Field Trip Leaders

Thank you to our friends at the Delaware Ornithological Society and the Sussex Bird Club for helping us plan field trips and recruit field trip leaders!

Field trip leaders for the 2024 MOS Convention in Ocean City include:

If you are interested in being a field trip leader, please contact Jim Rapp at jmrpp2@gmail.com.

2024 Field Trip Leader Bios (new bios will be added as they are submitted)

Karlyn McPartland, D.V.M.: In December 2019 Karlyn’s daughter introduced her to this amazing new app – Merlin! This opened the world of birding for her and kick started her new passion.  Since then she has spent a great deal of her spare time prowling all over Maryland joining as many birding field trips as she could fit in, learning so much from so many Maryland birders willing to share their expertise! 

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Mary Lou Clark is a retired math teacher who came back to birding after a lapse of 20 years while raising her son. A past president of the Howard County Bird Club she now is the program chair of the club. She spends time listing but gets distracted by working on the Breeding Bird Atlas during the summer.

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Peter Hanan started birding when he was 10 years old when he lived in New Jersey. Peter was involved in three different birding groups and was leading trips when he was about 12 years old. He’s been a member of the Anne Arundel Bird Club for 42 years. Peter was the president for many years and also was field trip chairperson. He started to get interested in traveling and Peter, his wife and his two sons traveled to many national parks throughout the US. He had setup trips that he would lead to different areas in the US for club members. Peter is not sure who named the “company” Maniac Tours but the name was appropriate. They were getting up early and staying out late to see as many birds as they could see. Peter started to get interested in going to South and Central America. He has set up trips to Costa Rica, Belize, Panama, Columbia, Ecuador, Peru, Brazil, and Argentina. When Peter was a young birder in New Jersey he’d ask old time birders what was their life list. Many of them had no idea how many birds they had seen. Peter falls into that category. He will be getting more familiar with eBird for his life list very soon. Peter has always been interested in bird calls. When the technology wasn’t as advanced as it is today, when Peter showed up on field trips, people said it was great because he could identify the bird songs. Merlin, eBird, and BirdsEye are making birding easier for everyone. He’s always enjoyed birding in western Maryland in the spring. Peter is looking forward to meeting new MOS members and leading field trips.

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Ellen Lawler is currently the Vice-President of the Tri-County Bird Club. She joined the club in the late 1980’s shortly after moving to Salisbury, MD. Ellen retired from Salisbury University’s Biology Department in 2015; among the courses she taught at SU were Ornithology and Biology of the Vertebrates. Ellen actively participated the second and third MD Breeding Bird Atlases, leads field trips for the club and gives presentations on Delmarva’s birds to the club and other
local organizations. Her enjoyment of birds extends to drawing and painting them. Her favorite summer yard bird is the sweet Gray Catbird!

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Mary Huebner is currently the President of the Tri-County Bird Club, and a resident of Salisbury, MD. She is the past-President of the Allegany and Garrett Counties Bird Club. She is a retired librarian. She has been birdwatching since the mid-1980’s, starting in the Salisbury Bird Club, before moving out to western Maryland. Now back on the Eastern Shore, Mary enjoys living near the ocean, the rivers, and the beautiful marshes that make this place so special!

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Dr. Wayne Bell is Senior Associate and former Director of the Center for Environment and Society (CES) at Washington College.  His birding includes education and outreach activities through CES, the Youth program of the Maryland Ornithological Society (YMOS), the Pickering Creek Audubon Center (Easton, MD), and the Academy for Lifelong Learning of the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum (St. Michaels, MD).

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Kurt Schwarz has been a birder since 1994, and is ex-conservation chair for MOS. He is retired from the DoD. Kurt has ticked 402 species in Maryland, and his World List has crossed 1500 standing at 1559 with recent trips to Costa Rica and Ecuador.

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Marcia Watson serves as the editor of MOS’s online Birder’s Guide to Maryland and DC. She is a former member of the MD-DC Bird Records Committee and currently serves as  Secretary of the MOS Sanctuary Committee, keeping the committee’s records and promoting awareness and usage of the ten MOS sanctuaries. Marcia was a founding member of the Cecil Chapter of MOS, and spent over twenty years birding every nook and cranny in Cecil County. She was an official counter at the Turkey Point Hawk Watch, and was the top-ranked birder in Cecil until she moved to Prince George’s County, where she served as President of the Patuxent Bird Club. Over several years, Marcia spent a lot of time at Hart-Miller Island, accompanying her husband Gene Scarpulla on his weekly bird surveys. She is retired from her career as an academic administrator and biology professor at the University of Delaware and later at the University of Maryland Global Campus. Marcia and Gene now live in a home adjacent to Loch Raven in Baltimore County and are members of the Baltimore Bird Club. They met while birding at Conowingo Dam.

