Boulder County Audubon
Teen Naturalists

Megan Jones Patterson has a lifelong interest in the intersections of science, outdoors, and education, often with birds being the focal point. She has a doctorate in animal behavior, researching the display behaviors of manakins in Costa Rica. Education and work have allowed Megan to enjoy birding around the globe; she loves living here in Colorado, where there is great avian diversity. Megan's current contributions to field ornithology include volunteer bird banding, raptor monitoring, and submissions to eBird. Megan has volunteered with BCAS in various capacities for nearly a decade and is on the board of Colorado Field Ornithologists.

Carol Kampert has been involved in natural history education for many years, starting as a volunteer naturalist for Boulder County Parks and Open Space in 1978 and working with the Boulder Valley School District to develop teacher workshops and activities for outdoor field trips for students. In 1988 she earned a Master’s degree in Museum Studies at CU and helped develop Science from CU, an outreach program that brings hands-on science programs to schools all over Colorado. From 1988 to 2002 she was coordinator of Classroom Adventures, a program for school groups at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science which featured hands-on experiences with museum specimens and artifacts. She has been an active member of Boulder County Nature Association and Boulder County Audubon Society for many years. Carol’s main goal is to encourage people of all ages to explore and appreciate wildlife, plants, geology and other natural wonders in the out-of-doors through hands-on experiences and personal observations.

Carol McCasland has been a ‘casual’ birder since childhood when she saw an Eastern Meadowlark singing on her school playground as a 3rd grader. That ‘casual’ attitude continued into adulthood when she moved to El Paso, TX and eventually Saudi Arabia. There her interest grew — Greater Roadrunners, parakeets eating dates in the front yard, the migrating Hoopoe,.... Her interest morphed into a life-long quest to find birds wherever she went: from her office in Houston, TX watching Peregrine Falcons take out Rock Pigeons, to vacations around the world and her backyard in the Hill Country of Texas. After retiring from a career in Information Technology, Carol moved to Louisville, CO and never looked back. Once here, she joined Boulder Audubon and then became a board member. Carol is also a docent at the Denver Zoo, specializing in the Great Apes. She loves to talk to people about the zoo animals and how people can help the animals survive in their native habitats. Carol still enjoys ‘birding’ in her local community and connecting people to nature. She counts her best bird in her backyard in Louisville as a Northern Goshawk which appeared not once, but twice on her back fence.

Courtney Rella is a dedicated volunteer and advocate for bird conservation and environmental education, with a strong focus on raptors and avian ecology. She serves as a docent and educational outreach volunteer with the Rocky Mountain Raptor Program, where she works with permanently disabled raptor ambassadors for enrichment and to engage the public through learning and conservation messaging. She is also involved with the Denver Field Ornithologists as a field trip leader and conservation board member, with Bird Conservancy of the Rockies as a raptor nest monitor, and with Longmont Raptor Watch contributing data to long-term research and species protection initiatives. Her interest in birds also sparked a passion for photography, which she uses as another way to observe, document, and share the beauty of avian life. She additionally supports avian research as a bird banding station data volunteer, assisting with the collection and management of data critical to understanding bird populations and migration patterns. Through these roles and interests, she demonstrates a deep commitment to wildlife conservation, citizen science, and environmental education.

Dave Sutherland is an award-winning interpretive naturalist, recently retired from the City of Boulder’s Open Space program. He has a Bachelor’s in biology from Pomona College, and a Master’s in nature interpretation from the University of Idaho. Besides nearly 30 years of work in the Boulder area, Dave has led outdoor education programs in California, Costa Rica and the Galapagos Islands. Dave is a self-professed natural science geek who uses games and activities to inspire others with his love of nature. He has been training for his job since the age of 4, when he began collecting rocks and butterflies and drawing his own bird books with crayons.