Birding Colombia, South America: Russ Ruffing

The country of Colombia boasts the most impressive bird species list of any country in the world…so imagine trying to see as many species as possible there using small windows of availability! This talk will give a brief description of Colombia birding and focus on some of the challenges one might face birding a lot on your own, in a tropical country where English is spoken by very few. And of course, there will be lots of pictures of the birdlife!

Speaker Russ Ruffing took an interest in birds in grade school and began keeping records of nesting birds in his home area. When he attended Penn State, he worked for a wildlife professor who introduced him to survey protocols used on tracts of contiguous habitat.

Relocating to the Los Angeles area in the early 1990s, he birded southern California extensively. After a hiatus of ten years, the advent of eBird led to Russ birding again. In recent years, Russ worked on a three-year project to produce the Annotated Bird Records for Howard County, to which he continues to contribute.