Nick Bartok grew up in central Ontario on the doorstep of Algonquin Provincial Park and has been birdwatching since childhood. After completing a BES at the University of Waterloo with a thesis on Trumpeter Swans in Ontario, he moved to Yuma, Arizona to conduct research on secretive marsh birds along the Colorado River and at the Salton Sea. After three spring/summer field seasons in the desert heat and two summer/fall season in southern Oregon bird banding, he moved to Victoria, BC to help run the bird banding operations at Rocky Point Bird Observatory. Having worked for non-profit and academic organizations, and provincial and federal governments, Nick completed an M.Sc. at the University of Western Ontario studying Least Bittern populations and habitat associations at Long Point, Ontario.
Nick now lives with his wife and two small children in Calgary, AB, working as a consultant and is a lead for a yearly bird ID workshop hosted by the Alberta Society of Professional Biologists (ASPB) of which he is a member. Besides enjoying being a dad and avid bird watcher, he is also a certified trainer level bird bander with the North American Banding Council and regularly leads workshops on bird banding in Belize and locally in Calgary.
