Les Beletsky is a professional bird biologist and natural history expert. Prior to taking up nature writing, he conducted twenty years of behavioral research on birds, concentrating on bird vocalizations and breeding behavior. He has written or co-written more than thirty-five papers and two books on birds, one of which won an award from The Wildlife Society as "outstanding wildlife ecology book of the year." An avid visitor of bird-watching and wildlife locations across the globe, he has made multiple trips to the Americas, Africa, Asia, and Australia. Detecting a need for comprehensive, single-volume guides for travelers interested in wildlife, he created and edited the Ecotravellers' Wildlife Guide series (currently published as the Travellers' Wildlife Guides by Interlink Books). He has written or co-written ten of these wildlife travel guides, which illustrate and describe in detail all the kinds of wildlife, birds in particular, that a traveler to a particular state or country might encounter.