Rick Wright

Rick Wright is a leader at Victor Emanuel Nature Tours, specializing in Birds and Art tours in Europe and the Americas. When he is not showing birders birds, he lives and writes in Bloomfield, New Jersey, with his wife, Alison Beringer, and their jet-black lab, Quetzal. Rick's current projects include a study of hummingbird collecting in early modern France. His blog, Birding New Jersey and the World, is filled with trip reports, book and art reviews, and reflections on the history and the future of birding.

A native of southeast Nebraska, Rick studied French, German, Philosophy, and Life Sciences at the University of Nebraska before making a detour to Harvard Law School. He took the Ph.D. in Germanic Languages and Literatures at Princeton University in 1990, then spent a dozen years as an academic, holding successive appointments as Assistant Professor of German at the University of Illinois, Reader in Art and Archaeology at Princeton University, and Associate Professor of Medieval Studies at Fordham University.

In 2003, Rick moved to southeast Arizona and founded Aimophila Adventures, a specialized guiding service for individuals and small groups in Europe and the Americas. He now leads a full program of Birds and Art tours and cruises for VENT. Among his favorite destinations: France, Spain, Italy, Sweden, Poland, Hungary, and Germany, ancient landscapes where birds, art, and fine food and drink come together in the perfect combination.

Rick served as a department editor at Birding magazine from 2004 to 2008, as the editor of Winging It from 2005 to 2008, and as the book review editor for Birding and The ABA Blog until 2019. He is a popular lecturer at birding events around the world.