OUR GUIDES
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.
Russ Kovach is a resident of Harford County, Maryland and is an Earth Science and Biology teacher at C. Milton Wright High School. He’s been birding since he was a high school student himself in 1989. Russ is a former president of the Harford County Bird Club, coordinates the Elkton Christmas Bird Count, and guides many birding trips in the mid-Atlantic region for the Maryland Ornithological Society and the Delmarva Birding Weekend. When not birding Russ enjoys photography, canoeing, and coaching softball, in addition to giving presentations to local organizations about birds.
Alex and Lisa Green, life-long residents of the area, own and operate Harriet Tubman Tours LLC. They and their staff bring over 30 years of combined experience in travel, tourism, and transportation. Alex and Lisa provide insights about the life and legacy of Harriet Tubman and surrounding history . They have completed the same training given to rangers of the Harriet Tubman National Monument and State Park. In addition to knowing Harriet’s story, they are well-versed in the history and lore of the region.
Scott Housten, a resident of Ocean City, Maryland, has been birding in Worcester County and Maryland’s Eastern Shore for over 20 years. As an avid traveler, he has spent many years birding in Central America and Southeast Asia. Scott has lead birding tours in Worcester County for the Delmarva Birding Weekend and in Cape Charles, Virginia, for the former Eastern Shore of Virginia Birding & Wildlife Festival. He has also guided birding and wildlife tours in El Salvador. Scott is a frequent contributor to the Maryland Biodiversity Project, contributing over 1,700 photos of birds and insects to the project database. In addition to birding, Scott enjoys traveling, archaeology, and lucha libre wrestling.
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.
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.
Jonathan Irons grew up birding all across the Eastern Shore of Maryland, mainly Queen Anne’s County, which he calls home. He has gained incredible knowledge of birds and their migration
through countless days in the field. His interest in birding and conservation ignited when he joined the Youth Maryland Ornithological Society in 2012. This organization shaped his love and
knowledge of birds like no other and has guided him to many opportunities in the field of ornithology with non-profit organizations, colleges, and government agencies. In the fall of 2022,
he was Maryland Biodiversity Project’s morning flight counter at Turkey Point in Cecil County, MD. In 2023, he worked at Foreman’s Branch Bird Observatory, a migratory bird banding station operated by Washington College in Chestertown, MD. For the last two summers, he surveyed the remote areas of the Eastern Shore for Maryland’s 3rd breeding bird atlas in collaboration with the Maryland Department of Natural Resources. During the summer of 2023, Jonathan monitored Common and Least Tern colonies on Poplar Island for USGS. He is now pursuing an undergraduate degree in Earth Science at Salisbury University.
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.
Terry Allen was born in St. Michaels, is a lifelong resident of Talbot County, MD, and resides in Easton with his wife Patty and dog Harpo. He graduated from Chesapeake College and attended the University of Maryland. For the past 40 years, he has been the sole proprietor of a painting business. His first serious interest in birds was sparked at age 12 by the enchanting sound of migrating geese. His passion for bids has grown over the last five decades to include all bird species, rare, common or mundane. He is a 4-term past president of The Talbot County Chapter of the Maryland Ornithological Society and continues to guide bird outings for the Talbot Bird Club, the Delmarva Birding Weekend Smith Island tour, and since 1983, birding tours at Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge. He covers the Claiborne sector for the Talbot Christmas Count and participated in breeding bird atlas projects in Maryland and D.C. His other interests include family time, gardening, boating, reading, decoy collecting, and listening to Pink Floyd.
Mike Walsh is currently president of the Tri-County Bird Club, which covers Somerset, Wicomico and Worcester Counties in Maryland. He lives in Salisbury and has been birding here for about 25 years. He birds extensively on the lower Eastern Shore of Maryland, Sussex County in Delaware and Accomac County in Virginia. He coordinates the Salisbury Christmas Bird Counts and participates in several others. Mike is retired and loves to travel. He has birded in most of the U.S. and has been on birding excursions to all the continents except Antarctica. He guides many trips for his club and has guided at Maryland Ornithological Society (MOS) conventions as well as Delmarva Birding Weekend events. He really enjoys working with new birders and says what a thrill it is to see their excitement as they discover new species.
Mike Callahan is a resident of Charles County in Southern Maryland. He teaches environmental education for Charles County Public Schools at Nanjemoy Creek Environmental Education Center, where he really enjoys seeing 5th grade students get excited about birds and birdwatching. Mike has been a birder since junior high school. He is a past president of two Maryland Chapters of the National Audubon Society and two Chapters of the Maryland Onithogical Society. He is the current Raptor Conservation Chairman for the Southern Maryland Audubon Society. He monitors Barn Owl and American Kestrel nest boxes. Mike also enjoys kayaking and sharing birds by kayak as well.
Dave Wilson spent 18 years (1997-2015) working for the Maryland Coastal Bays Program—the first 10 as their public relations guru and the last eight as the Executive Director of this National Estuary Program, based in Ocean City, Md. As director, Wilson helped put nature tourism and wildlife front and center by securing funding for a variety of nature parks and trails including 1,000 acres of new county nature parks and the conversion of the Ocean City dump to a kayak launch. Wilson was named Tourism Person of the Year in Worcester County in 2005. Adept at navigating local, state, and federal governments, Wilson helped protect more than 10,000 acres of forests and farms and instituted colonial nesting bird, terrapin, seal, and amphibian monitoring. His penchant for bringing together diverse factions helped finish the Bishopville Dam restoration, set in motion a US Army Corps of Engineers island restoration program, and create a new Comprehensive Conservation and Management Plan for the Coastal Bays. Wilson loves playing ultimate Frisbee, cycling, kayaking and birding all over the world. He holds a BS from Penn State University and MA from Boston College. He lives in Berlin with his wife, Keota, a professor in the Geography Department at Salisbury University. He is currently president of the Maryland Bird Conservation Partnership, VP of Focus Conservation Fund, and sits on the Maryland Sea Grant External Advisory Committee. In 2015 he formed Conservation Community Consulting, LLC to help promote conservation and nature tourism.
Jim Rapp currently serves as director of the Hazel Outdoor Discovery Center. 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 biking, paddling and birding trails and events it helped spawn. Rapp is the past president of the Wicomico Environmental Trust, Lower Eastern Shore Heritage Council, Assateague Coastal Trust and Nanticoke Watershed Alliance. Rapp was named Tourism Person of the Year in both Wicomico and Worcester counties in 2004 and 2006 respectively.