Madison Lawrence is 14 years old and an encyclopedia of bird knowledge. She is likely the only student at her school who knows that the long-tailed duck is the deepest-diving duck, capable of diving 200 feet underwater. Or that the tiniest owl in the world is the elf owl.

 

This love of birds began at her grandma’s trailer. Madison and her grandma would sit on a bench, binoculars at hand, listening to the songs around them. She loved nothing more than keeping track of the birds she saw and learning more about them.

 

“We would sit on the swing and look for cedar waxwings,” she says. “One time I put a bunch of blackberries in one spot, hit record on my phone and stared at that spot for hours waiting for the cedar waxwings to come.” Her patience was rewarded. “I got a photo of two of them fighting. I still have that on my phone. It was so cool and so worth it.”

 

Described by her mom, Jennifer Duncan, as an old soul, Madison was never a tied-to-her-phone kind of kid, photo capturing aside. Her screen time revolved around watching Simon d’Entremont’s YouTube channel. The Canon Canada Ambassador is a wildlife and nature photographer. Madison loved his positive and encouraging tutorials. She also followed Australian photographer Jan Wagener, from whom she learned people take photos of birds for a living.

 

When she was eight years old, she had just one thing in mind when she wrote Santa.

 

“We used to open the letter ourselves to see what the kids were asking for,” says Jennifer. “It basically said, ‘Santa, I really want a 600mm camera lens. I’ll give you all of my allowance if you can’t afford to pay for it on your own.’” Jennifer went to Henry’s and asked what they had in a more reasonable price range.