About Us
Learn about Carefree Birding
On a recent cruise to the Caribbean, Ken Burgener, founder of Carefree Birding, stepped ashore at a Mexican port and within one-half hour had sighted six lifers. This started him thinking that others would enjoy this type of birding (short tours, close to port) with time left over for enjoying the sights, sounds, and bargins of the ports of call. Thus was born CAREFREE BIRDING, a merger of cruising and birding.
Carefree Birding’s philosophy is to have fun. We want to make everyone’s trip enjoyable and make it easy to add to one’s life list. We offer low cost group rates, fellowship with other birders, fun discussions and birding games on board ship. Traveling with someone who is not a birder? No problem -- with limited time apart, there will be plenty of activities onboard the cruise ship and other shore excursions available to keep them busy.
Ken has worked with the National Audubon Society, as well as the Florida Audubon Society in their educational department. He served over 5 years as a board member of the Broward County Audubon Society. For over eleven years, Ken has taught beginning birding to kids through seniors. He has taken thousands of people birding in the Florida Everglades. He calls himself an “entertaining environmental educator”. He says, “I love to teach beginning birding because I can relate to the excitement of a beginner.
Kevin T. Karlson: Biography 2011
Kevin Karlson is an accomplished birder, professional tour leader and wildlife photographer who has published numerous articles on bird identification and natural history for an assortment of magazines, journals, calendars and CD/DVDs. A former photo editor for North American Birds, he currently writes the Birder's ID column for Wild Bird Magazine. Kevin is a co-author of The Shorebird Guide (Houghton Mifflin Co. 2006) and is completing a new book for the Roger Tory Peterson Reference series at Houghton Mifflin Co. called Birding by Impression. He is the author of a photography book called The Birds of Cape May (Schiffer Publishing, 2010) which celebrates the birds and wildlife of this special location with a visual journey through the four seasons. Kevin also participated as the photographic editor for a recent book The Birds of New Jersey (Princeton University Press, 2011). At present, he is preparing an Advanced Shorebirds application (app) for the Apple app store with Birdzilla (www.Birdzilla.com).
As the sole ornithologist for Cornell Lab of Ornithology's DVD Birds of North America, Kevin prepared photos and wrote captions for over 2600 bird images, including over 800 of his own. He also wrote the shorebird section for a Field Guide of North American Birds by DK Publishing in Great Britain (2008). He is a regular presence at numerous Bird and Nature festivals around North America, where he gives keynote presentations and workshops on bird identification and natural history, and leads field trips to a variety of locations. Kevin also leads a select number of photography and birdwatching tours.
Kevin is a regular presence at numerous birding and nature festivals around North America, where he gives keynote presentations and workshops on bird identification and natural history, and leads field trips to a variety of locations. Some of his annual venues include: The Rio Grande Valley Bird Festival in Texas; Galveston, Texas' Featherfest Bird Festival; Space Coast Bird Festival in Titusville Florida and Cape May's Annual Spring and Fall Weekends. Kevin also participates as a photography instructor at the prestigious Florida's Birding and Fotofest in St. Augustine every April.
Dale Rosselet
Dale Rosselet has been with New Jersey Audubon Society 1983. She has worked in the education department as teacher naturalist, director of education, and currently is New Jersey Audubon Society's Vice-president for Education. Dale is a New Jersey native, having grown up near the Great Swamp in northern New Jersey and now resides in Cape May County. She has been leading domestic and foreign tours for New Jersey Audubon Society for the last 12 years. Domestic tours led include South Florida and the Dry Tortugas, Texas (Rio Grande Valley and Big Bend area), Washington State, and Montana. She has also led tours to Churchill and Manitoba, Costa Rica, Venezuela, Panama, Peru, and Mexico.
In addition to the above, Dale is co-author of the Society's teacher education curriculum guides; Bridges to the Natural World, New Jersey WATERS: Watershed Approach to Teaching the Ecology of Regional Systems, and the Society's newest book Wild Journeys: Migration in New Jersey. She has written for New Jersey Audubon as well as co-authored articles with her husband, Kevin Karlson, for Wild Bird magazine.
