Subject: another RTP admirer (sp?)
Date: Aug 5 09:29:05 1996
From: Phil Hotlen - n8540420 at henson.cc.wwu.edu



I too am saddened by the recent death of Roger Tory Peterson.
I always admired his art, and envied his excellent hearing.
I first became aware of him during the late 1940`s BT (before television),
when I was a budding teenager in Madison, Wisconsin. At that time I would
rather have been living back in Mark Catesby's or J.J. Audubon`s era
before all those spectacular bird species became extinct. Not too many
decades before the 40`s the egrets were also almost wiped out by plume
hunters. All that made a big impression on me. I was glad for RTP`s
field guide to sort out the surviving mundane birds remaining. Although
I couldn`t afford my own copy of the field guide, I wore out the sole
copy in the local branch library. And the clerks at Mosley`s book store
opposite the capitol dreaded seeing me coming to browse through all
their new bird books, I`m sure.

My bird watching locales in Madison included the handy Forest Hill
Cemetary, with its Indian mounds and spreading oaks, and where I could
clearly hear Brown Creepers up in the trees in those days. And not to forget
the Univ. of Wis. arboretum hugging Lake Wingra! Within easy bicycle range
(balloon tires, no gears), that is where I saw my first Wood Duck and,
thus far, my only Woodcock. To this day I am still convinced I saw two
male Blue Grosbeaks, complete with their brown shoulder patches, bathing
side-by-side in a spring there in the arboretum. I used to hide behind
some bushes to see what birds would show up at that bird spa. The local
bird experts, of course, insisted that I only saw Indigo Buntings, when
I told them about it later. Since that far off time, however, I`ve seen
a couple of reports of similar out-of-range paired male Blue Grosbeaks in
the southern Wisconsin-northern Illinois area. But I like knowing I saw
that phenomenon first.

Phil Hotlen <n8540420 at henson.cc.wwu.edu>
Bellingham, WA