The Making of a Naturalist
My boyhood love of birds, nurtured by my naturalist father and a childhood spent in the fields and forests of rural New York State, led me to graduate school and a career as an ornithologist. Well, “career” may be too grand a term for years spent in the academic limbo of the itinerant researcher. Not the most stable existence, but intensely rewarding in its opportunities to travel to remote places and to study some of the world’s most beautiful and fascinating creatures. These studies took me to Panama and Costa Rica, to St. Lucia in the Caribbean, Suriname in South America, and to the Samoan Islands in Polynesia, as well as throughout North America. Along the way, I became part of the informal and unkempt network of field biologists who share their knowledge of rarely-seen animals, who pass along tips on promising study sites, and whose contacts in out-of-the-way places like Iquitos, Pago Pago, and Puntarenas can save weeks of delay and frustration.

By 1994, however, I had become a family man with two young children, and it was time to leave the life of the globe-trotting field biologist behind. My wife and I settled in Ashland, where we found the community that we had always been looking for. But the urge to see the world is not so easily discarded. Thanks to the contacts I had made over the years, I found that it was possible to travel to exotic locales without being gone for months at a time: I hired on as a naturalist and lecturer for eco-tours and cruises. These trips last only a couple of weeks, and although they don’t offer the same intense rewards as a field study that spans months or years, they are compatible with family life (and with keeping a job that actually pays a salary!).

As a tour leader, I traveled around the world, visiting six continents. But it seemed that every trip, whether we were standing among the sublime mist-shrouded ruins of Machu Picchu or relaxing after a day of game-viewing on the Serengeti, one member of the group was sure to turn to me and say, “This is great – but have you ever been to Antarctica?”

Well, no, as a matter of fact, I never had. Antarctica, I must admit, was not high on my list of dream destinations. The idea of seeing penguins was appealing, but to me, a confirmed lover of the tropical rainforest and its overwhelming variety of life, Antarctica seemed like a frozen and largely lifeless world. Besides, no one was offering to send me there.

Then I got a call from a friend who was hiring the staff for Le Diamant’s maiden voyage to Antarctica.