Dave Stejskal's love of birds and birding began at the age of nine near his childhood home in Phoenix. After teenage years consumed by birding and basketball, he went on to graduate with a degree in biology from the University of Arizona in Tucson, the desert city he and his wife, Julie Hecimovich, call home.

Dave was co-editor for the Southwest Region report in American Birds/Audubon Field Notes for nearly 12 years, has served for many years on the Arizona Bird Records Committee, and has a solid reputation as one of the outstanding field birders in the Southwest and elsewhere. He is particularly skilled at identifying birds by their songs and calls and is eager to share his knowledge with others.

Since he guided his first professional birding tour with Field Guides in 1985, his nearly 300 tours have taken him north to arctic Alaska, south to Tierra del Fuego (guiding tours in nearly every country in between), to Madagascar, and across the Pacific to Southeast Asia, New Guinea, and Australia, and his enthusiasm for finding and watching birds has proven to be contagious.