Holiday celebration and program by Pete Fererra

Speaker: Pete Ferrera

Pete Ferrera came to the Albany area in 1993 to start his residency in Emergency Medicine and has lived in Slingerlands since 1997. His interest in birding started in late 1997, when his wife put out a makeshift birdfeeder made out of a 2 liter Pepsi bottle in their backyard. They started to watch the birds and she had Pete identify them using a Peterson’s field guide. She suggested they keep a list of what they saw. Then in March 1998, Pete was in Maine and heard the strangest sound. It was the call of a Pileated Woodpecker. He walked down to a dead tree and saw this massive bird ripping out huge chunks of bark to feed. Pete got within 10 feet of the bird, but it couldn’t care less about him. From that moment on he was hooked on birding. Since then, Pete has planned almost all of his trips around birds and other wildlife. He has traveled extensively to see and photograph birds and other wildlife. These days, Pete considers himself more of a wildlife photographer than a birder, but still enjoys looking at the birds in his backyard everyday. He and his wife have traded up the Pepsi bottle for real feeders these days.