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Hi there Web Surfers. I'm an old retired guy from the United States Air Force and IBM. I live on the island of Nantucket off the coast of Mass. and in Englewood, Florida. I'll tell you about my hobbies and principal interests in the spaces below.
Bird Watching
-- I've been 'Birding' since I was 12 years
old
-- that's over 50 years. I have seen over
600 species of birds in the U.S. and over 1,000 worldwide.
I can identify most birds by
their calls alone. I really enjoy sharing my enthusiasm
for bird study with others and find the best way to do that is by writing about them.
In 1976 I co-authored (with Sheldon Severinghaus) A New Guide to the
Birds ofTaiwan .
About the same year I started a series of bird guides for the island of Nantucket
with birding legend, Edith Folger Andrews. That book, called
Birding Nantucket ,
has been updated six times with its most recent release in 2007.
This has mushroomed into a series of five
books about Nantucket's birds -- Birding Nantucket
the Series.
I also write a weekly column,
The Birds of Nantucket, for the Nantucket Independent newspaper.
Above left, you can see me on a Maria Mitchell Association Barn Owl Banding
mission in 2008. You can click that picture to
go to a page that has a lot of birding web links. The
picture on the right shows me scoping some ducks on Nantucket's upper harbor from
Pocomo.
The Ham Radio hobby has brought me many benefits. My electronic skills got me a good job in the Air Force, plus I've made many wonderful friends all around the world. I hold an Extra Class FCC license with the call sign of W1NQT. To the right you see me sending Morse Code during a Field Day operation with the Englewood Amateur Radio Society (EARS) . You can click that picture for interesting Ham Links on the web.
The sport of
Badminton
has been a major avocation for over 40
years. I used to be a 'B' player but now
play mostly with other
seniors and am also a National
Umpire with USA
Badminton,
Headquartered in Colorado Springs, CO. The
picture to the left shows me at the
Boston
Open Tournament in March of '99
with one of my favorite players, Andy
Chong. You can click anywhere on that
picture to find interesting Web Sites that relate
to the sport of Badminton.
I was born on Nantucket back in 1941 and lived there 'til I graduated from High School in '59. In retirement mode, we live on the island part of the year, and in Florida the other part. You can rent our Nantucket house for the summer, since we are down in Florida then. On the right you see a scene from Nantucket. If you click on that picture, it will take you to some other web links about the quaint, windy island.
In
1992 we visi
ted my sister-in-law down in
Englewood,
FL and
bought a house there, thinking of retirement. Englewood is 100 miles
south of Tampa. We
rent
this house to snowbirds who come down to escape the cold. So we are up on
Nantucket in the winter. Then we're down here in Florida in the
summer since we rent the Nantucket house then. We are always in the
wrong place at the wrong time?? Perhaps?? Click anywhere in
the picture for
more Englewood links.
Click Here
to see about renting this house for the winter season!
Page designed and maintained by Ken Blackshaw, Scientia Enterprises. To have Ken design your OWN web page -- Click Here! -- .
Check out our current photo selections on My Flickr Photo Albums.
Click on the references below for some good web sites that tell about other things near and dear to me.