Jim Ray is a wildlife biologist based in the Texas Panhandle, where he has worked for Texas Parks and Wildlife, for contractors managing the Pantex weapons plant, and with professors and students at West Texas A&M, Texas Tech, and Oklahoma University. While he has studied a wide variety of animals, including prairie dogs, prairie rattlesnakes, bobcats, and burrowing owls, he has had a long and deep interest in Eastern purple martins.