Stephen is a naturalist and the award-winning author of three books. Despite falling into a river when he was two years old, he has never learned to swim. But water has fascinated him ever since. His books – The Seafarers: A Journey Among Birds (2019), Wintering: A Season with Geese (2019) and The Eternal Season: Ghosts of Summers Past, Present and Future (2021) – tell the story of our environment and the species we share it with. The Seafarers won the Saltire Society’s first book award, Wintering was listed by The Times as one of the best nature books of 2019 and The Eternal Season was shortlisted for the Saltire Society’s best non-fiction book award. He has also been shortlisted for the Anne Brown essay prize and won the Royal Literary Fund’s JB Priestley award. His writing has been published in The Guardian, The Scotsman, Granta.com and Caught by the River and his new book, The Waterlands will be published by Elliott & Thompson on 26th March. He lives in Dumfries, Scotland with his daughter and spends most of his time birdwatching in the rain. A heartfelt plea for respect for watercourses

Gary Prescott (aka THE Biking Birder) is soon to be 70 and was a teacher for most of his career. He taught in secondary schools for 12 years where he started a massively popular Young Ornithologist Club at a very working class school on the biggest council estate at that time in Wolverhampton, England. Now widowed and having four children and three grandchildren, he left teaching to cycle around the UK for a whole year in 2010, visiting every RSPB and Wildfowl & Wetland Trust nature reserve/Centre. Retired but busier than ever, Gary tries to experience Green Birding every day; it starts from home but has now had nine extended Green Birding – Biking Birding adventures. Every Biking Birder adventure has been for several charities, fundraising and raising awareness. Gary is currently working tirelessly as a respected volunteer for Acorns Children’s Hospice in The Midlands, and at RSPB Sandwell Valley two or more times a week. Plus, he is a passionate member of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds Swift Academy Project, as well as a local patch recorder. Aside from a multitude of social media pages he is doing a vlog with his 93 year old mum - Granny’s British Garden Birds on YouTube. Ponç Feliu has a degree in Biological Sciences, a degree in Environmental Sciences and a master’s degree in Public Management of the Environment and Sustainability. He has always been linked to the conservation and management of Spain’s natural spaces, either from NGOs (he was founder of the Ateneu Naturalista de Girona or the APNAE) or from public administrations. He has been responsible for ornithological monitoring in Natural Parks such as Cap de Creus or the Aiguamolls de l’Empordà, Councilor for the Environment of the Girona City Council or Director of the Ter Consortium. He has also written fifteen books on environmental education, and knowledge guides on Natural Parks and he is an active environmental disseminator, via social media or with initiatives such as the nature programs on social networks “ConfiNATs” and “OxigeNATs”. He is currently the Director of the Cap de Creus Natural Park. After 10 years of practicing Green Birding, in 2024 Ponç set himself the challenge of observing the maximum number of bird species in one year. This was similar to 2013 when he travelled 10,000 km by bike and saw 304 species in a year around Catalonia. At that time it was the European Green Birding year list record. Birding without the emission of fossil fuels