On November 4, 2007, Dave Nadeau, a man whom I considered my best friend for almost 30 years, died of a heart attack. Dave was an avid birder who travelled extensively in North America combining business trips with birding. He loved to keep lists, and his two big lists every year were his Alberta year list and Alberta winter list.
He retired on November 1st, 2006, so the year 2007 was his first full year of retirement. In that year he was able to pack in a lot of birding trips, taking his first ever trip to the American Tropics with a two week trip to Costa Rica, spending two weeks in California, taking a trip to Vancouver and combining a family visit with a birding trip to Nova Scotia. He also travelled extensively in Alberta, and two days before he died he chased after and saw Alberta’s first record of Red-bellied Woodpecker. On the day of his death he had been on a field trip to Cold Lake with members of the Edmonton Nature Club. He got three new birds for the year on that trip, putting him at 286, his highest ever for Alberta. Dave was enjoying life to the fullest this year.
I don’t do a lot of people photography, I’m mostly a wildlife photographer, but I dug into my files and found a few photographs of Dave. I have interspersed these with photos of birds that we saw on some of these trip. There is also text below each of the photos of Dave that you should read to understand the significance of the photos.
Good birding Dave, I’ll miss you very much.