About

My name is Greg Stotts and I am an avid bird enthusiast, amateur photographer, and information security professional. I live in Alleman, Iowa with my wife and two sons. I've worn a number of different hats over the years — spent over a decade teaching grades K-8, mostly middle school mathematics and science, before transitioning to information security for a local retailer and eventually moving into cloud security infrastructure for a SaaS company.

Birding became a passion after moving to our home in Alleman, Iowa. Our property backs up to a field and the wildlife around our home is much more plentiful than it ever was in the city. When we moved in I found a mating pair of House Finches living in our front bushes where a large window overlooks their nest. It started innocently enough — glancing over while sitting in the chair and noticing the pair. Over time I began seeing their individual personalities and quirks, which led me to want to learn more and more about them. This blossomed into learning about birds in general, discovering eBird, and putting it to use. I set out one day to the local state park to see what I could find and began noticing a whole world I had seemingly ignored — woodpeckers bouncing from tree to tree, creepers making their way upside down from base to top, Blue Jays screaming when people came too close. From that point on, I was hooked.