Presenters:
Dr. Julia Zarakin – Toronto ON
Julia Zarankin is a Toronto-based award-winning writer, birder and Canadian Ambassador for ZEISS Sports Optics. Her memoir, Field Notes from an Unintentional Birder, is a Canadian bestseller and her writing has been featured in Audubon, Sierra, Birding Magazine, Canadian Geographic, Chatelaine, The Walrus, and The Globe and Mail. When not hanging out with a spotting scope at sewage lagoons in hopes of getting a better handle on shorebirds, Julia lectures to lifelong learners in and around Toronto.
Gary Davison – Nakusp BC
Blame the MacGillivray’s Warbler for tweaking Gary Davidson’s lifelong interest in birds. These days, Gary lives most of the time in Nakusp, but prefers to escape to someplace warmer in the winter. In recent years he has wintered in Texas, Australia, Costa Rica and Panama. When in Nakusp he monitors the birds of the West Kootenay region. He has conducted over 30 years of Breeding Bird Surveys, greatly contributed to Wayne Campbell’s B.C. Nest Record Scheme, chaired several provincial committees, taught bird I.D. classes, written numerous articles, guided with Avocet Tours and has coordinated the Nakusp Christmas bird count for 45 years. He is currently the President of the BC Field Ornithologists. When in Australia, Gary has guided bird tours and worked as a naturalist/guide at a birding lodge in North Queensland. He has combined his love of bird photography with his love of travel and has also visited Peru, Jamaica, Thailand, Taiwan, Kenya, Uganda, Namibia and South Africa. This man knows birds!!
Lindsay Donald – Creston BC
Lindsay Donald is an international award-winning wildlife photographer. Originally from
Scotland, he has a degree in zoology and animal behavior from the University of Hull in the
United Kingdom. Lindsay started taking photographs to illustrate animal behavior for a research
project in the late 1970’s. He has travelled the World in search of amazing wildlife images. In
North America he travels from Florida to Alaska and makes frequent visits to Africa including
Botswana, South Africa, Tanzania, Zimbabwe & Zambia. Lindsay has also taught wildlife
photography techniques and led photographic workshops.
Lindsay moved to West Creston over 3 years ago with his wife Lorraine, golden retriever
Bentley and Stormy the cat. Destiny is a recent addition to the family and is a golden retriever
adoption from PAWS. Lindsay is Director of Wildsight Creston Valley and Regional Director for
Wildsight. He also supports his community as a volunteer fire fighter with the Creston Valley
Fire Service.
https://www.donaldphotography.com/
Birding Tour Leaders:
Marc-André Beaucher – Creston BC
Marc-André arrived in the Kootenays in 1995 from Sherbrooke, Quebec, where he grew up. He worked as a consulting biologist for a few years before taking on a biologist position at the Creston Valley Wildlife Management Area, in 2003. He is now the Head of Conservation Programs. In his free time, Marc-André enjoys watching and photographing birds and wildlife, and spending time in the great outdoors with his family.
Marc-André is a Registered Professional Biologist (B.C. College of Applied Biologists) and holds a B.Sc.
in Applied Zoology from McGill University (1996) and a M.Sc. in Environment and Management from
Royal Roads University (2005).
Seth Benoit – Westbridge BC
Seth is a young birder located in the Kootenay Boundary BC on a remote property. Since the age of seven, when he started birding, Seth has had the opportunity to travel to many birding destinations in North America, namely Madera Canyon, AZ, and Point Pelee, ON. Although Seth has traveled, most of his birding time is spent at home studying bird trends, sound ID and photography. Hiking is also a big part of his free time, so he combines it with birding on a daily basis. He has also been working on a bird book for the Kootenay Boundary Region for the last couple years. Seth was the recipient of the 2024 “Young Birder” award with the British Columbia Field Ornithologist!
Tammy Bradford – Creston BC
Tammy Bradford spends most of her time at the Creston Museum, where she’s been the manager/curator/executive director/janitor for twenty-five years. When she’s not cataloguing artifacts, creating exhibits, or tracking down some detail in the archives, she’s either driving people nuts with her endless stories of local history or taking long walks with her camera and trying to convince the birds to cooperate for a photo. She’s an avid-though-easily-distracted birdwatcher, a champion deleter of bad bird photography, a figure skater and skating coach, and the world’s greatest crazy aunt.
Daryl Calder – Cranbrook BC
Daryl became a naturalist at an early age around the outskirts of Victoria. Following his education at UVic, he settled in Cranbrook and became involved with a number of outdoor pursuits for work and recreation. Daryl and Marianne Nahm are involved with Rocky Mountain Naturalists in the East Kootenay. The naturalist club is very active with a wide variety of projects, many of which involve the study of birds. Daryl leads weekly birding trips for naturalists, participating in Christmas Bird Counts and occasionally providing articles to the local newspapers.
Carolee Colter and Sarah Fawcett – Nelson, BC
Carolee, a passionate lover of and advocate for the natural world, has spent the past 40 years birding at home and around the world, sharing her knowledge and enthusiasm. Sarah, an instructor at Selkirk College, is a relatively new birder who was lucky enough to meet Carolee while birding along the waterfront in Nelson. The two have been sharing adventures ever since.
