NT18 - Birding the Refuge with Victor Emanuel Nature Tours
This is the second year for us to offer premium tours led by professional leaders from some of our local eco-tourism companies. Victor Emanuel Nature Tours (VENT), Field Guides, and Bird
Quest are participating this year, and their guides have graciously donated their time to support the Friends, the Refuge and the Songbird Festival.
The tour leaders for this field trip are Victor Emanuel and Barry Lyon. Victor owns Victor Emanuel Nature Tours (VENT), and Barry is a senior professional tour leader for VENT. For this field trip, we’ll travel through grasslands, mixed woodlands, and shin oak, including some that is in the restoration process. Some trekking through tall grasses will be encountered, but most of the trail is flat and relatively easy. Birds likely to be encountered include Golden-fronted Woodpecker, Ladder-backed Woodpecker, Loggerhead Shrike, possibly Black-capped Vireo, Yellow Warbler, Nashville Warbler, Black-and-white Warbler, Lark Sparrow, Grasshopper Sparrow, Painted Bunting and other grassland and woodland residents as well as migrants.
The field trip will be moderately strenuous, and participants should be able to walk for several hours on hill country terrain. It will be worth the effort!
If you have never been on a tour led by a professional leader, this is your opportunity to experience it for yourself. If you have been on professionally led tours, you know this is a trip not to be missed. A special thanks goes to Victor, Barry and VENT for their support of the Friends and the Refuge. For more information on VENT, go to their website at
www.ventbird.com.
Participants will be picked up at the Refuge Headquarters and be transported to trail heads by vans.
BARRY LYON
Barry Lyon's passion for the outdoors and birding has its roots in his childhood where he grew up in southern California. Through his early years his developing interest in the study and observation of nature was furthered by summertime camping trips to southern Arizona and road trips with his family throughout the American West. He attended several VENT/ABA youth birding camps while in high school, which would ultimately pave the way for his future involvement with VENT.
While in college, Barry studied history and political science, with an emphasis on environment and development politics. He holds a B.A. from the University of Arizona at Tucson. In 1995 he joined the VENT team as a tour leader and embarked on a travel-based career that has taken him throughout the United States and Canada and to Central America, the Caribbean, the Mediterranean, Antarctica, and the Galapagos Islands. He relocated to Austin in 2004 and joined our office staff as an assistant to company president Victor Emanuel. Although Barry's responsibilities have changed, he continues to lead a limited number of tours and still enjoys sharing his enthusiasm for nature with others.
Assistant: Diane Sherrill
Victor Emanuel Nature Tours (VENT)
When I founded Victor Emanuel Nature Tours over 30 years ago, I never dreamed it would become the largest company in the world specializing in birding tours.
Birding tours were just developing in the early seventies when I started taking individuals out for trips. After planning trips to Yucatan in conjunction with the National Audubon Society's 1974 convention, VENT expanded into Texas, Arizona, Mexico, Trinidad, Tobago, Kenya, and Botswana. I have wonderful memories of trips led by Peter Matthiessen, one of the world's finest natural history writers, and the incomparable Roger Tory Peterson.
We have continued to grow, adding new destinations and new leaders almost every year. This year we will offer some 160 tours to over 100 destinations ranging from the Texas coast to the forest-clad Himalayan highlands of tiny Bhutan, to the huge expanses of Brazil's bird-rich Pantanal, and to Antarctica, Africa, and many places in-between.
Our success has been due to the quality of our leaders and the standards they maintain. Almost from VENT's inception I was fortunate to be joined by outstanding birders who had a talent for finding birds and showing them to others, and for handling the complex logistics of a tour. Included in this group were David Wolf, Steve Hilty, Bob Ridgely, the late Ted Parker, Kenn Kaufman, Kevin Zimmer, Barry Zimmer, and David Bishop. VENT also benefited early on from the support, advice, and encouragement given us by my good friends, Peter Matthiessen and the late Roger Tory Peterson.
Working hand-in-hand with our leaders to make every trip a satisfying experience for each participant is a highly skilled and professional office staff that is dedicated to keeping you well-informed and prepared for every tour. When you call the VENT office you are dealing with a staff which has over 80 years of combined experience with travel and tour operation. You can feel confident that your questions and requests will be handled by the best in the business.
VENT has played a pioneer role in helping develop ecotourism. We have been a strong advocate of supporting local conservation organizations, using local drivers and guides, and using in-country tourism operators.
In 1986, VENT conducted the first youth birding camp in Southeast Arizona. Every summer since then, we have conducted these camps for young birders ages 14 to 18. During the past 23 years over 200 young birders have attended the VENT/ABA camps.
In 1998 and 1999 we were delighted to expand into new territory by offering a cruise program designed exclusively for birders. Our cruise destinations include Antarctica, The Amazon, and the Galapagos Islands. We are very excited about the marvelous birding and natural history experiences these unique cruises provide. Each cruise has its own team of superb, highly qualified leaders. Pre- and post-trips are also offered.
Thanks to your support we have created a marvelous organization that gives us the opportunity to do what we like best and enables us to bring excitement, pleasure, and enrichment to the lives of thousands of people. We look forward to our upcoming tours, and the opportunity to share and appreciate the vast diversity of nature.
