Birding Adventures with Paddy Cunningham

Paddy Cunningham has worked as a professional naturalist in South Florida for over 35 years, running Birding Adventures from Fort Lauderdale and coordinating the annual Everglades Birding Festival held over MLK weekend each January. Her focus is the Everglades, Corkscrew Swamp, the Keys, and the South Dade exotic patch, where she pulls in 250+ species a year for clients. Beyond Florida she leads small-group trips to Panama and Costa Rica, with plans for Grand Bahama and Jamaica. Cunningham also serves as Florida Ambassador for the American Birding Association and is best known for teaching identification skills — she ran a Florida Big Year in 2008 (333 species, 1st in Florida and 20th nationally) and emphasizes that clients should walk away from a trip as better birders, not just with longer lists.