[Bristol-Birds] Historical Snippet - Aug 4, 1996
- From: "Wallace Coffey" <jwcoffey@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "Bristol-birds" <bristol-birds@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 2 Feb 2008 12:27:47 -0500
BBC Snippet
Aug 4, 1996 BBC held an Invitation "Memorial Field Trip" to South
Holston Lake as a celebration of the life of Roger Tory Peterson
(1909-1996).
Dr. James Van Remsen, curator of birds
from the LSU Museum of Natural History
and member of the American Ornithologists'
Union,Check-list committee, led us in the
celebration.
At 2 p.m. (the very moment that Peterson's
funeral began at Old Lyme Congregational
Church in Old Lyme Ct.) Dr. Remsen delivered
the eulogy to Peterson while the Bristol Bird Club
group sat under a pine tree at Musick's
James Van Remsen Campground. It seemed an appropriate time, to
join his friends and family, not physically at his memorial service, but in
the field, his field, observing his life, spirit, and his contributions for the
great hobby of birding and science of ornithology.
All participants were given memory book markers with Dr. Peterson's picture
on them along with the information about the event. The white silk ribbons
were laminated in plastic and some birders still carry them afield as markers
for their field guides.
Remsen is among a group of prominent American birders/ornithologists
who have accepted a Bristol Bird Club invite to lead us in an "invitational
field trip." An invitational field trip is not open to all birders or the
public.
Remsen is, perhaps, the worlds expert on the study the ecology, evolution,
and biogeography of Neotropical birds, particularly those of the Andes and the
Amazon basin. He is also famous for keeping the archives and most valued
records on Ivory-billed Woodpecker reports and data. He organized and
helped raise funds and directed the first modern-day search for the species in
the Pearl River of Louisiana. He is still very much at the head of whatever is
going on with Ivory-bills.
He earned his B.S. at Stanford and later took a Ph.D. in Zoology at the
University of California Berkeley in 1978. His dissertation: "Geographical
ecology of Neotropical Kingfishers," was done with Dr. Frank A. Pitelka as
his advisor.
But on this beautiful day in the mountains of Northeast Tennessee,
birders stood close to his shoulder as we walked the shoreline and
nearby fields not far from Musick's Campground. As usual, everyone
wanted to hear any comment, to notice his every move and to get a
feel for this wonderful birder, scientist, professor and expert on the
birds of much of South America.
He leads the ornithological world from his famous "Remsen Lab".
LSU ornithologists are the world's experts on birds from several
Latin American regions, including Peru and Bolivia, which together
contain more species of birds than any other similar-sized region
in the world. LSU is the only university in the world that has conducted
field research in South America every year since 1962.
Remsen had access to Roger Tory Peterson and they were well
acquainted. He was the perfect person to remind us of the wealth
of contributions to birding that Peterson brought to many generations.
Peterson was the man who, more than anyone else, launched the
modern era of birding with his simplified
approach to bird identification. His first
Field Guide to the Birds was published
in 1934, and its usefulness made it an
immediate best seller. It was a thin little
book no one wanted to publish until the
Houghton Mifflin Company gambled,
in the endless dusk of the Depression,
on a printing of 2,000 copies. The first
edition, which covered birds found east
of the Rocky Mountains, sold out in a
couple of weeks. Subsequent revisions
by Peterson, together with a later guide
to western birds, have sold more than
7 million copies. One of the BBC members,
several years ago, paid $1,200 for an original copy of the first printing.
Over the years, Peterson received 23 honorary degrees from American
universities in areas of art, science, the humanities and letters. President
Jimmy Carter awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
BBC members gathered on the banks of the South Holston were
thrilled by having Dr. Remsen lead us on a bird walk, share his knowledge,
let everyone meet him and listen as he eulogize Dr. Roger Tory Peterson.
From the archives of the Bristol Bird Club
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