BirdCapeMay.org

Dan Berard - Swing Counter
Dan graduated from Worcester State College, MA in 2008 with a BS in Natural Science. He has worked aboard a whale watch vessel educating the public about seabirds and whales, and studied/counted seabirds and whales for NOAA. He also has years of experience hawk-watching at several locations including Pilgrim Heights in Massachusetts. Among other jobs, Dan has worked leading bird and natural history tours for Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary, and has collected shorebird data for Manomet Bird Observatory.

 

Lizzie Condon - Interpretive Naturalist
Lizzie is an Interpretive Naturalist at both Morning Flight and the Hawk Watch this fall.  She is from Glenview, Illinois, and graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with a degree in integrative biology and minors in history and environmental studies. She has always been interested in conservation, but her specific interest in birds blossomed when she studied abroad in New Zealand. Lizzie has experience banding and conducting radio telemetry with songbirds and some raptors, mostly through the Illinois Natural History Survey.  She also recently completed a field season working with Cerulean Warblers in West Virginia.

 

Erin Cord - Monarch Migration Project Intern
Erin graduated from the University of Delaware in the spring of 2006 with a degree in Wildlife Conservation and a degree in Entomology. Since graduating, she has traveled all over the country working with a variety of species including Piping Plovers, Red-cockaded Woodpeckers, and Golden-cheeked Warblers. She shares an equal love of birds and insects, and is thrilled to be working with the monarchs in Cape May this fall. Eventually, Erin hopes to attend graduate school in the field of applied wildlife ecology and someday pursue her own research ideas.

 

Seth Cutright - Hawk Counter
Seth graduated from Concordia University in Wisconsin in 2004. He has been an avid hawk watcher/counter for many years, and has helped run the Concordia University Hawk Watch since 2000.  Among other things, Seth has trapped and banded Tree Swallows, run a MAPS banding station, worked on the Greater Prairie-Chicken Research Program at Kansas State, conducted wind turbine point counts in Wisconsin, and was a co-leader for a local birding tour outfit (Land Water and Sky Tours). Seth was an art major in college, and has had his work used by Otus Asio Tours on their brochure.

 

Sean Fitzgerald - Seabird Counter
Sean graduated from Cornerstone University in Michigan in 2008 with a BS in Environmental Biology. He has had a lifelong passion for water birds, and has spent time sea-watching around the US in North Carolina, California, Oregon, Alaska, and along the gulf coast in Texas. He ’s also had an opportunity to conduct water bird surveys in Tamil Nadu, India. Sean has also worked for the Point Reyes Observatory in the Mojave and Sonoran Deserts in California, worked with the Michigan Audubon Society leading public tours, and has also visited Hawaii, Ecuador, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Scotland.

 

Sam Galick - Morning Flight Counter
Sam is our Morning Flight Counter for the second season in a row. He began birding in 6th grade under the influence of Don Freiday and his science teacher, and sometimes returns to his former school to lead birding programs.  Sam has competed in the World Series of Birding five times. His work experience includes installing solar power arrays for residential and commercial uses. A few of Sam's photographs from last season can be viewed in the Photo Gallery section: Scenes from Cape May and also in the Birding Forecast header.

 

Ashley Green - Interpretive Naturalist
Ashley is one of our Hawk Watch Interpretive Naturalists.  She received her BS in Biology from Saint Michael’s College in Colchester, Vermont in 2005, and spent a semester in New Zealand doing coursework in ecology and animal diversity.  Ashley interned with HawkWatch International in the Manzano Mountains of New Mexico as a bander/technician, and worked on Spotted Owls for three seasons in Olympic National Park.  She also has experience working with tiger beetles on a mark/recapture project and with larval aquatic insects in Olympic National Park.

 

Jon Kauffman - Interpretive Naturalist
Jon is an Interpretive Naturalist at Avalon Sea Watch, Morning Flight, and the Hawk Watch.  He earned an Associate of Arts degree from Hesston College, Kansas in 2001 and a BS in Wildlife and Fisheries Science from Pennsylvania State University in 2007.  Jon is originally from Belleville, Pennsylvania and currently hails from Lancaster, Pennsylvania.  He enjoys bird watching, herping, wildflowers, wild berry picking, softball, biking, and canoeing.  His favorite author is Wendell Berry. 

 

Melissa Roach - Interpretive Naturalist
Melissa, one of our Hawk Watch Interpretive Naturalists, is from the very small town of Brookneal, Virginia, where she lives “in the middle of nowhere” with her family.  She loves the outdoors and has a strong and growing interest in ornithology, stemming in part from coursework in that subject.  Melissa graduated from Lynchburg College this past May with a BS in Biology and received the Mahan-Osborne Outstanding Senior in Biology Award.  She is a member of Phi Kappa Phi National All-Discipline Honor Society and Beta Beta Beta Biological Honor Society.  She recently presented her soon-to-be-published undergraduate research on Dolomedes scriptus, a fishing spider, at the American Arachnological Society Annual Meeting at UC Berkeley.

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Daily counts and weekly reports from the seasonal research staff.

Detailed information about each research project.