I’m a natural history educator and conservation storyteller focused on birds, wildlife, and the ecosystems they depend on. My work draws on decades of field experience and collaboration with scientists. This account is where I share those stories.
For 20 years, I worked for the Cornell Lab of Ornithology as a photographer, cinematographer, sound recordist, and producer.
That experience shaped how I approach natural history storytelling — grounded in careful observation, collaboration with scientists, and respect for the complexity of ecological relationships.
I contributed media to conservation initiatives, films, broadcasts, and publications used by researchers, educators, policymakers, and the public.
Today, I carry that foundation forward independently, continuing to tell science-based stories about birds, wildlife, and the ecosystems they depend on.
What you’ll find here:
— Bird and wildlife behavior and natural history
— Field observation and ecological context
— Photography and cinematography from the field
— The process behind conservation storytelling
— Wildlife and wilderness conservation stories
My goal is not just to show birds and wildlife, but to help people understand them — because understanding begins with observation and shapes our relationship with the natural world.
These lands are still covered in ice and snow, but already the sun is shining twenty-four hours a day. Soon the tundra will be a checkerboard of snow and bare ground, the dark polygon rims and thawing lake margins showing first, the wet middles holding water that hasn't decided yet whether to be ice or pond — and from around the world the birds will arrive, and somewhere out across it a pectoral sandpiper born here last year will return and test his song against the wind.
Two weeks until I am back in this country.
#arcticalaska #npra #teshekpuk #tundra #americasarctic #arcticspring #laplandlongspur #conservationphotography #wildlifephotography
Right now, King and Common Eiders are migrating north over the Chukchi Sea toward their Arctic breeding grounds.
Across the Northern Hemisphere, millions of birds are moving toward a short window of abundance in the Arctic summer.
For species like these, timing is everything. Within a few weeks, much of the landscape they depend on will be free of snow and ice, wetlands will open, and the breeding season will begin.
I’ll be heading north again soon as well to continue documenting the birds, wildlife, and landscapes of America's Arctic.
#eider #kingeider #commoneider #birdmigration #arctic #arcticbirds #waterfowl #birdbehavior #migratorybirds #wildlifephotography #arcticalaska #conservationphotography
This oiled Brown Pelican is the reason I became a video filmmaker.
It was 2010. I was on assignment covering the Deepwater Horizon oil spill on a Canon DSLR — the same kind of camera most of you are shooting with today. No cinema gear, no crew, no roadmap. Just a photographer figuring out video by necessity in the face of a wildlife tragedy.
What I collected that assignment changed everything. The footage had an urgency and immediacy that my stills couldn't match. By the end of six months I was a full blown video shooter and I've never looked back.
Since then, shooting exclusively on DSLR and mirrorless cameras, I've shot more than two thirds of a PBS Nature episode, filmed critically endangered species around the world, and won awards at Jackson Hole Wildlife Film Festival alongside productions from the BBC and Netflix.
Your camera is capable of far more than you think. What it needs is the right technique — and a different way of seeing and thinking.
That's what I built Mastering Bird Videography around. 70 lessons for bird photographers ready to take video seriously. DSLR and mirrorless techniques and the natural history storytellers video mindset. Complete beginners to video welcome.
Enrollment open now — link in bio @gerritvyn
Right now, at the peak of shorebird migration in the Northern Hemisphere, birds are moving rapidly toward the Arctic—timing their journey to a brief window of abundance on the breeding grounds.
Places like this are essential along the way. These mudflats hold astonishing densities of invertebrates just beneath the surface, providing the fuel birds need to continue.
Each tide reshapes the landscape. Channels shift, sediments and nutrients move, and feeding conditions change hour by hour.
The birds move with these cycles—both large and small—and somehow navigate hemispheres year after year.
Without healthy intertidal ecosystems, migrations like this wouldn’t be possible.
A Bald Eagle working to pull a salmon from the Chilkat River in Alaska.
Even with their size and strength, landing a big fish isn’t always straightforward. Fish are heavy, currents strong, and the ice is slippery.
Telling other eagles to stay away is the final step.
Female Eurasian Dotterel on alpine tundra in northern Norway.
Unlike most shorebirds, dotterels are polyandrous. A female may mate in one area, leave the male to incubate the eggs, and continue north to find another mate and lay a second clutch.
They are sparsely distributed across their range—finding one often comes down to being in the right place at the right time, with a bit of luck. And, if you’re really lucky, light like this.
The first footage ever filmed of hatching Spoon-billed Sandpipers
In the summer of 2011 I spent two months on the Siberian tundra with fewer than 200 breeding pairs of this species left on earth. This is the first footage ever recorded of their chicks hatching.
The Spoon-billed Sandpiper could be extinct within a decade. Video like this — behavior unfolding in real time, with sound — does something a photograph can't. It makes people feel the weight of what we stand to lose.
I've spent 30 years learning how to capture moments like this on DSLR and mirrorless cameras. I just put everything I know into a course.
Mastering Bird Videography — 70 lessons for bird photographers ready to take video seriously. Link in bio @gerritvyn
Video courtesy of The Cornell Lab of Ornithology.
#spoonbilledsandpiper #sbs #spoony #conservation #criticallyendangered
At 3am on July 1, 2011, I was huddled in a wind-battered blind on the Siberian tundra listening through a hidden microphone to a nest that was about to make history.
I was there to film the first high-definition footage ever taken of Spoon-billed Sandpipers on their breeding grounds. Fewer than 200 breeding pairs remained. What I filmed that morning — two tiny chicks emerging from beneath their father's breast and taking their first steps on the tundra — has since been used in conservation campaigns around the world.
I had strong photographs from that expedition. But it was the video that became the conservation tool. That's what bird video can do that a photograph simply cannot.
That realization is what I built Mastering Bird Videography around — my new 70-lesson course for bird photographers ready to add video to their practice. DSLR and mirrorless shooters, complete beginners to video welcome.
The full story — and the hatch footage — is on my website. Link in bio @gerritvyn
#sbs #spoonbilledsandpiper #spoony #waders #shorebirds #conservation
