High Desert Birding Adventures

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High Desert birding was developed in 2012 by  Raymond VanBuskirk, Michael Hilchey and Lee Hopwood after years of bird watching and working together in New Mexico. Lee, a former Wild Bird Center Franchise store owner, met Raymond and Michael through a mutual friend and hired them to work in her store part-time after school where they began leading bird walks for the store on Saturdays. Both boys were already extraordinary birders and over the years they became experts locally, nationally, and internationally. As all three began traveling internationally to Costa Rico, Belize, Ecuador, Panama, and Mexico, they were ‘bitten by the bird’ so to speak, and craved the next trip. Lee’s first trip was one she organized, managed and led to Belize with a small group of local birders she knew. Raymond and Michael’s first international trip was to Costa Rica where their birding skills were so outstanding they impressed the Costa Rican trip leader by identifying more birds than he usually did on a trip. He invited them back anytime to co-lead with him. While Michael and Raymond pursued their degrees in biology, ornithology and research, Lee continued to operate her now independent Wild Bird store and develop her skills bird banding with Raymond and Michael for Rio Grande Bird Research Inc. in Albuquerque. They all devote much of their ‘off’ time to bird research and conservation in New Mexico. Raymond, one of the originators and lead investigator of the Rosy-Finch Research Project in the Sandia Mountains, and Michael, a lead investigator on that same project, began getting requests from people all over the United States to lead private tours for them while visiting the Rosy-Finch project and throughout NM in the abundant winter birding months. So, naturally, the Rosy-Finch project became our bird touring kick-off and the foundation for forming High Desert Birding Adventures.