TOUR GUIDE BIOS
Rose Hoskinson
Rose has been hiking in the Sutter Buttes with Middle Mountain Interpretive Hikes since 2014, also the year she was first introduced to birding. She retired from computer engineering in 2020 and is currently enjoying travel and outdoor activities. Her first love remains wildflowers but birds are now a close second – if they would only sit still!
Events: Nature of the Sutter Buttes – Hike on Dean Place
Laura Lush
Laura Lush is a life-long Yuba-Sutter resident, artist, high school teacher, nature enthusiast, and avid birder. She has been active with Middle Mountain/Sutter Buttes Regional Land Trust for over a dozen years and is currently on the board of Middle Mountain Interpretive Hikes.
Events: Gray Lodge Wildlife Area
Asher Perla
Asher Perla is a 16-year-old high school student and birder from Yuba County. He started birding in early 2019 and was instantly hooked! Since then, he has done several 24-hour big days, a big year, and started a study on the nesting habits of the locally rare Purple Martin. Asher goes birding every day and loves to discover and observe new behaviors in common birds as well as find unusual species.
Events: Beginning Birding and Yuba County Big Day of Birding
Stephen Fischer
Stephen Fischer’s photographic experience spans 40 years and has taken him across the western US along with Florida and Alaska. He’s photographed birds in the Everglades, and Bosque Del Apache wildlife refuge, Glacier Bay and Bald Eagles along the Chilkat River in Haines, Alaska. However, a native of Sacramento, one of his favorite pastimes is photographing the American River Parkway and other regional wildlife areas. Stephen exhibits his work at the Viewpoint Photographic Gallery in Sacramento, and his images have been used in many non-‐profit venues including California State Parks, ARNHA (150 birds of California’s Great Valley). He has also published a travel guide on Photographing California.
His work can be found at: www.stephenfischerphotography.com
Events: The Essentials of Bird Photography with Stephen Fischer and Nature/Wildlife Photography at Colusa National Wildlife Refuge
Paul Ladeira
Paul Ladeira has studied under such notable land designers as Toby Hemenway, Mark Shepard, and Darren Doherty. He is currently working with Zach Weiss and a group of students around the world with the goal of repairing watersheds around the planet.
Events: Wildlife and Water
Cliff Hawley
Cliff Hawley is a certified California Naturalist and Sacramento Audubon member, leading birding and nature tours for Soil Born Farms and the Sacramento Audubon. When Cliff isn’t leading tours you can find him fulfilling his duties as the Vice President of the Central Valley Bird Club and acting Youth Scholarship Program. Cliff also helps manage the Sacramento Audubon Facebook presence and social media team for the Western Field Ornithologists.
Events: Birding at Bobelaine Sanctuary
Jonathan Munger
Jonathan (Jon) G. Munger is the Vice President of Operations with Montna Farms, in Yuba City, California. Montna Farms is a major grower of Japanese short grain specialty rice as well as a leader in working lands conservation. Jon has been with Montna Farms since March 2001.
Jon’s current responsibilities include overall management of the rice farming and drying operation, financial, labor, legal, regulatory, water, land acquisition, administering the FSA, NRCS and Conservation programs on the farm, as well as managing several duck clubs
Events: Sunset, Swans and Rice at Montna Farms in Dingville
David Rosen
David has worked as an environmental educator, classroom teacher, park ranger, and naturalist for over 40 years. His degree in biology and natural resources and extensive field experience have given him an intimate understanding of, and love for, nature and wildlife. He’s passionate about sharing nature with others, especially kids, and he strives to make complex biological concepts fun, understandable, entertaining, and relevant to his audiences. His philosophy for outdoor science education is, “If folks are having fun, then learning will happen naturally!”
He’s worked for Sacramento Splash, a non-profit, environmental education organization for 20 years, teaching hands-on science to elementary students throughout Sacramento County. David’s also a nature and wildlife photographer and his images have been published in magazines, books, postcards, calendars, and numerous other types of publications nationwide. David helped launch the very first CA Swan Festival in Marysville, CA in 2013 and he planned and coordinated all the field trips for the festival for 4 years. David’s never not birding!
