 Bruce
Broadbooks is an active California birder who has been traveling the State
for birds for almost the entire time of our period of review (1965-1989)
and continues to do so to this day (2005). He lives in the Los Angeles
area and has made many a long car trip for some vagrant with other longtime
birders, including Herb & Olga Clarke, Arnold Small, Larry Sansone,
Shum Suffel, and many others. He first appears in Audubon Field Notes
in the fall of 1966 (an autumn in which he found several eastern vagrant
warblers) and has been going strong ever since. Much of his birding has
been with others; indeed, in trying to locate old photos for this project,
both shots of Bruce had to be clipped from group shots that portrayed many
others!
Bruce has been a member of the American Bird Association since its founding in 1968, and in the ABA's first published rankings of California listers in 1969, Bruce held the #7 spot. He remained somewhere between the 4th highest and 7th highest State lister throughout the 1970s, but with steadfast purpose, endurance, and many, many long drives later, had climbed to the 3rd position in the mid-1980s. By 1988 he was tied for second on the California state list (with Jon Dunn), behind only Guy McCaskie. After the close of our period of review in 1989, Dunn would travel widely as a tour leader but Bruce continued to chase most every vagrant possible. He was #2 in the State for a period in the 1990s and today (2005) he is 3rd or 4th on the California list. Invariably a gentlemen and an easygoing companion, Bruce is also a keen field birder with a list of many vagrants found to his credit. He has also traveled widely throughout North American and around the world in pursuit of birds, and has been a regular at many ABA and WFO conventions. Photo (left or above) from Pt. Pelee, Ontario, in May
1975 © Herb Clarke
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