“Encounter” Greg R. Homel
Greg R. Homel is an ornithologist, award-winning international nature photojournalist, documentary film producer, and lecturer. He lives and works from his home in Bahia de Banderas, near Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco, Mexico, and from his second home in Tucson, Arizona, in the Sonoran Desert.
A birder-naturalist since childhood, Greg founded Natural Elements Productions in 1986 and Natural Encounters Birding Tours shortly thereafter. Now he travels the globe on a full-time basis in search of rare and little-known birds and other wildlife.
He shares his unbounded (and contagious) enthusiasm through excursions for small groups worldwide, and with a wider audience through state-of-the-art digital lectures, television, and wide variety of publications and video productions.
Throughout his life, but especially since 1990, Greg has guided, educated, and inspired travelers in 107 countries. His travels on all the continents — and most major and minor archipelagos from the Arctic Circle to the Antarctic — have allowed him to see two-thirds of the world’s 11,000 or so bird species in their natural habitats.
His early work appeared regularly in books and magazines, including Wildbird Magazine,The Audubon Society Field Guides to Eastern Birds and The Audubon Society Field Guides to Western Birds, Time, Birder’s World, Tucson Lifestyle, and Texas Monthly. Since the “digital revolution,” Greg has moved into television, video production, and lecturing aboard expedition ships with the hope of “giving a voice to his truest love, which is the natural world and its inhabitants, especially birds!”
Greg’s other achievements include, among many others:
- Invited speaker at the World Birdwatching Tourism Congress (Congreso Mundial de Aviturismo) held in Mérida, Venezuela, December 20, 2025.
- Field guides to the birds of Puerto Vallarta, South Texas, Southeastern Arizona, Southern California, and beyond, published by Quick Reference Publishing. (Visit our Publications page.)
- Introducing the Wonderful Birds of Pico Bonito, Honduras, an HD DVD filmed in December 2007 and January 2008, at Pico Bonito National Park and The Lodge at Pico Bonito in Honduras. This collaborative effort is the first high-definition documentary on the park’s birds. It is now available through Natural Elements Productions and The Lodge at Pico Bonito.
- The first-ever high-definition video of nidification (nest-building) and nuptial displays of the critically endangered Grenada Dove in October 2007. The American Bird Conservancy put Greg’s rare footage to work for conservation, to help modify the plans of a Four Season’s Resort development, which would have consumed important nesting habitat for this bird. Greg’s video is helping to shape a brighter future for Grenada’s National Bird.
- Appointment in 2007 as official video producer for the Lemur Conservation Foundation.
- The first-ever filmed documentation of the lekking display of Peru’s remarkable and critically endangered Marvelous Spatuletail, a hummingbird with an impressively long, racketed tail, known only from the rugged Andean highlands of Amazonas and nearby departments. The video, filmed in December 2006 and January 2007, was featured on national news programs and can be watched on the American Bird Conservancy’s YouTube channel, where it has received more than 175,000 views.
- The first-ever documentary on the wildlife and culture of the Commander Islands for the World Wildlife Fund/Russian Wildlife Authority (2004).
- Playing a critical role in the rediscovery of the then-criticially rare Poo-uli, during a National Biological Survey/State Division of Forestry and Wildlife ornithological survey of the primordial forests on the outer windward slopes of Haleakala Volcano, Maui. (At the time, October 1994, fewer than six individuals remained, and there have been no sightings since the last known bird died in captivity in 2005.) The rediscovery was the fulfillment of a dream Greg had since first visiting the Hawaiian islands on a family trip as a teenager in 1977.
Let Greg Homel help you realize your own dreams of Natural Encounters!
