Lee Hopwood

Owner & Guide

Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA

 Lee grew up on the SE side of Washington, D.C. where she spent her summers at her grandmother’s home in NW D.C. Her first bird of awareness was the Pileated Woodpecker, “it would drum on the telephone poles and my grand would say – that Damn Woodpecker’s at it again! It wasn’t until I was about 12 or 13 that I learned it really wasn’t named ‘Damn Woodpecker’.”

Lee received her B.A. in Health Care and Counseling at the College of Notre Dame of Maryland and spent a good bit of time birding along the east coast from Florida to Maine before moving to Albuquerque  in 1992. In 2000 she opened a Wild Bird Center Franchise in Albuquerque which she ran for 9 years before separating into an independent store in 2009. She serves on the Board of the Central NM Audubon Society and is a volunteer bird bander with the Rio Grande Bird Research Inc. She is a major supporter of the Rosy-Finch Project, providing all of the seed to feed and maintain the flock throughout the winter.

Lee loves to travel both nationally and internationally – well, just about anywhere birding. “It has been a long thought-out discussion with Raymond and Michael to start our own bird tour company; I couldn’t have better friends to do this with”.