The Hawk Ridge staff consists of
employees, volunteers and contractors.
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218.428.6209
jlong@hawkridge.org |
Janelle Long
grew up in Greenfield, WI where her
childhood days were filled with explorations
of any nearby forest, field, or pond.
The connections she made
with nature
had a lifelong impact on her career
interests. She attended the University of
WI - Stevens Point to complete degrees in
Wildlife Management and Biology with a minor
in Conservation Biology. A whole new world
in the outdoors was revealed to her through
the hands-on courses, field trips, and
enthusiastic professors. She vividly
remembers the excitement she felt seeing her
first Sandhill Crane and Pileated
Woodpecker. From that point on, she was
hooked on birds and couldn't wait to see and
learn more. Janelle spent three summers
helping out with Ph.D. bird research
projects at Great Smoky Mountain Nat'l Park
in TN, the grasslands of southwestern WI,
and the Shawnee Nat'l Forest in IL. Her
passion and concern for birds and the
environment were heightened as she witnessed
population declines due to habitat loss,
cowbird parasitism, predation, etc.
This led her to the
next phase in her career in the field of
environmental education. Janelle's journey
began by spending a year teaching at four
Audubon Centers in NM, CT, VT, and ME. In
2003 she began a graduate naturalist program
at Wolf Ridge Environmental Learning Center
in Minnesota. From Wolf Ridge she continued
her graduate work and completed her M.Ed. in
Environmental Education at the University of
MN - Duluth in 2005. Janelle worked for two
years for the Bureau of Land Management as
the Education Coordinator at Yaquina Head
Outstanding Natural Area on the Oregon
coast. She
continues to
dedicate her time and share her interests
for bird conservation and environmental
education as the executive director. She
hopes to promote stewardship for Hawk Ridge
and help others establish their special
lifelong connection to nature. |
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David Evans has been at Hawk Ridge since
1972, when he started the raptor banding
station. (What was intended to be a
temporary interlude from his agricultural
interests turned into an avocation gone
severely awry!) In the "off" season,
he has participated in many raptor studies;
notably, banding nestling Bald Eagles in
Wisconsin since 1970, translocation of
nestling Bald Eagles from Alaska and
Wisconsin as well as Wisconsin Ospreys to
less "blessed" states, banding nestling
Ferruginous and Swainson's Hawks in North
Dakota, and monitoring nesting Peregrine
Falcons in Duluth and on the North Shore.
And, in the off "off" season, studying
wintering Snowy Owls in the Duluth-Superior
harbor since 1973.
(And
he still reads his Wisconsin farm paper
every week!) |
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fnicoletti@hawkridge.org |
Frank Nicoletti grew up in New York
State along the Hudson River where he
started watching raptors at the age of 11.
His passion for raptors and other birds
fueled him to work at various locations
including Cape May and Sandy Hook NJ,
Braddock Bay NY and in Israel. From 1984
until 1996 he traveled throughout the
country and conducted various raptor related
projects which included nesting surveys,
tracking winter raptors and migration work.
He arrived in Duluth in 1991 to count
raptors and to witness the invasion of the
Northern Goshawk and
he conducted the count until 2005.
After moving to Duluth
permanently in the fall of 1996, he
conducted the first spring count of raptor
migrating north in Minnesota along the West
Skyline Parkway of Duluth. This study ran
from 1997-2005. Frank continues to study
raptors and has been concentrating on boreal
forest owls and managing raptor banding
sites. He has published a number of papers
on birds and has helped with many authors
working on books and articles.
He lives just north of Duluth
with his wife, Kate and two dogs, Chester
and Phoebe. Frank’s excited to take on the
spring migration as
spring research coordinator.
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Although Karl
Bardon has
traveled around the country doing various
field projects with birds, his favorite jobs
are those spent counting birds. The road to Hawk Ridge has included
such diverse projects as radio-tracking
eiders in the Arctic, studying trans-Gulf
migration from an oil-platform off
Louisiana, and nest searching for Tapaculos
in the temperate rainforests of Chile. When
it comes to counting birds, Karl’s specialty
has been waterbirds, having spent many
seasons as the waterbird counter at
Whitefish Point, Michigan, and Cape May, New
Jersey. But
after witnessing the awesome migration
through Veracruz, Mexico as an official hawk
counter in 2006, he has decided
raptors are pretty
cool, too.
