Don Doolittle is a world traveler who has visited all seven continents. Although relatively new to birding, Don has extensive travel ex-perience on expedition ships. Don visited Antarctica in 2004, 2007 and 2008 and South Georgia in 2007 and 2008 and The Falkland Is-lands in 2007. Expedition cruising has taken him to New Zealand’s sub-Antarctic islands and to Macquarie Island as well as to the Russian Far East twice, including a month in the Sea of Okhotsk; Alaska’s Aleutian chain including Attu as well as to islands in the Bering Sea including the Pribiloffs, St. Mathew and St. Lawrence. In 2006, Don circumnavi-gated Iceland and cruised from Iceland to Spitsbergen in 2007. He has dived and ex-plored Australia’s Great Barrier Reef by expedition ship.

Don has also traveled to some warmer locations. He visited the Galapagos by 16 pas-senger vessel and sailed in the Caribbean by Cruise Ship as well as large and small sail-ing vessels. His Caribbean explorations have included the Lesser Antilles, Jamaica, and the Bahamas and a week birding on land in the most undeveloped Caribbean island, Dominica. He has transited the Panama Canal on a sailing ship (requiring timing the tides to allow the mast to pass underneath the Pan American Highway Bridge) en route to Bonaire and Curacao. He has been to the Sea of Cortez by expedition ship.

In the spring of 2008, Don joined the extensive, six week Atlantic Odyssey voyage from Antarctica and South Georgia up the mid-Atlantic ridge to Tristan da Cunha, St. Helena, Ascension Island, and ending in the Cape Verde Islands. In the summer of 2008, he will sail the Aegean Sea, visiting islands in Greece, Croatia, and Montenegro.

Don’s interest in marine wildlife was sparked by his first Shearwater Journey’s trip on August 5, 2001 when he saw his first Leatherback Turtle, Blue Whale and Black-footed Albatross. Subsequently he has developed a life list of around 2500 birds with the un-usual feature of having storm petrels, murelets, skuas and shearwaters ahead of Dark-eyed Junco, Northern Cardinal and White-crowned Sparrow. Don has since become a regular leader on Shearwater Journeys’ California pelagic trips.

DON DOOLITTLEExpedition Photographer

Don has pursued his interest in birds and wildlife through photography on both land and sea. On land, he has visited and photographed wildlife in Madagascar, South Af-rica, Costa Rica, Alaska, Argentina, Chile, Australia, Ecuador, Tasmania, New Zealand, and Hokkaido Japan.

Don’s photographic images have been published in Birding, North American Birds, Wing-ing It and Bird Watch magazines and in Whales, Dolphins & Seals: A Field Guide to Marine Mammals of the World by Shirihai and Jarrett and Marine Mammals of the World by Jeffer-son, Webber and Pitman.

A retired businessman who has a BS from the University of Nebraska and an MBA from the Harvard Business School, Don has four adult children and one grandson. He is an avid duplicate bridge player.

The January 2010 Antarctic expedition will be Don’s fourth trip to Antarctica. When asked what is the best place on the planet to visit, he always puts Antarctica among the top locations. “The combination of ice and mountain grandeur, unspoiled animal life and isolation from ‘tourism’ makes this one of the best places on earth.” Don looks for-ward to sharing expedition cruising to the world’s most spectacular locations.

Debra says: I’ve never met anyone more at home on the ocean than Don. He is truly in his element when he is at sea. Don will serve as our Expedition Photographer, compil-ing thousands of images throughout our voyage. (Oh, yes, it is possible to shoot 7 or 8,000 images on this voyage!) He will also present lectures about Ice and History.

DON DOOLITTLEExpedition Photographer