Hi there Web Surfers. I'm an old retired guy from the United States Air Force and IBM. I used to live on the island of Nantucket off the coast of Massachusetts. Now I live in Englewood, Florida with my wife, Cynthia of 41 years. I have three children in Tennessee, Virginia, and Minnesota, eight grandchildren, and nine great-grandchildren. 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 70 years.
My mentor was a wonderful lady named
Edith Andrews
, who is no longer with us. We are so lucky she shared her 100 years with Nantucket's birds.
I have seen 699 species of birds in North America and
1,199 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, while stationed on the island of Formosa
with the U.S. Air Force, I co-authored (with the late
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, the late Edith Folger Andrews. That book, called
Birding Nantucket ,
has been updated nine times with its most recent release in 2021.
The bar charts are a wonderful feature of this book.
Click here to download them.
Here is a current list of all species that are considered 'Accidental' on Nantucket..
This has
mushroomed into a series of eight books about Nantucket's birds --
Birding Nantucket the Series. You can see a table of the 229 species
described, and where to find them - here
AYBN Bird Index.
From 2003 until 2010 I wrote a weekly column,
The Birds of Nantucket, for the
Nantucket Independent newspaper. Alas, that weekly newspaper has
gone out of business.
You can get a quick link to many of my books by going to my
Amazon Author's Page .
Since 2009, all of my bird reports have been logged to eBird , Cornell University's worldwide avian
data collection project. Clicking on that link takes you to my eBird homepage.
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.
Here's a link to an article I wrote about ham radio. 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 50 years. In 1973 I
was the Colorado State Singles Champion. For many years I was a National Umpire
with USA
Badminton, Headquartered in Colorado
Springs, CO. Now I play mostly with other seniors. 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 More links to badminton.
I was born
on
Nantucket back
in 1941 and lived there 'til I graduated from High School in '59. I then joined
the United States Air Force and had jobs as an aircraft radio repairman,
computer programmer, and then in personnel data systems. I was stationed at
Westover AFB, Syracuse University, Randolph AFB, the USAF Academy, Taipei Air
Station, and did short duty in Greenland and Labrador, honorably discharged as a
Captain in 1975.
After finishing an MBA in Finance and Marketing at Syracuse University in 1977 I
had a career with IBM, in Systems Engineering and Manufacturing Consulting,
finishing as a Senior Planner in Atlanta in 1996.
In retirement mode, we are now year round at our Florida Home. 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 visited Cindy's sister in Englewood,
Florida I love to read, but I hate to find myself reading the same book
twice. So, for over 20 years I've been maintaining a spreadsheet of all the
books I've read,
Link to Ken's Reading List. The list is 'more-or-less' in date sequence,
oldest at the top.
You can search within this page and then use the 'back' button to return to this
page. 
. We decided to plant a stake there for future retirement. The house we bought is pictured to the left.
You can click on the image for more Englewood links.
In 2016, we started escaping Nantucket's wintry cold and wind
by being in our Florida home from November until May. We have now transitioned there completely.
Reading Activities
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.