Keynote Speaker Kevin Karlson

Keynote Speaker

Welcome

May 16-20, 2013

Great Salt Lake Bird Festival is excited to announce the 2013 Keynote Speaker (May 18 2013) will be author, birder and shorebird expert Kevin Karlson. Kevin says his recent experience with Super storm Sandy brought him closer to nature than he wanted to be. He had ocean water lapping on his front lawn (house was spared). Visiting Great Salt Lake next May will be a better way to interact with salt water. Kevin has been to Utah previously, but as a tourist to our red rock country so he is excited to be part of the Festival in northern Utah. In addition to giving the Keynote address, Kevin will also guide a few fieldtrips and sign books. The Festival is excited to let Kevin do what he does best- inspire people (of all ages) to enjoy bird watching more!

Kevin Karlson Dinner Tickets are available on-line now . Registration for field trips for the 2013 Festival begins March 1, 2013.

Kevin Karlson is an accomplished birder, professional tour leader and wildlife photographer who has published numerous articles on bird identification and natural history for an assortment of magazines, journals, calendars and CD/DVDs. A former photo editor for North American Birds, he currently writes the Birder’s ID column for Wild Bird Magazine. Kevin is a co-author of The Shorebird Guide (Houghton Mifflin Co. 2006) and is completing a new book for the Roger Tory Peterson Reference series at Houghton Mifflin Co. called Birding by Impression. He just completed a Shorebird ID App for Birdzilla.com called Shorebirds of the United States and Canada, which is available in the Apple Store, and will release a comprehensive Shorebird ID E-Book in the fall of 2012.

Kevin is the author and contributing photographer for a book called The Birds of Cape May (Schiffer Publishing, 2010) which celebrates the birds and wildlife of this special location with a visual journey through the four seasons, and he just completed a new nature photography book called Visions: Earth’s Elements in Bird and Nature Photography, which was released in July, 2012. Kevin also served as the photographic editor and preparer of digital images for a recent book The Birds of New Jersey (Princeton University Press, 2011).

As the sole ornithologist for Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s DVD Birds of North America, Kevin prepared photos and wrote captions for over 2600 bird images, including over 800 of his own. He also wrote the shorebird section for a Field Guide of North American Birds by DK Publishing in Great Britain (2008). Kevin leads a select number of photography and birdwatching tours for other companies, but his tour company, Jaeger Tours Inc, will be returning to field trip operations in 2013 with a limited number of offerings.

Kevin is a regular presence at numerous birding and nature festivals around North America , where he gives keynote presentations and workshops on bird identification and natural history, and leads field trips to a variety of locations. Some of his annual venues include: The Rio Grande Valley Bird Festival in Texas; Galveston, Texas’ Featherfest Bird Festival; Space Coast Bird Festival in Titusville Florida and Cape May’s Annual Spring and Fall Weekends. Kevin also participates as a photography instructor at the prestigious Florida’s Birding and Fotofest in St. Augustine every April.

Join Kevin on these activities:

Thursday, May 16 7 am - 2 pm #4 Willard Bay State Park

Friday, May 17 7 am - 1 pm #15 Antelope Island Birds and Geology

Friday, May 17 3 pm - 4:30 pm "Compose and Create the Best Possible Digital Wildlife Photo" Workshop

Friday, May 17 5 pm - 6 pm Book signing/Meet and Greet

Saturday, May 18 7 am - 11 am #29 "Shorebirds made Simpler" Field Trip to Antelope Island

Saturday, May 18 11:30 am - 1 pm "Shorebirds made Simpler" Indoor Workshop

Saturday, May 18 6 pm Keynote Address and dinner

"Visions: Earth's Elements in Bird and Nature Photography"

Sunday, May 19 7 am - 3 pm #45 Bear River MBR

Field Trips and Dinner require a ticket. All workshops are FREE.