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Gene Scarpulla is currently the Editor of Maryland Birdlife. He has also served as Mid-Atlantic Regional Co-Editor for American Birds. For two years, Gene owned and operated Atlantic Seabirds that offered pelagic trips out of Ocean City, Maryland. For several years, he served as the Maryland Membership Coordinator for the American Birding Association. He also served as a State Director for the Baltimore Bird Club. Gene’s birding passions are gulls and shorebirds. He has led numerous field trips for various birding groups and spent many Christmas Bird Counts at landfills, wastewater treatment plants, and Conowingo Dam surveying gulls. In 1990, Gene discovered Maryland’s first and only Ross’s Gull at the Back River Wastewater Treatment Plant. He is also known for his mostly weekly bird surveys on Hart-Miller Island (Chesapeake Bay) from 1996 through 2008. He is retired after 30 years as a biologist at the City of Baltimore’s Reservoir Natural Resources Section, the last eight years serving as the City’s Watershed Manager in charge of Loch Raven, Prettyboy, and Liberty Watersheds. Gene and his wife Marcia Watson first met while observing gulls at Conowingo Dam and are now both retired living near the shores of Loch Raven Reservoir in Phoenix, Maryland.

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Wayne Klockner is the executive director of the American Birding Association (ABA), the non-profit organization that provides leadership to birders by increasing their knowledge, skills, and enjoyment of birding. ABA is the only organization in North America that specifically caters to recreational birders. Prior to joining the ABA, Wayne enjoyed a 38-year career with The Nature Conservancy managing conservation programs in Maryland, Delaware, New York, Indonesia, and Massachusetts. Before his time with TNC, Wayne worked as a field biologist for the Maryland Department of Natural Resources surveying natural areas and assessing the impacts of development on coastal wetlands. Wayne, a resident of Ocean City, MD, has been a lifelong birder; the Dark-eyed Junco was his spark bird back in New Jersey, his home state.

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Kim Abplanalp is a resident of West Ocean City, MD, just one mile from the Ocean City Inlet which allows her to keep in touch with the diverse happenings at the inlet and along the coast. Born and bred just a few miles north in Delaware, the ocean has been a life line for her for as long as she can remember. Kim has had a very diverse career based in both science and yoga philosophy, an ancient practice she has taught for 26 years.   A long time birder, Kim’s interest peaked while being a field assistant in the study of horseshoe crab behavior for nine years, spending many hours a day along the coast of the Delaware Bay witnessing the migration of Red Knots and others shorebirds. Currently she is a field assistant on the Common Tern Raft Project, a collaboration between DNR, Audubon and Maryland Coastal Bays, that has created an artificial island raft in the inland bays to create breeding habitat for Common Terns.  Devoted to bird conservation, this project and others she’s working on are dear to her heart.    

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Jeff Effinger was born on the Eastern Shore and has lived here most of his life, except for 9 years in North Dakota. He has been birding since 1968.

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Joe Francis is a retired public health physician who first started birding in medical school to relieve stress.  A native Delawarean (Lewes born), he recently returned to the Wilmington area after a 40 year professional career and is making up for time away from his favorite birding state.  He is the newly elected President of the Delaware Ornithological Society.  He especially enjoys using birds to introduce others to a general appreciation of plants, insects, and ecosystem health.  For many years, he lived in DC where he studied with the Audubon Naturalist/USDA Graduate School Natural History Field Studies program, the Maryland Native Plant Society, the Natural History Society of Maryland, and the Eagle Hill Institute in Steuben, Maine. 

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Chris Bennett was born and raised near Schenectady, New York (near the eastern end of the Mohawk River Valley in east central New York – it wasn’t Upstate New York to him!). He earned a BS degree in Zoology from the State University of New York at Oswego. His interest in birding was born on the icebound shores of Lake Ontario during his Junior year in College. Chris has worked as a naturalist and environmental educator in New York, Florida, Maryland, New Jersey, Ohio and Delaware. He is currently the Environmental Stewardship Program Manager with Delaware State Parks. Chris birds most often the Delaware Bay shore region between Bombay Hook and Prime Hook National Wildlife Refuges. He has traveled a bit for birding in the eastern and western United States. His favorite birding areas outside of Delaware are the Adirondack Mountains of New York and South Florida. In addition to leading fieldtrips for the Delmarva Birding Weekends, Chris is a fieldtrip leader for the Delmarva Ornithological Society. He is a member of the Delaware Bird Records Committee, compiler of the Milford Christmas Bird Count and Regional Compiler for the Second Delaware Breeding Bird Atlas. Chris lives with his wife Karen near Milford, Delaware.

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Anthony Gonzon has lived his entire life in the great state of Delaware.   Anthony has been participating in outdoor activities since his early days fishing and camping and has been regularly birding in Delaware for nearly two decades.  Calling New Castle County home for more than 40 years, Anthony received his B.S. from the University of Delaware, double majoring in Wildlife Conservation and Entomology. Anthony began his career in wildlife as a piping plover monitor at Cape Henlopen State Park in 2004 and has been working for the Delaware Division of Fish & Wildlife since 2007 in a number of roles including as the coordinator of the 2nd Delaware Breeding Bird Atlas, non-game bird biologist and currently as the coordinator of the Delaware Bayshore Initiative. Having traveled to a number of states for birding, Anthony’s true passion lies in pelagic trips, especially in the Mid-Atlantic region. Currently president of the Delmarva Ornithological Society, Anthony leads a number of trips for the club.  In addition, he is a member of the Delaware Birds Records Committee, compiler for the Middletown Christmas Bird Count and participates annually in the Delaware Bird-A-Thon along with teammate Chris Bennett and others.  Anthony lives in Middletown, Delaware with his wife Kim, daughter Kayla and son TJ.