Karl is back for his third season as a
raptor counter and also the passerine
counter! |
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Aldo Contreras Reyes hails from Chavarrillo,
Veracruz, Mexico, where he started birding
and watching hawks at the age of 15. Amongst
his many talents, Aldo is a published
digital photographer, a birding/nature guide
for Cafaselva (an ecotourism group based in
his hometown), has volunteered and counted
for the Veracruz River of Raptors project of
Pronatura Veracruz, counted raptors in the
Manzano Mountains for Hawk Watch
International and last but certainly not
least, Aldo started a spring count in
Chavarrillo to document the hundreds of
thousands of raptors that migrate past as
well as roost in the adjacent mountain
forest. It took Aldo three weeks and his
inexhaustible energy to build a tower for
the Chavarrillo spring count. Once Aldo
counted 600,000 roosting Swainson's Hawks
using "his" mountain. Another of Aldo's
passions is teaching children about raptors
and through their experiences he hopes to
impart a conservation ethic. Aldo is eager
to experience the fun of counting
Rough-legged Hawks in the teeth of a
northwest wind. |
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Shawn Hawks was
born in Pocahontas, Iowa--a
tiny agricultural town in the prairie
pothole region of northwest Iowa. At
a young age he enjoyed
hunting waterfowl, pheasants,
Hungarian partridge and whitetail deer, but
enjoyed waterfowl hunting the most. Shawn
also enjoyed fishing and traveling with
his family. After
graduating with a double undergraduate
degree in Biology and
Conservation
Management
from Upper Iowa
University in tiny Fayette, Iowa,
Shawn pursued a graduate
degree in Zoology
at North Dakota State University in
Fargo, North Dakota. He
has extensive experience in avian
population ecology and
hopes to pursue a Ph.D. researching
metapopulation dynamics. Some recent
experiences,
however, have taught him
that the most important things in
his life are
his family and
having good long-lasting friendships.
He also enjoys
SCUBA diving and live music performances,
especially rockabilly bluegrass! |
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John Gorey is interested in bird and mammal
conservation. He enjoys being outside
running, hiking, kayaking, camping and
biking. John also loves to identify
the natural world during his
activities--birding, mushroom hunting and
herping. He uses any excuse to be
outside! Being a raptor bander at Hawk
Ridge in 2008 was his first job after graduating from
Murray State in Wildlife Biology and now on
his second season with us, he
couldn't be happier. John plans to
continue working seasonal jobs until he has
to return to school for further advancement.
As far as he's concerned, the longer that
takes, the better! |
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After studying songbirds
for two seasons, Larry Clemente is pleased
to be working with raptors. As a recent
graduate from college in New York, he is
learning the correct procedures for field
biology and plans on working with birds
until returning to the world of academics
for graduate school. He is not getting
bitten or nailed as much as his first week
at Hawk Ridge, but still lives in mortal
fear of being on the business end of a
Golden Eagle's talons. Larry hopes to one
day be the world's greatest biologist. |
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dgross@hawkridge.org |
Dave Grosshuesch is
originally from Howard's Grove, WI and now
lives in Duluth, Minnesota. Dave
got
involved in field research in 1991,
and has worked on
many projects,
including nesting studies, surveys, and
migration banding in
Wisconsin, Louisiana, California, British
Columbia, Minnesota, and North Dakota.
