Lavrentis Sidiropoulos was born in Drama, N Greece, in 1981. He has been taken with birds since his childhood and after finishing a theology degree in Aristotle University in Thessaloniki he got a BSc in ecology and conservation in Manchester Metropolitan University, soon to be topped by an MRes from

George was born in Cyprus in 1988, where he first started birdwatching as a teenager. He was always fascinated by nature and wildlife, so just after the end of his army duty in Cyprus he moved to Thessaloniki to study forestry and environmental management, at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.