Paul Lehman
A noted field ornithologist who began birding in his home state of New York at the age of nine, Paul’s accomplishments are inspiring. An expert in weather, migration, distribution, geography, and mapping, Paul’s work can be found in The Sibley Field Guides to Birds of Eastern and Western North America, Roger Tory Peterson’s Field Guide to Birds of North America, The National Wildlife Federation Field Guide to Birds of North America, and the National Geographic Society’s Field Guide to the Birds of North America, to name a few. A former lecturer at the University of California Santa Barbara in the geography and environmental studies departments, Paul also served as the Editor of ABA’s “Birding” magazine for nearly a decade. Paul Lehman is a past chair of the California Bird Records Committee and was the special editor for the Western Field Ornithologists to the CBRC’s opus “Rare Birds of California”, edited by Robb Hamilton et al.
Dave Povey
Dave Povey can’t stay away from the ocean. If he is not fishing, he is birding. There are not many San Diego pelagic birds that Dave has not seen repeatedly because he has been at this for nearly 40 years. Dave has done the pelagic portions of the Audubon Christmas Bird Count for both the Oceanside count and the San Diego count for over 30 years. Add a trip or two every week in his 21 foot Parker fishing boat, and Dave has years at sea. He is the only known human to have seen a Cory’s Shearwater in San Diego County.
Guy McCaskie
No one has had a greater impact on California field ornithology and birding than Guy McCaskie. Decades ago he recognized that desert oases and coastal sites have great potential to concentrate migrating birds, which led to the discovery of many now-famous migrant traps in California. He took the lead in systematically exploiting these traps to document patterns of vagrancy. Guy was also instrumental in the formation of Western Field Ornithologists (WFO) and the California Bird Records Committee, he is the author of “Birds of Northern California”, co-author of ” Birds of the Salton Sea”, and is a regional editor for the ABA publication North American Birds.
Gary Nunn
Gary Nunn hails from England originally, where he grew up birding from a young age chasing rarities in the crucible of twitching – the county of Norfolk. He holds a BSc. in Biological Sciences, and PhD in Genetics, both from the University of Nottingham, England. Gary completed research into the evolution and phylogeny of seabirds while he was a Chapman Postdoctoral Fellow at the American Museum of Natural History, and a Molecular Evolution Postdoctoral Fellow at the Smithsonian Institution. He is now a professional scientist working in the life sciences industry in San Diego, California. He has traveled to more than thirty countries worldwide birding but also has a great interest in “patch birding”. Gary currently resides with his wife and young family in Pacific Beach, San Diego County, California which, he notes, is exactly halfway between his two favorite birding patches – Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery and Point La Jolla.
Tom Blackman
A California native Tom has birded the area since High School. A graduate of San Diego State University with a B.S. in Zoology. Seabirds and pelagic photography are Tom’s specialty having birded and photographed tubenoses in the World’s oceans in both hemispheres including participating is several expeditions to identify new pelagic species. Leading on SoCal pelagic trips since its inception, if you need ID or photographic help go see Tom. He is Past-President of Western Field Ornithologists and San Diego Field Ornithologists.
Peter Ginsburg
After a career in the U.S. Navy, Peter Ginsburg began birding. He soon developed an intense passion for birds combined with an unflagging interest in culture and travel, consequently studying birds all around the world. A widely respected birder in Southern California, Peter was an integral part of the development of the San Diego Bird Atlas, his keen eyes and outstanding obversational skiils providing data for dozens of sectors. Peter enjoys sharing his knowledge and enthusiasm of birds with others and welcomes the chance to meet new birders on pelagic trips.
Justyn Stahl
Justyn is the wildlife biologist for the San Diego National Wildlife Refuge Complex. He has lived in San Diego since 2008, although prior to 2023 much of that time was spent on San Clemente Island managing the recovery effort of the San Clemente Loggerhead Shrike. Justyn also volunteers as an eBird editor for California, as a regional compiler for North American Birds, and as chair of the California Bird Records Committee. He began regularly participating in pelagic trips off of Southern California in 2010.
