David Allinson's personal birding photos- powered by SmugMug

Featured Galleries

Costa Rica (under construction)

Birding eco-tour of Costa Rica with Eagle-Eye Tours: March 17-31, 2007 ...

Updated: Apr 14, 2007 12:31am PST

Galleries

Costa Rica (under construction)

Birding eco-tour of Costa Rica with Eagle-Eye Tours: March 17-31, 2007 ...

Updated: Apr 14, 2007 12:31am PST

Unprocessed Costa Rica Photos - backup

Updated: Aug 27, 2007 7:10am PST

Misc. birds

Miscellaneous birds.

Updated: Feb 10, 2008 9:53am PST

Insects

Insects from Vancouver Island, BC

Updated: Jul 30, 2007 11:06pm PST

Butterfly Gardens

Butterfly Gardens, Brentwood Bay (Victoria), BC.

Updated: Nov 05, 2006 2:02pm PST

Wildlife

Vancouver Island wildlife (e.g. amphibians, mammals).

Updated: Jul 10, 2006 10:20pm PST

Landscapes

Updated: Nov 06, 2007 8:48pm PST

Landscapes (new)

Updated: Dec 24, 2007 1:34pm PST

Mischa Allinson

Newest addition to family: SPCA adoptee March 9, 2006.

Updated: Aug 25, 2007 10:48am PST

Spring wildflowers in Victoria, BC

Taken around Victoria, BC.

Updated: Jun 05, 2007 9:49pm PST

Misc. Flowers from US midwest

Business trips

Updated: May 21, 2007 9:28pm PST

3382 Sanderling Way

Our new home in the Turnstone Development...a weekly photo diary of it ...

Updated: Nov 28, 2007 1:25pm PST

Swiftsure Race

Updated: May 30, 2006 9:18pm PST

Your Bio

David Allinson grew up in Toronto, Ontario, but made the big move west to British Columbia in 1990. Victoria, BC is his hometown now. He has been an avid birder and naturalist for more than 19 years. First and foremost a birder, nevertheless he is fascinated by all forms of nature (particularly entomology). David’s birding interest lies especially with both diurnal and nocturnal birds-of-prey. However, he is also interested in pelagic species and neotropical songbird migration. David is a co-founder of the Rocky Point Bird Observatory (RBPO) in Metchosin on southern Vancouver Island and has volunteered there since the organization began in 1994 (http://www.rpbo.org). He is a Past-President of the RPBO Society. He is a licenced bird bander and holds the observatory's master permit. David is also a Past-President of the Victoria Natural History Society (VNHS), and serves as the chair of the VNHS Bird Records Committee (http://www.vicnhs.bc.ca/).

In 2001, he received VNHS’s 'Distinguished Service Award'.

Since 1990, he has led hundreds of public walks, field trips and birding tours for many organizations such as the VNHS, CRD Parks, Lester B. Pearson United World College of the Pacific, British Columbia Field Ornithologists, Parks Canada, BC Parks, Seacoast Expeditions, Scouts Canada, and Swan Lake/Christmas Hill Nature Sanctuary. He also regularly conducts slide presentations and lectures on birds for the VNHS, CRD Parks, Swan Lake, elementary schools, as well as a variety of outdoor and recreation clubs. During the annual Brant Festival Big Day birding competition at Parksville-Qualicum Beach, David co-led a team (the "Get-a-Lifers") which won the event seven times between 1993 and 2003, and they received the honorary title "Best Team of the 90's" in 2001.

Member of: RPBO, VNHS, Federation of BC Naturalists, British Columbia Field Ornithologists, American Birding Association (ABA), Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Western Bird Banding Association, Hawk Migration Association of North America (life member), Point Reyes Bird Observatory, Bird Studies Canada, and Long Point Bird Observatory.

David's current World bird list is 943 species, his ABA (North America) life bird list stands at 622, his Canada list is 444, and his United States list is 536. Closer to home, his British Columbia list is 405, while tallying 345 species on Vancouver Island and 330 species in the Victoria checklist area alone.

He enjoys travel and photography, and has traveled across Canada and the United States in the pursuit of his birding passion. In March 2007, he traveled for the first time to the tropics on a two-week tour of Costa Rica with Eagle-eye Tours. David recorded 321 lifers out of the phenomenal 470 species recorded on the tour (of which he saw 457): http://www.eagle-eye.com/Locations/costarica.html. For the complete list, see here:http://www.eagle-eye.com/pdf/EET_CostaRica_2007.pdf.

David Allinson has also published bird summaries and reports, book reviews, natural history articles and even poems in: “The Victoria Naturalist” magazine, “BC Naturalist” magazine, Canadian Book Review Annual, Bird Studies Canada’s “Birdwatch Canada” newsletter, "Metchosin Muse" community newspaper, Long Point Bird Observatory's newsletter, ABA’s “North American Birds”, “Birder’s Journal”, and British Columbia Field Ornithologist (BCFO) newsletter “BC Birding”. He has also served as a regional sub-editor (Victoria) for ABA's 'North American Birds' (http://americanbirding.org/pubs/nab/index.html).

In November 2004, David published a bar-graph checklist for the birds of the Rocky Point area for the RPBO Society (however, a simplified version is available in PDF format here http://www.rpbo.org/rpbo_checklist.pdf).

All photos here taken with a Panasonic DMC-FZ30K and as of early March '07 a DMC-FZ50K; accessories include a Nikon TC-E17ED 1.7X teleconverter, with lens hood, and a Walther (no-name) red-dot sight (to better capture/follow birds-in-flight). Corel's 'Paint Shop Pro XI' and Picture Code's 'Noise Ninja' are used for post-processing.

David is self-employed: a master, savvy network marketer for CarbonCopyPRO with Wealth Masters International. http://thefreshfinancial.com/?t=Smug

In July 2003, David married Marcy McKay -- the world's greatest OR nurse -- and they live happily in Langford just west of Victoria, BC along with their SPCA-adoptee, a Black LabXHusky named "Mischa" (aka 10-year old puppy).