Rick Marsi's Slide Programs

Attracting Birds Through the Year

There’s much more to attracting birds than putting up a sunflower feeder. Maximizing the birdlife around your home also requires creating an entire bird-friendly ecosystem. Such an ecosystem should include natural plantings that provide food year-round, different feeders for different bird types, a reliable water source and adequate cover for shelter and nesting. Illustrated by Rick’s excellent photos, this program addresses all these requirements in a manner that provides abundant information while inspiring you to make improvements that will attract not only birds to your property but butterflies and other forms of desirable wildlife.

Argentina: The Andes to Tierra del Fuego
Argentina isn't just fine wine and the tango. It is a wonderful nature destination. Join Rick on a tour of mountains, glaciers, lakes and windswept coastlines as his quality photographs transport you to South America's second largest country. Beginning in Buenos Aires, Rick criss-crosses this land of contrast, hiking through Andean foothills, rafting on wilderness rivers, exploring the wilds of Patagonia and discovering penguin rookeries near the world's southernmost city of Ushuaia.

The Changing Face of Nature
Nature knows nothing about status quo. Southern Tier flora and fauna constantly are adapting to changes in climate, land use and conservation practices. Which creatures will thrive, and which new ones will arrive, as we push through a new century? Rick's program will focus on a number of species and explain how and why they are increasing or disappearing locally.

Lapland - Exploring Europe's Last Wilderness

Recently traveling the length of Finland before entering Norway and the High Arctic, Rick finally ran out of real estate at 70 degrees North on the coast of the Barents Sea. During his journey he photographed great gray owls, heard haunting calls of curlews and cranes, explored pristine lakes, scanned wetlands alive with waterfowl and walked beside tundra ponds occupied by loon pairs.

In his slide program, Rick relives his journey to this vast, yet overlooked, natural wonder. His presentation features magazine-quality photos of Atlantic puffins, golden plovers, rushing rivers, wilderness forests and Arctic coastlines that make this area unique and unforgettable. 

How to Take Great Nature Photographs

In sharing some of his most compelling images, Rick will discuss isolating your subject; creating captivating focal points, the importance of perspective; maximizing design elements in photos, the importance of light and other subjects.

He will also reveal a number of favorite shooting locations, describe the best time of year to shoot various seasonal phenomena and describe his shooting techniques.

Through this presentation, you will learn where, when and how to shoot the best lady slippers, migrating waterfowl, and strutting wild turkey gobblers.

This program is well-suited to everyone from “point-and-shoot” photographers to advanced amateurs.

Wheel of Seasons

Named after Rick’s first book of collected columns, this program follows nature through the seasons in upstate New York. Photos include strutting wild turkey gobblers, drilling pileated woodpeckers and lady slippers in bloom. A wonderful tribute to nature in the Northeast.

Safari

If you have ever dreamed of taking a wildlife safari to East Africa, see this program. Rick spent three weeks recently in Tanzania, photographing lions, leopards, elephants and abundant birdlife in the Serengeti, Ngorongoro Crater, Ruaha National Park and other locations. His program will help you better appreciate the beauty of Africa’s creatures, as well as the country in which they live. You’ll also get a feel for what safaris are like: the lodges, guides, vehicles and scenery that make such voyages trips of a lifetime.

A Walk Through the Rain (and Cloud) Forest

Choosing photos from Costa Rica, Honduras, Belize, Trinidad and Ecuador, Rick takes you from the lowest Amazonian rain forests to the highest Andean cloud forests. Along the way, he shows award-winning photos of scarlet macaws, resplendent quetzals, howler monkeys and dugout canoes. Through this program, Rick will help you better understand the complexity of tropical forests and why they are worth preserving.

Fish Bums I Have Known and Loved

An avid angler his entire adult life, Rick has stalked bonefish on the flats of Belize, waded Montana trout rivers and surfcasted for bluefish and striped bass at Montauk Point. This humorous, heartfelt ode to the joys of fishing and camaraderie is a wonderful presentation for any outdoor organization.

My Susquehanna

Rick has canoed hundreds of miles on the Susquehanna River, from its headwaters in Cooperstown to its mouth at the Chesapeake Bay. His program will take you on several canoe trips, stopping along the way to meet river people and talk about river issues. Traveling with Rick, you will come to understand and appreciate the beauty of the Susquehanna and the numerous challenges it faces.

Ancient Cities of the Maya

Before they mysteriously disappeared 1,000 years ago, the Maya established an amazingly advanced civilization in Central America. In this program, Rick visits important Mayan sites, including Tikal in Guatemala, Copan in Honduras and Altun Ha in Belize. He not only describes the temples, ball courts and glyph-inscribed staircases found at these sites, but the wealth of rain forest wildlife surrounding each Mayan location.

Beaver Pond

When beavers create wetland habitat, we perceive them as good. When they chop our shade trees, we despise them. In the program, Rick takes a close-up look at the beaver’s private life, and the watery world it creates.

Ravine

Rick never met a hemlock ravine he didn’t like. This program takes you into the shaded world of ravines, showing how they nurture special plants, shelter and feed unique mammal species and offer special esthetic rewards.

Afloat on a Russian River

Join Rick as a group of his Russian friends takes him on a week-long, 70-mile kayak trip through remote countryside few, if an Americans, have seen. If you have wondered who the real Russians are, and whether they revere their natural surroundings, this presentation is for you.

Yellowstone After the Fire

Rick has visited Yellowstone National Park five times, both before and after the fires that charred so much of the park in 1988. His photos of elk, moose, antelope and other park wildlife are superb. His explanations of the ecological issues and management challenges raised by the fires are insightful.

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