Hill, NC. Though he
loves traveling and birding new places, he'll always be drawn back to
the Asheville area by the splendid biodiversity of the Southern
Appalachians.

 Michael McCloy

     Mike has been interested in birds for nearly his entire life, and actively birding for about fifteen years, in the Carolinas and throughout much of the lower 48 (AZ, TX, CA, WA, CO, FL, the Dakotas). He is an active member of the Carolina Bird Club, and has led several field trips for them as well as well as for many of the local bird clubs. He has lived in NC almost his whole life, where he is currently an upperclassman at Western Carolina University, studying Natural Resource Conservation and Management. In the past he has worked for the Rocky Mountain Bird Observatory conducting point counts in the northern Great Plains, and has also worked for the Institute for Bird Populations in both Washington (conducting point counts) and Missouri (bird banding for the MAPS program) over the past few summers.