About
Greg Baker's BIO
Greg Baker has been birding for over 50 years and started his birding life list of North American ABA-area species in 1964 at the age of ten. He grew up in Racine Wisconsin, which is a major conduit for birds migrating along the southwest shores of Lake Michigan each fall and spring. As a youth he spent countless hours in the field with a terrific mentor, Midwest birding icon Ed Prins (deceased).
Greg graduated from the University of Wisconsin, Parkside, with majors in Biology and Environmental Sciences. Â After graduation (and one of the coldest Midwest winters on record) Greg vowed never to suffer through another Midwest/Lake Michigan lake-front winter. Â He then moved to live and bird briefly in the Florida Keys (over the winter of 1978) before moving permanently to Portland, Oregon (in time to witness the series of Mt. Saint Helens eruptions, including the big one on May 18, 1980).
Over the past thirty years Greg has been happily married to Rebecca Bauer (now a retired Portland Public Schools teacher and current classroom volunteer).  They raised two vigorous children, Marshall and Clara Baker, who remarkably never caught on to Greg’s passion for birding; however, following in Greg’s footsteps, both graduated from college with high marks and are fine, multi-instrumentalist acoustic musicians.  And no, Rebecca doesn’t bird yet. (It’s only a matter of time.) Greg Baker started birding at age 10 in Racine, Wisconsin. He graduated from the University of Wisconsin in 1977 with double majors: Environmental Science and Biology. 
Greg continues to teach one of Portland Audubon’s longest running programs which he started over in 1994: Sauvie Island Exploration and Beginning Field Birding.
In 2008 Greg was gifted a copy of The Big Year, and he has been on a mission ever since.
His mission: to visit most of the places mentioned in the book, and to complete what he calls his own personal Working Stiff’s Big Decade. Greg’s Big Decade took him to 40 states and four Canadian Provinces, logging in over 700North American ABA-area species in the process. He photo-documented each birding trip and amassed a collection of 1200 PowerPoint presentations which highlight how to bird by general impression, relying upon sight, sounds, habitat, behavior and an in depth appreciation for status and distribution.
Greg is also finishing a book on the subject of birding by general impression – Good Birding by GIST – which he hopes to have published in early 2023, along with a website featuring many of his educational birding modules. As an environmental scientist/trainer he has over five years of recent experience teaching online webinar-based courses and traditional in person instruction. Greg enjoys networking with conservation and preservationist groups and is available to travel extensively.