Hello All,
This past week Dr. Alexander Skutch died just short of his 100th birthday. He was an extraordinary individual with great foresight and insight. MerryLynn and I had the great privileged of visiting and birding with Dr. Skutch and his wife Pamela Dec.1996 at Los Cusingos just outside San Isidro, Costa Rica. We spent a little over an hour with them after spending three hours birding Los Cusingos. Dr. and Mrs. Skutch told us of their life on this forested finca and how he had originally purchased it and about all the birds and mammals that use to live there when there was still a connection to the forested highlands. He told us of the species that vanished as the sugarcane farmers slashed and burned the great jungle away to plant more sugarcane all around his 200+ acres. His Los Cusingos is now an island in a sea of sugarcane. We sat and visited on their front veranda while we watched five species of tanagers, dacnis and several species of manakins come into a large platform feeder littered with ripe bananas. MerryLynn had just discovered a Little Hermit lek along one of the paths and Dr.Skutch was eager to go see it as he had never seen one in all his years in Central America.When he heard that we were from Walla Walla, Dr. Skutch told us that in 1955 he had visited WSU and a friend that lived in Pulman. So we sat and visited on this warm sunny afternoon with a true pioneer in ornithology and his most gracious wife. Both are gone now and their contributions to conservation, ornithology and to Costa Rica will not be soon realized. This visit was one of the highlights of our month in Costa Rica and will always be a special event in my life.
Later Mike


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Mike & MerryLynn Denny
323 Scenic View Drive
College Place, WA 99324
509.529.0080 (h)

IF YOU HAVEN'T BEEN BIRDING, YOU HAVEN'T LIVED!
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