Ryan DiGaudio

Working Lands Science Director

Much of my research focuses on understanding how bird communities respond to different management and restoration practices, especially on working lands (i.e. farms and ranches).  And as the California Partners in Flight Coordinator, I apply my scientific knowledge and bring together landowners, land management agencies, and scientists throughout California to develop conservation practices that benefit birds, other wildlife, and their habitats.  Since most of our important terrestrial wildlife habitat is on private lands, I strive to find ‘win-win’ solutions that benefit both landowners and wildlife whenever possible.

I was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, where as a kid I explored the local woodlands and creeks in search of butterflies, snakes, lizards, frogs, salamanders, and just about anything else I could catch and study up close.  It wasn’t until I was in college at U.C. Santa Cruz (B.A. Biology / Environmental Studies 1995) did I learn I could also do this with birds.  For my master’s thesis at the University of Michigan (M.S. Resource Ecology and Management 2003) I studied the migration timing of songbirds and how this might be impacted by climate change by analyzing long-term banding data from Point Blue’s Palomarin Field Station.

Early in my career as a biologist, I did what most young biologists do right out of college- travel to farflung places to study fascinating animals, which for me usually involved birds.  This led me to several exciting field jobs in such places as Costa Rica, Big Sur, Maui, Mexico, Midway Atoll, San Clemente Island, the Farallon Islands, and Grizzly Island.  I first came to Point Blue as an intern in 1996 where I worked in the San Francisco Bay tidal marshes finding Song Sparrow and Common Yellowthroat nests.  From 1997 – 2000 I co-managed Point Blue’s Cosumnes River Preserve songbird monitoring project, and from 2002 – 2006 I worked on the Monterey Bay Snowy Plover project.  Since late 2006 I’ve been the California Partners in Flight Coordinator, and though recently I’ve been focused on bird conservation and habitat restoration on private lands, I’m still interested in all aspects of ecology, conservation, and all things wild.

Though I’m often in the field during the spring and summer, my “home base” office is at our Palomarin Field Station in the Point Reyes National Seashore.