Avocet Tours offers guided birding vacations to the best bird watching locations in North America
Trip Leaders
| Chris Siddle | Gary Davidson | Russell Cannings |
Chris Charlesworth
The founder of Avocet Tours, Chris began birding at the age of 10 when his family moved into a home beside a bird sanctuary in Kelowna, BC. Leading field trips for the local naturalist club, Chris enjoyed showing others birds almost as much as he enjoyed seeing them himself. After he graduated from high school Chris began traveling in search of new birds as well as conducting field consulting on birds in BC.
In 2002 Chris formed Avocet Tours and has now led trips in many western states and provinces. His favorite birding location is High Island on the coast of Texas. Chris received the Barbara Chapman Award for outstanding achievements in the field of natural history in 1994. In 2002, he received the Volunteer of the Year award from the Wild Bird Trust of BC for his contributions to the nest records project.
Chris enjoys birding in the Okanagan Valley where he operates a busy rare bird alert. Though it's hard to choose, Owls, warblers and challenging gulls are among Chris's favorite birds.
Chris Siddle
Chris was born in BC's Fraser Valley and began birding when he was in grade 7. With five dollars won in a book report contest, he was able to buy Peterson's Field Guide to the Western Birds, and armed with a pair of toy 2 power binoculars there was no stopping him.
Chris's passion for birds grew and when he graduated from high school he had spotted 250 species near his home in the Fraser Valley. Chris attended the University of British Columbia and Simon Fraser University where he studied English literature. He took a teaching position in Fort St. John from the late 70s through the 80s, at the same time having a family with his wife Sonja. Chris amassed thousands of records of birds in BC's little known Peace River Lowlands, before he and his family then moved to Vernon, in the Okanagan Valley of BC.
In addition to teaching Chris became a part-time wildlife consultant. Chris was the regional editor for BC for American Birds magazine in the early 90s and he was also a field editor and contributing author for The Birds of British Columbia project (1990-2001). Chris's birding travels have taken him throughout the US and Canada. His favorite birds include raptors, eastern warblers, orioles and redpolls.
Gary Davidson
Gary grew up in Vancouver but escaped to rural BC at his earliest opportunity. His passion for birds began while on a camping trip near Pemberton in the early 1970's. He earned a degree in Mathematics, and a teaching degree from UBC in 1973. His 32 year career as a teacher began in Fort Nelson, but most of those years have been in Nakusp in the West Kootenays.
While in Fort Nelson he had the good fortune to meet Tony Erskine, who was doing field work in the area. Gary credits Tony for turning him into a "real" birder. At the conclusion of Tony's work in the area, Gary co-authored a paper on Birds of the Fort Nelson Lowlands with Tony.
Since moving to Nakusp, Gary has accumulated an extensive data base of birds of the West Kootenays; the Birds of B C project drew heavily on Gary's data contributions.
During his 30 years in Nakusp, he has made four trips to Australia. Twice to teach for a year; once to just travel and relax with his wife Marie; and once to work as a tour guide at Lotus Bird Lodge in North Queensland. Gary has birded extensively in many parts of Australia and has a life list there of over 520 species.
Within North America, Gary has traveled to many parts of Canada and the US in pursuit of birds. He was the first chair of the British Columbia Field Ornithologists Bird Records Committee, a position he held for several years.
Russell Cannings
Growing up in the Okanagan Valley, birding was a way of life for the Cannings family and Russell took to it right away, seeing his first Northern Saw-whet Owl when he was 2 weeks old. Since then his passion for birds has taken him all over North America and indeed the world.
After completing a history degree at UBC, he decided to take all of 2010 off to "just bird." In doing so, he set a new BC record for birds seen in one year (373 species); add that to a 12-day trip to Texas with Dad, he had seen well over 500 species for the year.
Even though he has a history degree Russell works as a field biologist all over the province, conducting both breeding work and migration monitoring projects. Since his “big year” he has set up a province-wide “Bird Alert” blog and is close to completing a new birding site guide to British Columbia. After many years of living in the interior, he has moved to Vancouver and is very excited about birding his new "home patch" on the coast. His favourite birds to work with and look for are owls but he also feels right at home riding the high seas and looking for tubenoses!
Russell Canning's BC Bird Alert
Mike Force
Michael was born in Vancouver BC where a casual interest in a curious-looking bird common in the family yard ignited his passion for birds and the natural world. Forty years later the Crested Myna has vanished from the scene, but his love for birds and birding has not. After finishing high school, Michael spent 11 years working in the Federal Government before returning to school for a degree in Geography from UBC.
A pelagic trip off Westport, Washington in 1974 was a birding epiphany, leaving him hopelessly addicted to seabirds. In the last 18 years he has spent more than 3000 days at sea on various US and Canadian government research vessels, conducting seabird and marine mammal surveys in the Pacific, Indian and southern oceans. An added benefit of working at sea is being able to go birding in exotic ports of call in Middle and South America, Africa and on many remote oceanic islands.
Michael’s favourite birds are, not surprisingly, seabirds, with Snow Petrel barely edging out Wandering Albatross for the top spot.
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