MONTHLY SPEAKERS
MONTHLY SPEAKERS
OCTOBER 2024 - "CHASING RARE & SPECTACULAR BIRDS IN WORLD'S WILD PLACES"
Speaker: David Pereksta
Date: October 8, 2024
Program Description: Some people may think that David Pereksta never leaves Ventura County. While he does hold all the local birding records, David’s quest as a birder and ornithologist often takes him to far away corners of the world. Taking advantage of a number of unique opportunities, both personal and professional, his adventures have taken him to remote and little visited areas of North America, Mexico, Central and South America, the Caribbean, the Tropical Pacific, the Russian Far East, and Europe. He has also been to several islands that are nesting sites of some of the world’s rarest seabirds.
David will take us on a journey to some of these incredible destinations and will share stories and photos of a diverse array of rare, endemic, and just plain spectacular birds that he has encountered during these travels. This promises to be a fun and inspiring talk with lots of great photos and crazy stories.
Speaker Bio: David Pereksta is an Avian Biologist with the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, where he studies and analyzes the effects of offshore oil and gas, and renewable energy development on birds off the Pacific coast, Hawaii, and the US territories in the Pacific. Prior to his position at BOEM, Dave spent 16 years working on endangered species issues with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Ventura. Throughout his career with various Federal and State agencies, he has studied several imperiled bird species including Snowy Plovers, Piping Plovers, Least Terns, Ospreys, Northern Goshawks, Brown Pelicans, Spotted Owls, Marbled Murrelets, and Ivory-billed Woodpeckers.
An avid birder for 50 years, Dave has traveled throughout the regions identified above including leading trips to Mexico, Belize, Costa Rica, Peru, and Chile, as well as leading hundreds of pelagic trips in the Pacific and Atlantic. He has seen over 2,400 species of birds in his travels; photographing more than 1,800 species along the way.