FreeLists / birdky / [birdky] Alexander Skutch - 1904 - 2004

[OLCOOT1@xxxxxxx]

May 13, 2004
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 Dr. Alexander Skutch passed away yesterday at his home in Finca Los Cusingos 
here in Costa Rica, a week short of his 100th birthday.  Memorial services 
will be held tomorrow morning in San Isidro de El General followed by a burial 
service at Los Cusingos.
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When I read this on another list serve, my eyes turned to one of my bookcases 
and I counted 9 books by Skutch. I don't know how many times I have gone to 
these books for information or the times I have scanned through them just to 
get the feel of his writing and rekindle or reemphasize the need to just sit 
and 
watch. Now, whenever I retrieve a book from that shelf, I will feel sad to 
think that this fountain, to which I have turned time and again to quenched my 
thirst, has issued its last. 

I will always count myself blessed though, for years ago, out of the blue, 
Ben and Lula Coffey gave me a copy of "Bird Student, An autobiography by George 
Miksch Sutton." Ben knew that I liked to sit for long periods and observe so 
he introduced me to this quiet and clear eyed distiller of bird behavior. For 
years now, Woodpeckers and Tanagers, are just a few species that flew from the 
pages of his many species accounts and filled me with awe and wonder. 

Somewhere, in a far corner of a Costa Rican forest, a Bellbird tolls.

Good Birding!!!

Jeff R. Wilson
OL'COOT / TLBA
Bartlett, TN

PS, In the autobiography, his birth year is given as 1898 but a recent 
article in Living Bird said he would be 100 in May. Whatever, but what a long 
and 
productive life, he worked on to the last.


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