Death of Roger Tory Peterson indeed calls for a moment of silence as Dennis
says. Peterson's influence on me as a young naturalist was very great.

I can well remember my first poke into his Field Guide to Western Birds in
1966. Prior to that my brother and I got into the somewhat obsessive hobby
of turtle collecting - we had aquaria and turtles from all over the
backyard. Our initial source of info was Peterson's Guide to Reptiles and
Amphibians of Eastern North America by Roger Conant. Pouring over Conant's
herp book, I quickly became familiar with techniques of identyfying
organisms in the wild.
One day, probably in the summer of 1966, a very musical bird perched
conspicuously on the wire above one of the turtle ponds. I looked up - this
was in Garden Grove CA, 2 miles from Disneyland (we had a granstand and
cheap view of the fireworks display every summer evening) -and for some
reason ran for some binoculars my parents had. Looking at this singing bird
I noted it was mostly red on its head and breast...about the size of a
sparrow. I thought to myself that this should be a pretty easy bird to
figure out. The following day at school (Rancho Alamitos High...we were the
Vaqueros!) I checked out the Peterson guide to Western Birds and "Ta-daa"! I
seemed tohave but three choices: Cassin's, Purple and House Finch. Another
look at my bird on the wire and it was confirmed (flank streakings only
belong to the House Finch). That was my first "Life Bird" as Roger
challenges all his readers with a checklist beginning on page xxi of his
1961 edition. I quickly discovered I knew a few more birds like Mallard and
crow etc. and I was off! Amazing...it's still quite clear to me that moment
30 years ago. I used Peterson for years and use the very color plate (a
slide anyways) on finches in that book in my Birder's course that I've given
in Yakima. I have pretty close to memorized that guide I believe.

Several years later I read Wild America by Peterson and James Fisher,
Roger's British counterpart. I highly reccomend this travelogue of their
30,000 mile journey around America in 1953 (the year I was born). I
especially remember their several chapters on the Pribilofs, the storied
seabird and fur seal smothered islands in the Bering Sea. It took me 30
years to reach those islands but I did this May. Sitting on the cliffs at
point blank range before a spectacle of thousands of nesting fulmars,
kittiwakes and colorful auklets, murres and puffins, I relived Peterson's
and Fisher's journey of three decades ago. I had about memorized that book
too, but the reality of that Bering Sea cliff, fog and cacophany was as
vivid as their prose.

So long Roger, you will be missed. I only wish I could have met you.

Andy Stepniewski
Wapato WA