Events: Sunset, Swans and Rice at Montna Farms in Dingville
Matt Forster
Matt Forster is an avid outdoorsman and birder whose love of the land has him interested in conservation of habitat and restoration. He studied waterfowl biology and wetland management as well as ornithology at CSU Chico.
Events: Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge
Maureen Geiger
Maureen has been birding for almost 50 years and is a long-time field trip leader for Sacramento Audubon Society. A member of the Field Activities Committee, she has been birding at Bobelaine since the early 1980’s and will enjoy showing everyone the wonder of this Preserve.
Events: Birding at Bobelaine Sanctuary
Hank Meals
Hank was a field archaeologist and historian with the Tahoe National Forest for fifteen years and continues to work as a consultant. He is the author of three history-laden regional trail books; Yuba Trails, Yuba Trails 2 and The River. Hank has also worked as an artist, photojournalist, writer and trail guide for the past forty years.
Hank Meals • PO box 111 • Nevada City, CA 95959
hmeals@nccn.net
530.559.5508
Events: From Dry Creek and Pittman Pond to Cox Creek and Return: Spenceville Wildlife Area. A hike with Hank Meals
PRESENTER BIOS
Stephen Fischer
Stephen Fischer’s photographic experience spans 40 years and has taken him across the western US along with Florida and Alaska. He’s photographed birds in the Everglades, and Bosque Del Apache wildlife refuge, Glacier Bay and Bald Eagles along the Chilkat River in Haines, Alaska. However, a native of Sacramento, one of his favorite pastimes is photographing the American River Parkway and other regional wildlife areas. Stephen exhibits his work at the Viewpoint Photographic Gallery in Sacramento, and his images have been used in many non-‐profit venues including California State Parks, ARNHA (150 birds of California’s Great Valley). He has also published a travel guide on Photographing California.
His work can be found at: www.stephenfischerphotography.com
Events: The Essentials of Bird Photography with Stephen Fischer and Nature/Wildlife Photography at Colusa National Wildlife Refuge
Corky Quirk- Bat Program
Corky Quirk is the founder of Northern California Bats (aka NorCal Bats), a Sacramento-based organization dedicated to the rescue, rehabilitation and release of bats.
NorCal Bats is also deeply committed to dispelling the fears and myths about bats that lead to the destruction of roosts and colonies. Corky’s annual walks to the Yolo Basin Causeway each summer to view the 250,000 member colony roosting under the Causeway bridge are a perennial sellout.
Events: Natural History of Bats Presentation (featuring live bats)
Gabe Kerschner
Gabe Kerschner founded Wild Things in 1988, after graduating from the Exotic Animal Training and Management Program at Moorpark College, with the goal of not only providing a home for animals in need, but also sharing with others a respect for and connection to wildlife and an understanding of wildlife conservation. He loves puns and jokes, and always brings lots of smiles and laughs to his programs.
Events: North American Wildlife Presentation
Kate Marden
Kate Marden has been a raptor educator since 1996 and a licensed falconer since 1998. She started her business, West Coast Falconry, in Marin County in 2005. Kate relocated to Yuba County in 2006 where her falconry center continued to thrive. The business holds a federal special use permit that allows her guests to fly captive-bred birds of prey. The focus of West Coast Falconry is to teach about the ancient art of falconry, conservation, the natural history of raptors as well as their role in the environment.
Events: Westcoast Falconry Presentation
Michael Hubbartt
Michael Hubbartt came to Beale Air Force Base in California as a USAF Weather Observer in 1971. He is from Illinois, where the farmland is as flat as the Sacramento Valley, so the Buttes were a fascination to him from the very beginning.
Six years later, he bought a small home on the remote North side of the Buttes, and has lived there ever since. He has hiked up into the Buttes since 1980, and he joined the Middle Mountain Foundation in the mid 1990’s. In 2010, he published the Sutter Buttes, a paperback book that is part of Arcadia Publishing Images of America series.
Events: Secrets of the Sutter Buttes Presentation