Buffalo Commons Birding Safaris: About Us

Your guides for the birding tours are Tom Gibson and Mike Barnhart.

Red-Necked Grebes

Tom has been a professional naturalist for 15 years. He started, developed and directed the Turtle Mountain Environmental Learning Center. He has many credits and honors as a wildlife photographer including a "Birders World" photo essay on Red-Necked Grebes (right), a Top 100 finalist in

Great-Horned Owl

the "National Wildlife" magazine photo contest, and first place in the ABA national convention photo contest in 1992 for a photo of a Great-Horned Owl (left). He is a frequent contributor to the "North Dakota Outdoors" calendar, and has had entries in many other local publications.

Mike has been a high school biology teacher for more than 20 years, teaching classes on ornithology and general biology. He has done professional work for the North Dakota Game and Fish Department, where he did a survey of the neotropical migrants along the Heart River, and with Bluestem, Inc., where he has worked on mine reclamation and breeding bird surveys. Along with Tom, he was a counselor at the Science and Outdoor Skills camp at the Logging Camp Ranch in the North Dakota Badlands for 10 years.

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