Dave was born in South Carolina, but in 1954 his family moved to St. Petersburg, Florida. In 1965, while still in high school, he began keeping a life list of birds he had seen.
Dave is a founding member and two-term past president of the Florida Ornithological Society. He also served as Regional Coordinator for both Florida Breeding Bird Atlas Projects. He served seven years on the FOS Records Committee. He also served for four years as president of the St. Petersburg Audubon Society. Dave has participated in over 330 Christmas Bird Counts in Florida since 1971. He started and compiled the North Pinellas Count for 10 years. He has participated in the St. Petersburg Christmas Bird Count for 55 consecutive years.
Over the past 50 years he has led hundreds of field trips for Audubon chapters, the Florida Ornithological Society, the Space Coast Birding and Wildlife Festival, the Florida Birding and Nature Festival, the Big "O" Birding Festival and the Wings and Wildflower Festival. He has also led many trips for Florida Nature Tours. He has participated in or led over 130 pelagic trips into Florida waters, including over 30 years to Dry Tortugas. Dave has birded throughout the US, the Caribbean, and Europe, and has a Lower 48 ABA area life list of 751 species. The 506 species on his Florida life list ranks him at number 3. Dave is a retired teacher, having taught history for 39 years in the public school system in Pinellas County, Florida. He also is an environmental educator at Boyd Hill Nature Preserve in St. Petersburg.
Come take a tour of those birds that people flock to Florida to see, and you won't even need your binocs!. Dave will discuss important facts about each of these avian specialties of the Florida birding world.