Julia Flesaker – Nakusp BC
Julia grew up in the West Kootenay and after getting a Bachelor degree in Natural Resource Sciences from TRU, she went on to teach secondary sciences in Nakusp. She is an avid birder, naturalist and photographer. When not working Julia is out exploring nature by bike, foot or paddle. She began birding in 2017 under the mentorship of Gary Davidson. Since then Julia now tries to bird daily and has taken this curiosity on her travels in Vietnam, Panama, Texas, and recently Costa Rica.
Jo Ellen Floer – Cranbrook BC
Jo Ellen is a retired forester and long-time naturalist. She grew up in Creston and visits often. She has lived in Cranbrook for over 30 years, enjoying the Kootenays and the birds there. A favorite pastime is looking for birds in foreign places, most recently Japan and Tanzania. Birding as a passion came later in life but she is trying hard to make up for it!
Lyle Grisedale – Kimberley BC
Lyle Grisedale lives in Kimberley, BC and is an Association of Canadian Mountain Guides (ACMG) Guide who spends his summers leading hikers in the Selkirk, Purcell, and Rocky Mountains He is an enthusiastic birder, an avid photographer, and naturalist who spends as much time as possible exploring the mountains, wetlands and grasslands of the East Kootenays area of British Columbia.
The Creston Valley Bird Fest would like to thank Lyle for samples of his photography throughout this website and in our advertising. For more information, please visit his website
Simone Littledale – Victoria BC
Simone is a naturalist, artist, teacher living on on W̱SÁNEĆ territory in Victoria, BC. Her love of the natural world started early, with a childhood exploring the forests and beaches around her home, but her passion for birds was kickstarted by a post-graduation trip to the Colombian Amazon. Since then, birding has been the main focus of her travels, taking her to places such as Borneo, Japan, Mexico, and Costa Rica. Simone has volunteered with Rocky Point Bird Observatory since 2022, and served on the governing board since 2024. When she isn’t spouting cool nature facts to middle school students, she can usually be found exploring the outdoors, in her home studio, or rewilding her garden with native flora.
Aiva Noringseth – Victoria BC
BC Nature’s IBA Program
A life- long Vancouver Islander and proud ‘nature nerd’, Aiva (she/they) currently resides on W̱SÁNEĆ territory in Victoria, BC and most recently completed a B.Sc. in Geography and Environmental Studies at the University of Victoria. A well- rounded generalist with natural history and biodiversity, she is most passionate about vertebrates and spends most of her time birding and collaborating on bird conservation through the BC IBA Program, Rocky Point Bird Observatory and other avian orgs. Having grown up exploring the coastal waters of BC, Aiva is keen to expand into the eastern reaches of the province and will be starting bird banding with Vaseux Lake Bird Observatory in August. She is currently the Field Coordinator with BC Nature’s IBA Program. When not birding, Aiva is often uploading observations to iNaturalist, looking at maps, or playing outside.
Gaelen Schnare – Nelson, BC
Gaelen Schnare is a young birder and photographer from Nelson, BC. Having appreciated exploring the Creston Valley since he first took up birding, he is quite familiar with the local spots and bird life. As a younger bird enthusiast, Gaelen enjoys generating community interest in birds through presentations at local schools and other organizations as well as taking part in promoting birding in the Kootenays. Despite travelling to birding locations extensively throughout western Canada, the USA, Ireland, and Ecuador, his favorite place to spend a day of birding remains the flats of Creston.
Julia Shewan – Creston BC
Julia grew up in the Kootenays and from a young age was enamored with our feathered friends (the sound of Ruby-crowned Kinglets will always remind her of home!). She left to go to UBC in Vancouver and get her BSc and spent over a decade in the big city working as a wildlife biologist for an environmental consulting firm, where she travelled across western Canada and completed field studies for birds and other vertebrate species. She is safely back on home soil and has been working at the Creston Valley Wildlife Management Area for the past several years, during which time she has gotten to know the Creston Valley’s feathered, furry, scaley, and smooth and slimy inhabitants pretty well. Outside of work, she’s often found outside having adventures with her young family and trying to develop her green thumb (all easier said than done!).
Sachi Snively – Queens Bay BC
Birder, Bander, Biologist, and Naturalist with a healthy interest in orchids, butterflies, and anything else that catches his lens.
Sachi Snively has a Bachelor of Science degree majoring in Biology from the University of Victoria. Growing up in the Kootenays, his interest in wildlife was sparked at an early age. As a Field Biologist he continues to contribute to a variety of projects in BC and Alberta including his banding work at the Tatlayoko Lake Bird Observatory which is in the western Chilcotin District of the Central Interior of BC.
Ulrike Sliworsky – Creston BC
Ulrike is a birder that lives in Creston. She has a science degree from the University of Manitoba with an Ornithology major. In addition to re-introducing endangered species such as Peregrine Falcons and Burrowing Owls, she has also banded waterfowl and songbirds. She has enjoyed participating in Audubon’s Christmas bird counts for over 30 years in various communities and is now the Coordinator/Compiler for the Creston Valley as well as the Kuskanook Christmas Bird Counts. Having been a Park Naturalist, she enjoys sharing her love and knowledge of nature especially with her son and visiting birders!
