• 1955 - Born in Middletown, Connecticut
• 1970 - bought first 35mm SLR camera (a Nikkormat FTn with Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 lens)
• 1973 - First photo published (I did drag racing photography)
• 1975 - Hooked on bird photography and birding while attending college in Rochester, New York
• 1977 - After birding for two years looking through a Nikon FTn and 500mm mirror lens, my first pelagic trip prompted me to finally buy a binocular - Bushnell 7×35 Custom Rangemaster
• 1978 - My first spotting scope - a Bushnell Spacemaster with 20 - 45x eyepiece and the Camera Adapter with 20x eyepiece. This is what really turned me into a “birder.”
• 1982 - Led bird tours for National Audubon Society and Wonder Bird Tours (to Trinidad and Tobago)
• 1984 - Started hawk banding at Braddock Bay in Rochester, New York, which eventually became Braddock Bay Raptor Research
• 1990 - Married Debbie, started a family, got “out” of birding for a little while
• 1996 - Working at North Cove Outfitters in Old Saybrook, Connecticut, selling optics and getting back into birding
• 1999 - Became Swarovski Optik North America’s “birder,” traveling to bird festivals, meeting LOTS of great people - it’s a dirty job, but someone has to do it!
• 2001 - Bought my first digital camera - a Pentax EI 200 and took my first digiscope photo (a Northern Mockingbird, by the way)
• 2004 - Discovered that a D - SLR with 50mm lens will work FINE for digiscoping behind a spotting scope zoom eyepiece
• 2008 - Dreamed up CD 1000 and Bill Thompson III, liked the idea
• 2008 - Sold the only house I have ever lived in and moved to Corpus Christi, TX on July 4.  First Yard Bird - Scissor-tailed Flycatcher.   Cool!

Other Stuff:

Debbie and I live in Moodus, Connecticut, with our kids Jonathan (18) and Grace (15), a dog (Yukon Jack), and two cats (Rexanne and Turnpike). We will be moving to Corpus Christi, Texas in July-my first move of my life. This should be interesting.

I had a Siamese cat named Goshawk that lived to be 19 years old, and he was my bird-banding buddy-I still miss him.

While all birds are fascinating to me, hawks and shorebirds have always been favorites, in part because of their accessibility for photos. I have a few species that I CANNOT pass by without taking a photo-Whimbrel, Caspian Tern, Stilt Sandpiper, and Hooded Merganser come to mind.

I’m a huge sports fan, especially auto racing (Jeff Gordon, Don Garlits, Lewis Hamilton, and yes, Danica Patrick), but also a lifelong Giants fan (both baseball and football), and my 9 days at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics were a dream come true. Oh, if only I had a digital camera back then!

I love to read, especially science fiction (Larry Niven), but when I start reading a good book I stop doing everything else, and Debbie gets mad. I subscribe to Scientific American and the New Yorker (the cartoons are great, but I read the articles, too). Oh, yes, cartoons-I have the Complete New Yorker Cartoon Collection, four or five Charles Addams collections, everything Calvin & Hobbes, and currently “Get Fuzzy” is the best daily cartoon on the planet. Bucky Rules!

I’m still a photo geek, but I concentrate on digiscoping because regular photography will take away too much time from digiscoping. Did I tell you it’s fun? I do keep up on all the latest cameras and lenses, if for no other reason than to help people with digiscoping setups and trouble shooting.