Colorado & Kansas Birding:
Grouse and Prairie-Chickens and More
Nick Komar
Nick Komar is a career biologist and a near-lifetime birder. Nick has been leading grouse tours in Colorado for over fifteen years, and 2021 will mark his eighteen years in running Colorado grouse tours.
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Nick loves birding in Colorado. He is the current president of the Colorado Field Ornithologists. In 2011, he co-authored Wild Birding Colorado, The Big Year of 2010. He has led field trips and workshops for Western Field Ornithologists and Colorado Field Ornithologists, and he seemingly is always on the field trip schedule for the Fort Collins Audubon Society. Nick seems to be in the field nearly every weekend leading birding tours or birding and exploring the many interesting birding sites near his hometown of Fort Collins, Colorado.
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Besides birding and guiding, Nick works with the Center for Disease Control and Prevention in Fort Collins. Nick has earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Massachusetts and a doctorate from Harvard University.
More details about this Trip:
​John Vanderpoel​
John is a lifelong birder and has been birding for over forty years. He holds the second-highest ABA-area year list (744 species), which he accomplished in 2011. Watch for his upcoming book, Full Chase Mode, which describes his big year.
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For over twenty years, John has been guiding birders throughout the United States, including several Colorado grouse tours over the last four years.
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Besides guiding, he is the owner of Peregrine Video Productions and the creator of The Advanced Birding Video Series with Jon Dunn. The series includes The Large Gulls of North America, The Small Gulls of North America, and Hummingbirds of North America.
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For most of his career, John worked in various leadership roles (mostly on the operations end) of several high-tech companies in Colorado and elsewhere in the United States.
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John graduated from the University of Colorado with a bachelor’s in environmental biology. He completed some work on a master’s degree before starting work in the high-tech industry.