He also worked with
mammals on the Canada Lynx project
in Minnesota. He earned a B.S. in
Wildlife Management and Biology at the
University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point in
1994 and began
working at Hawk Ridge in 1995
as a raptor bander. A year later he
started his passerine study
and bands an average of 5,400 birds each
fall season. Dave finished his
master's degree in biology from the
University of Minnesota Duluth in 2009. He continues to
coordinate the passerine banding operation
while working full time for
the US Forest Service. |
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218.428.3539
dwaters@hawkridge.org |
Debbie Waters grew up near Marquette in
the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. She first became
enamored with birds while studying
ornithology at Northern Michigan University,
from which she received her B.S. in Ecology
in 1996. Debbie has worked on many avian
research projects: banding woodcock,
surveying loons, wetland bird surveys,
passerine surveys, raptor surveys and both
passerine and raptor nest monitoring, as
well as studying deer populations and
amphibians. She received her M.Ed. in
Environmental Education from the University
of Minnesota Duluth. Debbie
began her career as the Hawk Ridge
naturalist in the 2001 season, became the
education director in 2005, and continues to
enjoy sharing her passion for birds with
visitors. |
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218.348.2291
joconnor@hawkridge.org |
Julie O'Connor
is a Duluth original! Her family moved
to Alaska when she was young, where her dad
first introduced her to birds of prey--an
injured owl was dropped off at their house,
and he rehabilitated it (it was the 70's!).
After moving back to Minnesota, a few years
of "life on the farm" exposed her to
Minnesota's abundant ecosystem. Julie
spent ten years in
restaurant management before deciding to
return to the University of Minnesota
Duluth, where she earned her B.S.
in Outdoor Recreation and Environmental
Education. Her re-introduction to Hawk
Ridge as an adult occurred in 2001 while
attending a spring banding program with Dave
Grosshuesch and volunteering at the Main
Overlook that same fall. In 2002 she became
the volunteer coordinator and has been
leading the success of the volunteer program
ever since. |
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Sarah Glesner
has lived in Duluth her entire life, most of
that time spent looking up at Hawk Ridge.
Her love of the outdoors and of birds began
at an early age when her mother would take
her outside to watch kettles of hawks over
their home. This love of animals transformed
into a desire to educate. As a result, Sarah
spent two years volunteering at
the Lake Superior Zoo as a docent,
then working as the Junior Docent Coordinator
and now as their Volunteer Coordinator.
During her time at the zoo, she was able to
handle some wonderful little birds. After
staring into their beady little eyes, she
decided it was true love! This is Sarah's
third year up at the ridge as
staff; she was a
count
interpreter in 2007, a
naturalist in 2008 and she is thrilled to be part
of the team as a
naturalist again this
fall. |
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Beth Miller
grew up in Duluth about two miles from the
Ridge as the hawk flies, or about three
miles as the bike rides. She has visited
Hawk Ridge since about 1973, riding over on
bikes with friends during junior and senior
high school. (Never skipping class to do
this, of course.) Inspired by the "old" John
Denver song "The Eagle and The Hawk," she
caught the raptor bug in the early 1970's as
a result of these early visits to the Ridge.
She has been passionate (or obsessed) about
raptors ever since.
Beth has volunteered at the Ridge since the
volunteer program began in 2002, and joined
the staff in 2006. She got her B.A.S. in
Education from UMD too many years ago to
mention, and her M.Ed in Educational
Media/Technology from St. Scholastica in
1993. She moonlights as a fourth grade
science teacher in one of Duluth's public
schools, teaching science to fourth graders
for the last 16 years. She teaches her
students that migrating hawks are a
perfectly good reason to drop everything,
grab some binoculars and got outside to
check out the flight. Students have been
known to summon her from the
teachers' lounge if they spot a good hawk
flight during lunch recess, because spotting
a good hawk flight is worth extra credit in
science. |
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Mariah grew up in Lake Elmo, Minnesota
spending her free time exploring the
outdoors near her house.
Her curiosity about nature and
wildlife developed at an
early age and stemmed from numerous camping
and canoeing trips into wilderness settings
across the U.S.
As she grew up,
her interest and love for nature and its
living creatures directed
her career path. She currently has
one year of classes left
at the University of Minnesota Duluth
and in May of 2009 she
graduated with an
Outdoor Education degree and a business
minor. Mariah had
developed an interest in birds and ever
since volunteering at Hawk Ridge in the fall
of 2006 she has become more fascinated with
them. Mariah has been
with Hawk Ridge as an intern since June of
2008,
working as a naturalist at the Peregrine
Watch program and also performing various
internal organizational tasks.
