Sara Pike
Growing up in California, Sara Pike has been enjoying nature ever since she can remember, from collecting ladybugs in the big field just down the street to tide-pooling to annual family camping trips all over Colorado to simply playing in the mud. A move to Tucson in 1990 brought her into even closer contact with nature in the amazing Sonoran Desert. A few years later in 1994, during an outing to Patagonia Lake State Park with her bird-watching cousin, Sara discovered a new hobby. Between her cousin’s endless energy to seek out the next bird and his actually knowing the names of the birds they saw, Sara encountered bright Yellow Warblers and blazing Vermilion Flycatchers flitting in the trees. Sara was hooked and one week later she owned a pair of Discovery Channel 10x50 binoculars and a National Geographic field guide. Since then, her binoculars have become smaller, and her main field guide electronic, but the love for birds and being outdoors hasn’t changed.
Sara worked her way through college and graduated in 1998 from The University of Arizona (Go Wildcats!) with a bachelor’s degree in Marketing and Communication. She has moved across the country twice, living in Philadelphia for a while and then moving back to California for 4 years before returning to Tucson in 2004. She has a range of workplace experience including buying and merchandising for a local golf course shop, marketing for a nationwide mortgage company, and has worn the many hats of non-profit operations management. Most recently at Tucson Audubon Society she directed the retail operations, managed general staff operations, and put her efforts toward marketing for the organization as Marketing & Operations Director.
Sara has been married since 1995 and is the mother of one son. She has a dog, some fish, and appreciates the spiders that live in her garage because they are great at cricket control. Casual birding, hiking, camping and photography fill the gaps in between work and family, and often are done alongside work and family, too.
She is happy to join the WINGS team as a Tour Manager in 2016, and to share her love of birding with those who will be traveling with the leaders of this awesome tour company!
Updated: September 2022