Jimmy McMorran
A southern California native, Jimmy was introduced to birding while living in Corpus 
Christi, TX in his mid-late teenage years. He moved back to southern California when his real passion for birding was triggered. Since then, Jimmy has lived/worked on many of the Channel Islands off of California for bird studies, including the San Clemente Island Loggerhead Shrike recovery project. He has also surveyed for a variety of bird species throughout the country including the Ivory-billed Woodpecker search in Arkansas with the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Currently Jimmy is a wildlife biologist based out of San Diego, CA, and conducts a variety of avian surveys throughout southern California and beyond. Jimmy resides in Leucadia, CA with his wife and young daughter, who now has quite an impressive San Diego County list herself.
Matt Sadowski
Matt Sadowski has been birding Southern California and Baja since age ten. He is a consulting biologist for avian conservation programs in the region, and has served as a pelagic bird expert on NOAA research cruises. Matt is an eBird reviewer for San Diego, Orange, and Imperial County records and as such serves as a patient mentor for many newer birders as they struggle with identification. An accomplished pelagic birder and photographer, he has sharp eyes and a keen ability to identifly distant pelagic birds by their flight style. Matt discovered the first San Diego records of Red-necked Stint in the fall of 2008, and Lesser Sand-Plover in 2013.
Bruce Rideout
Bruce Rideout spent his career as a veterinarian specializing in disease investigations for the San Diego Zoo. He was also a Research Fellow of The Peregrine Fund and participated in a variety of conservation efforts, including recovery programs for California condors, Hawaiian forest birds, San Clemente Loggerhead Shrikes, Mojave Desert tortoises, and Giant Pandas in China. His research focused primarily on infectious diseases of wildlife, avian embryo pathology, and disease risk assessments for reintroduction programs. He now spends his time birding and recording bird sounds, and is the webmaster for sandiegopelagics.com
Dan King
Growing up in landlocked but impressively bird-rich Oklahoma, Dan has been an avid birder since age 10, and has birded extensively throughout the Lower 48 while chasing lifers in every corner of the country. His legal career first took him to Washington, DC for a decade and then to San Diego twenty years ago. Despite being dragged along on birding trips to cemeteries, dumps and sewage treatment ponds, not one of his three now-grown children are into birding – go figure! In recent years, about the only thing that will lure him away from working on his “5-Mile Radius” list are the wonderful San Diego pelagics, where he has racked up many hours learning from some of the best pelagic birders around. Dan currently serves on the boards of the Western Field Ornithologists and the San Dieguito River Valley Conservancy.
Dan Jehl
Raised in a bird-intensive household, Dan spent his high school summers as a field research 
assistant at Mono Lake, was trained as a biologist, and spent many years as a keeper of marine animals at a well-known Southern California theme park. After spending most of his life in, on, under, or around the water, he has a deep knowledge of the local waters. Believing that knowledge is best shared, Dan enjoys working with newer birders on building their skills while soaking up their enthusiasm for our natural world. Always happy to be on the water, whether he is scanning the horizon for hours, photographing wildlife, chumming for shy pelagic birds, or counting birds for Christmas Bird Counts. Years of fishing, diving, and birding on the ocean give him the experience to spot some of our most desired species.
Nancy Christensen
Nancy Christensen was born and raised in San Diego and has had a lifelong interest in wildlife. Nancy studied art and photography at UCSD. For many years she was very active with the local Photonaturalist Camera Club, and eventually went on to have over 2,000 published images. She spent time at the San Diego Natural History Museum examining the skins of extinct bird species, then painting images of them. In 2012, Nancy took up the hobby of birding, and has been on the run ever since. Since retirement in 2015, birding has become a consuming passion. Nancy birds literally every day, and has racked up over 2,100 consecutive days of submissions to Ebird. Pelagic birding in particular calls Nancy’s name, and she can be found on the ocean as often as possible.