Our Leaders
Forrest Davis is owner and founder of High Lonesome BirdTours. In 1994, following a varied career that included a tour in the Marines, several years at NASA, and career as a health care executive, he decided to retire in pursuit of his favorite interest: birds and other wildlife.
He began leading private tours in 1995, and moved on to group tours in 1996. He specializes in Alaska and Sonora, Mexico, and still enjoys co-leading many of the company's tours. He has written articles for Winging It and is a well-known figure in the birding world.
Forrest lives in Southeastern Arizona.
David MacKay has led tours for High Lonesome since 1996. His specialties are Alaska and Mexico (he speaks fluent Spanish). He makes his home in Alamos, Sonora, Mexico where he is hard at work building a new birding lodge there.
David and his wife, Jennifer, managed a lodge for several years in Alamos. They now run a fine restaurant in Alamos as well. David was previously Operations Manager for BackRoads (the largest bike touring company in the world) and led tours for them as well. Dave is our lead guide at Gambell.
Jennifer MacKay is a gourmet cook, and she doubles as our cook at Gambell — a treat for our guests and guides as well. She is a casual birder, but enjoys it.
She leads bike tours in Europe and the US for BackRoads, and she is the chef of her own restaurant in Alamos, Sonora, Mexico.
Wezil Walraven has been involved in birding most of his life. He spent several years as a naturalist at a nature center in Alanta. He relocated with his wildlife artist wife, Lisa, to Arizona in 1997, and he has been leading trips there and in Mexico since that time.
Wezil lives with his wife in Asheville, NC, from where he continuse to lead trips for High Lonesome in Arizona, Texas, Colorado, and Mexico while developing new trips on the East Coast. Wezil is an exceptional birding guide — and highly entertaining as well!
Dave Krueper is a non-game-bird biologist with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, based in Albuquerque, NM. He has been an avian biologist and an avid birder for over 30 years. Dave has lived in Alaska for four years and has birded on six continents. Although his particular love is birding in the Western Hemisphere tropics, he has made a special effort to bird in all habitats in North America, and particularly loves Alaska for its dramatic landscapes and diverse avifauna. He's on the Board of Directors of the Western Field Ornithologists and is a past president.
Phil Davis is a government consultant in his day job, and he’s a first-class birder the rest of the time. Phil is secretary for the Maryland Ornithological Society. His birding interest is long-standing, and he has written birding articles for several publications. He has a special interest in Asiatic species and sub-species.
He enjoys photographing birds, and his photo of the only living Eurasian Wryneck in North America was published on the cover of Western Birds. He has birded and led birding trips in a number of locations. He co-leads our tours to Alaska and the Dry Tortugas. He resides in Maryland with his wife Barbara, also an avid birder and sometimes co-leader.
Juan Carlos Calvachi leads our Ecuador and Galapagos trips. He was a protégé of Paul Greenfield, co-author of Birds of Ecuador, and has led many trips with him. He now has his own guiding business.
He is probably the most accomplished native guide in Ecuador. He speaks fluent English, and he resides in Quito, Ecuador with his wife, Paulina and their three children, where they operate a very comfortable bed and breakfast for birders.
Neil Donaghy is owner of Celtic BirdTours in Wales UK. He will be leading our tours to Wales and Great Britain, Romania, Scandanavia, and other European destinations. Neil has a diploma in German and has been a bird watcher since childhood. He has travelled extensively throughout Europe and has worked in France and Germany. It is this love of travel and birds that finally convinced him to take the long desired step of combining the two.
He is a committee member and field secretary of the Glamorgan Bird Club and has the happy knack of finding rare birds. Neil is married to Ceri, a physician, and they have three sons. He has written articles for Birdwatch magazine, Welsh Birding and authored the The Birds of Bridgend, which was published in February 2001. He is planning a new book—The Birds of Kenfig National Nature Reserve—which he is co-writing with Steve Moon.
Fraser Gear leads our Southern Africa trips. He was born and raised in Johannesburg. Upon completion of his education, he followed his passions and set out to explore Africa and Madagascar. This led to a career in conservation work beginning with habitat rehabilitation projects on private game reserves bordering the Kruger National Park.
As his interest in wildlife blossomed, Fraser started guiding and, as a result, has spent many years in the region’s top wildlife and birding sites. In the process, he honed his skills as a bird guide and naturalist and is also one of the few qualified game trackers in South Africa. Fraser is now guiding birding and nature trips for Rockjumper Tours throughout Africa and Madagascar.
Kip Miller will be leading Alaska trips. He lives in Southwest Michigan, where he spends much time birding the beaches, dunes and forests along the Lake Michigan shore. As a nature center naturalist, he shares his enthusiasm for birds by leading regular local field trips and hosting special events to promote birding.
Since 1989 he has also guided tours to multiple regions of the U.S. and Canada and has organized over a dozen trips in the American tropics. He enjoys the sharing aspects of group birding and understands the importance of making tours both fun and comfortable for all participants.
Dylan Holstein-Radin will be leading trips in a number of locations. He has been a lead guide at St. Paul Island, Pribilofs. He is especially interested in Latin America. He has a degree in Wildlife Management from the University of Arizona. He lives in Tucson.
Mark Hedden has lived in Key West for over fifteen years, which makes him an old timer. He became obsessed with birds and birding in his late twenties and has been working to catch up with all the people who started their life lists in the cradle ever since. He has been guiding since 2002 and leading tours to the Dry Tortugas for High Lonesome since 2004.
He is past president of the Florida Keys Audubon Society. He writes a weekly column for the Key West Citizen about birds, and is a writer-in-residence at The Studios of Key West, an artists community housed in the old armory. He regrets the fact that writing about birds often gets in the way of actually looking at them and is trying to find a way to fix the problem.
Sheri Williamson is co-director, with her husband Tom Wood, of the non-profit Southeastern Arizona Bird Observatory in Bisbee, Arizona. She is author of The Peterson Guide to the Hummingbirds of North America. She has authored numerous articles about hummingbirds and the behavior of other species as well. She and Tom also produced the Southeast Arizona Birding Trail map. Sheri and Tom were managers of the Nature Conversancy, Ramsey Canyon Preserve for several years. She co-leads trips to Belize, Ecuador, and Arizona. She resides with Tom in Bisbee, Arizona.
Tom Wood is co-director, with Sheri, of the Southeastern Arizona Bird Observatory. He leads trips for us to Arizona and Texas. He trained as a wildlife biologist, and he has a special interest in mammals. He was the naturalist at the Fort Worth Nature Center and Refuge for many years before coming to Arizona to manage the Nature Conservancy’s Ramsey Canyon
Jim Black leads tours in Costa Rica and Venezuela. He speaks fluent Spanish. He spent several years in Costa Rica and Mexico engaged in avian research projects. He has led his own tours throughout the Western Hemisphere for a number of years. Jim lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico with his wife, Paulita.
Luke Tiller will be leading some of the our trips in association with Sunrise Birding. He is a British expatriate birder originally from London, England. He has traveled extensively in Europe and North Africa and now lives in Connecticut. He has quickly made his mark on the local birding scene, and in recognition he was honored to be invited to join the board of the Connecticut Ornithological Association last year. Luke is passionate about finding birds and sharing the excitement of doing so with others. He heads up Sunrise Birding’s North American Office, leading tours as well as continuing a local presence in Connecticut. His sense of humor, patience and his unswerving drive to get travelers the desired birds is highly valued by his loyal following.
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