About
Birdfreak, aka, Eddie Callaway
Birdfreak has lived all 28 years of his life in northern Illinois, Rockford to be exact. While most people don’t plan a vacation to northern Illinois (unless they go to Chicago), birding is surprisingly excellent in this area. Springtime is the best when warbles of Warblers come through along with other cool birds like Cuckoos, Thrushes, shorebirds, and more. One of the local birders has tallied over 300 species in our county (Winnebago).
Birdfreak enjoys hunting, with a camera that is, but is still an amateur photographer. Nearly all the photos on this site are taken with a Canon Rebel XTi (or 400D). You can view all of The Birdfreak Team photos on their Flickr account.
Birdfreak loves writing and travel but my biggest desire is to promote birding and conservation. He graduated from Northern Illinois University with a degree in Marketing.
Currently, Birdfreak works professionally for a local company that manufactures machine safeguarding and safety shields.
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Veery
Veery – Jennifer Outcalt (Birdfreak’s sister), a 33-year old birder with a 12-yr old boy that is also into birding and quite excellent at spotting birds. Veery enjoys photgraphy too but claims to not be that good at it. However, she is super quick at spotting birds and is devoted to conservation.
Veery earned a degree in Geography with an emphasis on Natural Environmental Systems at Northern Illinois University in De Kalb, Illinois. She helps Birdfreak write many of the posts and brainstorm for new ideas about conservation.
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SnowyOwl
SnowyOwl – Susan Callaway (Birdfreak’s sister), a 31-year old birder with two nature-loving girls, BlueJay and Roseate Spoonbill. She is a superb writer with an English degree from Northern Illinois University and is currently working towards her masters. SnowyOwl also writes and/or edits many of the posts and other projects going on.
SnowyOwl is an excellent editor but alas, does not have the time to edit everything posted. If you find a grammatical error or typo, it can not be attributed to her.
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Kingfisher
Kingfisher – Dakota (Birdfreak’s nephew) is a bird and baseball nut. His birding skills are improving with amazing speed and he has tons of hiking energy. He was a great help when we posted about the Brood XIII Cicadas being chomped on by birds. 
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Dad (Grandpa)
Here’s Dad to Birdfreak, Veery, and SnowyOwl; Grandpa to Kingfisher. He is currently hard at work training a very crazy doberman, Arizona, and birding in his first wonderful year of retirement. Birding can be difficult with a doberman at times, but all the more fun. Dad has been to all 48 contiguous state in the US as well as Germany, South Korea, and Japan. Lucky birder!
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The Team has two wonderful dogs: Socks, a mix of German Shepherd, Blue Heeler, and who knows what and Arizona, our Doberman mix. We also have one cat, Cujo, who is part dog.
On May 21st, 2009, Birdfreak adopted (rescued) his very own dog, Bella Nova Scotia, a Doberman/Chesapeake Bay Retriever mix.
In Remembrance…
Max, our awesome Golden Retriever
The Team’s beloved Doberman, Baby
The Team’s beloved Labrador, Spot
The Team’s beloved “mutt”, Joker.
The Team’s beloved Irish Setter, Shamrock
Last updated: June 7th, 2009
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It sounds as if you have a fine group of Birdfreaks, Eddie. I reciprocated on the link you added to your Birdvine. Again, it is an excellent effort and should further the interests of all birders.
Love the bunch!!
I began my Birding along the shores of Lake Michagan, in the suburbs of
Chicago. I learned how to bird in the harsh winters of Illinois, the unpredictable springs, hawk counts in the fall. Now I live in Arkansas,
learning how to bird all over agian. Every moment I have birded I have enjoyed. I enjoy reading your blogs, because brings back fond memories.
Great job.
Bradley – Glad you enjoy this site! Birding really can be enjoyed everywhere at any time and it is always such a blast to learn or re-learn birds whether it be a new region or just the start of a new season.
Great site! Beaytiful pictures I particularly liked the Osprey!!