Tyler began guiding professionally immediately after graduating university in 2007, fulfilling a childhood dream inspired by the naturalists and guides he experienced as a kid infatuated with the natural world. Tyler spent the next 15 years in tourism and hospitality, including 6+ years running a luxury safari lodge in the Maasai Mara, Kenya. Now living in the San Juan Islands in Washington State, his incurably itchy feet and irrepressible love for birds and birding mean he is always eager for new adventures and opportunities to share his passion with others.

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  Tyler hails from the Pacific Northwest of the USA, where he spent his childhood exploring the great outdoors of the Cascade Mountains and Puget Sound. He also grew up on nature shows on Animal Planet and the Discovery Channel, desperately yearning to visit the places and animals he saw on TV. When he was 12, he finally had the opportunity to do so when his parents decided travelling the world for a year was time better spent than languishing in the 7th grade in the US school system (source: his dad was a teacher).

  It was during this trip that Tyler experienced his sparkbird:  Rainbow Lorikeets raucously zipping about downtown Cairns, Australia. The tween from Seattle was mind-blown. For the rest of that year, the first port of call after arriving in a new destination was the nearest bookstore to find a field guide.

  And he’s followed birds pretty much ever since. Upon returning to the US, he began leading his local Christmas Bird Count, became the youth representative to the Seattle Audubon Society, and was recognised as the American Birding Association’s “Young Birder of the Year” in 2000. His keen interest in birds certainly played a role in his decision to attend Cornell University for undergrad (as did his other passion, rowing) and led to some great jobs as a field biologist (including looking for the Ivory-billed Woodpecker in Pascagoula, Mississippi) and to many years in hospitality (as a guide, guide trainer, travel specialist, and regional director for a luxury safari lodge in Kenya). Not to mention trips all over the world looking for all things feathered.

  These days, Tyler resides in the idyllic San Juan Islands of northwest Washington State, where he is an environmental stewardship project manager. He is also president of the San Juan Islands Audubon chapter, regularly leads local birdwalks, and is a regional eBird reviewer for San Juan County and Kenya. If he’s not birding or spending time with his family, he might be running, kayaking, skiing, taking pictures, tidying his yard, enjoying a microbrew at trivia night, or researching his next trip.