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Ian Stewart grew up in north-east England and completed a PhD on the breeding biology of birds at the University of Leicester, UK. He works for the Delaware Nature Society where he studies how the society’s land management practices are affecting the diversity and number of birds and is currently radio-tagging Wood Thrushes to study their movements. He also conducts nature outreach programs including bird walks and public bird banding sessions. He is a naturalized US citizen and lives with his wife and two sons in Kennett Square PA.

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Nancy Cunningham started her love of birding when she lived in Warren County, NJ. She found living not far from the Appalachian trail was an amazing flyway that fueled her passion to bird watch. She
moved to Milton, DE in 2014 and relished the challenge of learning so many new birds. Nancy is currently the VP of Programming for Sussex Bird Club, finding expert birders to speak at the club’s monthly meetings. She leads some of the Sussex Bird Club walks and will help at the Cape Henlopen Hawk Watch. She also is active at Prime Hook NWR, where she co-leads their night walks and helps with the Prime Hook Christmas Bird Count.

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Josephine Cox: Jo grew up in the UK, and although she was not a twitcher back then, both parents encouraged her love of the outdoors. A chance to become a visiting scientist at NIH brought her to Maryland in 1988 where the brightly colored local birds were soon noticed. She has been a member of MOS for ~25 years and is a Chapter Director for Montgomery County. In retirement, she been able to devote time to atlasing, bird counts as well as leading field trips. She enjoys many outdoor activities with her husband, often hearing and spotting birds from a kayak, bike, or cross-country skis.

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Russ Kovach is a resident of Howard County, Maryland and is an Earth Science and Biology teacher at Hammond High School in Columbia. He’s been birding since he was a high school student in 1988. Russ is a former president of the Harford County Bird Club and guides many birding trips in the mid-Atlantic region for the Maryland Ornithological Society and Delmarva Birding Weekends. When not birding Russ enjoys photography, canoeing, and coaching softball, in addition to giving presentations to local organizations about birds and climate change.

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Steve Sheffield is a field biologist and ecologist, and serves as Professor of Biology at Bowie State University in Bowie, MD.  His taxonomic expertise is in birds, mammals, and herps in particular. Steve has participated in various bird counts (CBCs, migratory bird counts, BBSs, BioBlitzes, etc.) for many years.  Regarding birds, he is especially interested in raptors, particularly owls.

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A long-time birder for 35+ years, Kevin Graff began birding at nine when his family took him to the zoo. He leads many trips for the MOS. Kevin maintains field trip records that he submits to MDOsprey and eBird. Because of his hearing impairment, Kevin cannot bird aurally, but he makes up for that by his keen eyesight. Kevin likes leading walks because he can help people in their birding efforts, and he enjoys pointing out other creatures like butterflies, dragonflies, and amphibians. In his free time, he’s a veteran volunteer firefighter for over 25 years.

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Mark Scallion hails from New England but has lived of the shore longer than anywhere else.  He is the Executive Director at Pickering Creek Audubon Center and has held that position for over twenty years.  Significant changes to the Center’s habitats have occurred during his leadership for the benefits of birds and wildlife. He is a past president of the Talbot Bird Club.

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Jared Parks, a native of the lesser-known northern Eastern Shore, is the Land Programs Manager for the Lower Shore Land Trust where he works with landowners to preserve their properties from development. Previously, Parks spent 11 years doing similar work with the Eastern Shore Land Conservancy. Jared has been birding nearly his entire life and participates annually in multiple bird counts. He has also competed with his brother and 3 other birders in Cape May’s World Series of Birding, winning the Cape Isle Cup twice. Parks began his more formal ornithological training by banding birds at the Damsite Bird Banding Laboratory in Kent County MD as a youngster and has banded birds and worked as a field technician and crew leader on bird population projects in MD, MO, WI, CO, and WA. Though it is not widely known by anyone, Jared actually enjoys many pastimes other than birding; including watching David Attenborough documentaries, reading books about birds, and fishing (fish are really just birds that have a talent for breathing under water and have scales instead of feathers). He lives with his partner, Tara, (who is still with him despite receiving binoculars as an engagement gift instead of a ring) just north of the great city of Salisbury. He also likes beer.

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Jim Rapp currently serves as director of the Hazel Outdoor Discovery Center in Eden, MD. Prior to holding this post, he was the director of the Salisbury Zoo for 14 years before being tapped in 2007 as the director of Delmarva Low Impact Tourism Experiences, a business-sponsored nature tourism outfit created to entice tourists with birding, paddling, and cycling trails and events. Jim’s first experience birding was in 1990, when he took Ellen Lawler’s Ornithology class at Salisbury University (scroll up for Ellen’s bio). On a field trip with Ellen’s class at Pemberton Park, he also saw his spark bird: a beautiful Scarlet Tanager! Jim operates the award-winning Delmarva Birding Weekends.