It saddens me to inform those of you who may have had the privilege to have
known Claudia Wilds, Washington, D.C., as the person, or vicariously through
her writings as the accomplished and tireless birder, traveler, and expert
and author on shorebirds, passed away on June 8, 1997, from the ravages of
cancer. In my life, from a 1970's decade of middle-Atlantic coast pelagic
trips, to all-night stomps for Black Rails in the Chesapeake Bay marshes, and
shorebirding at Chincoteague NWR, Virginia, and other locales from the North
Carolina Outer Banks to the New Jersey shore, I feel a deep sense of loss in
her passing, but optimistically wish that her legacy and contributions to
birding live on into history as is well deserved.

Richard Rowlett
Bellevue, WA