Speakers & Field Trip Leaders
Keynote Speaker Tim Manolis will be giving a talk entitled "Dragonflies Around the World".
Tim is the author of "Dragonflies and Damselflies of California"
http://www.sonic.net/dragonfly/timsbook.html
and co-author of the "Dragonflies of North America" coloring book
http://southwestdragonflies.net/ColoringBook/
Tim is an accomplished artist and illustrator and a prominent member of the California birding community in addition to his work on odonates. Tim will also lead trips.
Bob Behrstock is giving the festival's opening lecture, "Dragonflies 101", and leading a pre-fest field trip to Santa Ana NWR.
A professional photographer and longtime professional birding tour leader, Bob was also involved in the design of the Great Texas Coastal Birding Trail. He co-authored the recently published "Birdlife of Houston, Galveston, and the Upper Texas Coast" and currently has two books in press, "An Introduction to the Dragonflies and Damselflies of the Southwest Borderlands" and "Finding Birds on the Great Texas Coastal Birding Trail". Bob has participated in Dragonfly Days almost every year that it has been held. http://www.naturewideimages.com/ Bob will also lead trips.
Martin Reid will be giving a talk title “Dragon Hunters: How Amateurs can Make Exciting Discoveries”
Martin is one of Texas' most active and knowledgeable birders and naturalists, and an outstanding photographer of birds and butterflies as well as odonates. http://www.martinreid.com/ Martin will also lead trips.
Matthew Terry will give a talk titled "Dragonfly Development: From Egg to Nymph"
Matthew is a professor at the University of Texas Pan-American. He is an authority on the development and evolution of odonates, stoneflies, and insects in general. http://www.utpa.edu/dept/biology/terry.html
Ro Wauer will give the talk "Natural Superlatives of the Tex-Mex Border"
Ro is one of Texas' most prolific nature writers and best-known naturalists, having published over 20 books on Texas birds and wildlife, most recently "Finding Butterflies in Texas" http://www.johnsonbooks.com/books/backlist/Animals/Findingbutterflies.htm
As well as "Butterflies of the Lower Rio Grande Valley"
http://www.roadtripamerica.com/read/Butterflies-of-the-Lower-Rio-Grande.htm
Having worked and lived in the Big Bend region for decades, and visited the LRGV numerous times, Ro and his wife Betty will give the talk "Natural Superlatives of the Tex-Mex Border", covering not only odonates but also butterflies, birds, other wildlife, and habitats of the entire length of the Rio Grande in Texas. Ro will also lead trips.
Terry Fuller will share some of his secrets in luring rare species to his backyard in a talk "Backyard Dragonfly Habitat and Rarities in Cameron County"
Terry is an LRGV resident whose yard in San Benito (Cameron County) has been the site of several of the most exciting dragonfly finds in the state (if not the entire country) during the past few months. Some of the species he has documented from his yard this year had been found in the United States no more than two or three times
before, including the Claret Pondhawk, Black Pondhawk, Pale-green Darner, and Evening Skimmer. His yard has also had some remarkable hummingbird sightings in recent years.
Joshua Rose will give a talk titled "Close but No Cigar: Insects that Look or Act like Odonates but Aren't"
Josh is a Natural Resource Specialist for the World Birding Center at Bentsen-Rio Grande Valley State Park. He has a Ph.D. from Duke University on dragonflies, a Master's from UT-Arlington on giant waterbugs, a Bachelor's from Cornell that involved a lot of coursework on birds, and a nose for critters of all sorts. Before the WBC he worked or interned, at various times, at the Manomet Bird Observatory, Point Reyes Bird Observatory, Whitefish Point Bird Observatory, Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest, Massachusetts Audubon Society, Ellerbe Creek
Watershed Association, and Hakalau National Wildlife Refuge, among others. Josh will also lead trips.
Tom Langscheid will be leading field trips
Tom developed the highly popular King Ranch nature tour program http://www.king-ranch.com/nature_tours.html
He now is a research scientist at the Cesar Kleberg Wildlife Research Institute http://ckwri.tamuk.edu/38/
and still often leads King Ranch tours for most of the LRGV birding and nature festivals. He has discovered several odonates breeding on King Ranch property which have been recorded very few times elsewhere in the US, including Blue-faced Darner, Black Pondhawk, and Cream-tipped Swamp-damsel.