I am a naturalist from Ontario,
Canada. At the moment, my main interests include birds, herps and Lepidoptera, but I am interested in just about every facet of the natural world. I lead birding and nature tours in Ontario, and my website is ONshorebirding.com.
I grew up in Ontario and my home province's ecology holds a special place in my heart. However in recent years my interests have grown outside the confines of Ontario's borders. The tropical regions of the world, particularly the Americas, hold a particular allure to me and I am always looking forward to my next trip.
My wife, Laura, and I quit our jobs in August 2019 - her as a veterinarian, and me as a biologist with an engineering firm - with a plan to travel throughout the Neotropics for several years. We spent three months in Ecuador, two months in Colombia and one month in Costa Rica until the pandemic shut down our travels. Finally, in September 2021, we were able to get back traveling again. Since then we have mostly been on the road, visiting Panama, Mexico, Colombia, Costa Rica, Peru, Malaysia and Thailand! Our plan is to return to Ontario in April 2023, and I will continue to lead tours locally here in Ontario.
I also work as a guide for Quest Nature Tours, leading tours in several locations. My upcoming tour schedule includes Colombia, Borneo, Jamaica, Ethiopia and West Papua (view my upcoming tours here). I love visiting remote places. Some of my
favorite activities include watching bird migration in the autumn on the shores
of James Bay, night-hiking in the tropics, picking through a mixed flock of birds in Central or South America, spending time with a
population of Eastern Massassaugas at a location I've visited for years, setting up my moth sheet and seeing what curiosities appear, and searching for endemic bird species in far flung locations.
I can be reached at joshvandermeulen (at) live.ca.