She feels very fortunate to have
had the
experience of
interning at Hawk Ridge and
is excited to be
working as a naturalist during the fall
migration. |
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Tara
Haynes grew up on the outskirts of Duluth,
spending much of her time exploring her
backyard deciduous forests and swamps. Since
graduating with a B.A. from the University
of Minnesota Duluth, Tara has spent years
working in education and social work, and
several summers working seasonal outdoor
jobs (in the BWCA, Alaska and Colorado) due
to her love of nature and adventure. In 2005
she first visited Hawk Ridge during the fall
migration and was captivated with the
display of a Red-tailed Hawk! Tara began
volunteering during the fall of 2006, joined
the staff in 2007 and she
is excited to continue learning about
raptors while educating Hawk Ridge's visitors
again this season.
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Heidi Faris is
originally from Fond du Lac, Wisconsin.
She moved to Duluth
two years ago to work at the Lake Superior
Zoo as the education program
coordinator. After working with several
different animals the
sassiness of raptors got her hooked. Heidi
spent her childhood playing outdoors,
camping and catching crayfish and frogs in
the nearby river. She graduated from
the University
of
Wisconsin-Oshkosh with a B.S.
in Geology and is
currently attending the
University of Minnesota Duluth for
her M.Ed.
in Environmental Education. Heidi
spent the past 7
years teaching at various outdoor education
facilities,
educating students of
all ages about the
environment. Getting people involved in the
outdoors and appreciating nature is
something she strives for in
her job at the Lake Superior Zoo and while
continuing her second year as a naturalist
at Hawk Ridge. |
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Erik
Bruhnke grew up in
Waukesha,
WI and has been passionate about
nature and the environment ever since he was
a young boy. Erik worked at Wild Birds
Unlimited through high school, and has been
captivated by birdwatching as a result of
this bird job. He graduated in May 2008 from
Northland
College in
Ashland,
WI with a B.S. in Natural
Resources and Biology. During his time at
college, he took advantage of the excellent
birding opportunities throughout
Chequamegon
Bay (Ashland/Bayfield
area). By the time of his graduation, Erik
had observed 248 species within a 30-40 mile
radius of campus. He teacher-assisted the
field ornithology & ornithology classes a
total of three times and also explored
northwestern
Mexico
on a ‘Birds of Mexico’ spring course. His
friends and faculty refer to him as ‘Birdman’
or ‘Birdfeeder.’
He thinks of birds as a healthy obsession,
which he loves to share with and inspire
others.
In
2008
Erik received the
‘Volunteer of the Year Award’ from the
Ashland Fish and Wildlife Conservation
Office, for conducting weekly migratory
waterfowl surveys over three
years. Erik has also worked in
North Dakota
conducting nest surveys & nest monitoring
along an oil pipeline installation.
Throughout the summer of 2007, he was
privileged to work with Dave Grosshuesch and
Jim Lind to conduct breeding bird surveys
for
University
of Minnesota
Duluth. Erik is
excited to be working at Hawk Ridge as a
count interpreter again
this fall!! |
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Katie Brown-Mesedahl grew
up in Duluth, Minnesota. Despite her
longtime proximity to Hawk Ridge, she first
began visiting as a volunteer in 2006. It
was here where she became fascinated with
birds and migration. Katie earned a B.S. in
Ecology and Biology and minored in
Environmental Studies at St. Could State
University in 2003. Since that time, Katie
has worked various field jobs in the Dakotas
and in Minnesota, studying a variety of
subjectsk, from malformations to exotic
species. She also worked in an environmental
laboratory as a biologist for a few years.
During this past year, Katie earned a
teaching license from the College of St.
Scholastica and recently became employed as
a science teacher. Katie loves to be
outdoors and is thrilled to be back as a
count interpreter again this fall! |
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