13-lined Ground-Squirrel

Dave was born and raised in Cape Town. He was introduced to the great outdoors at the age of 3 months when his parents took him camping for the first time. While not a birder, Dave’s Dad was a keen outdoors person with a good general knowledge of birds and wildlife and this certainly rubbed off. He built his first bird hide in his parents backyard around the age of 10 but then got sidetracked into aviary birds with a specific interest in Australian finches.

At high school he became more interested in snakes as this was seen as “cooler” than birding and several of his friends enjoyed this as well. Birding took a bit of a back seat during University, starting a career and getting married.

After a few years of marriage, Dave and his wife bought an old Landrover and used to spend about 5 weeks a year in Botswana, Namibia and Zimbabwe at which time his interest in birds was rekindled.

Dave and his family emigrated to New Zealand in 2001 and birding again took a back seat while the family settled in and a new career was forged.

In recent years, with children grown up and doing their own thing, Dave has once again picked up his binoculars and spends as much time birding as possible. His main interests are waders/shorebirds and seabirds and as a keen diver and angler, he gets to spend a bit of time at sea.

In 2021, Dave set out to set a New Zealand “Big Year” record and after trips to the Kermadecs, Chatham and sub-Antarctic islands, he ended the year on 250 species, which is the new record New Zealand record.

Updated: March 2024

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