Tweeters,

Last summer I had an almost daily email exchange with Colorado's Rich
Levad. Rich was putting together a book on Black Swifts. It was
intended to be the most up-to-date and complete work ever done on the
topic. He seemed to be in a hurry to get it done. He was, but I had
no idea why until now.

Rich finished his book in electronic form in late September. I find
it a magnificent piece of work and will pass it on to any of you who
would like it.

Larry Schwitters
Issaquah

I know that many of the birders in Colorado didn't know Rich Levad, so
I thought that I would compile a short list of some of the things that
he accomplished as special monitoring projects coordinator for RMBO.
He taught English at Central High School in Grand Junction for over 30
years and started working at RMBO after he retired from that position.
Rich was a key player in starting the Monitoring Colorado's Birds
program. He was a master at getting people to work together towards a
common goal. He also excelled at accumulating information from
oftentimes quite unusual places and squeezing every drop of usefulness
out of the information he gathered. He was one of the rare writers
that have a firm grasp on all of the grammar rules of the English
language and yet creative at the same time. In the past few years
since being diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), he has
co-authored two manuscripts that can be/will be found in the Wilson
Bulletin. Also, during this time he has written a book about the
history of man's quest to understand one of the most difficult to
study birds - the Black Swift (as mentioned previously by Bill
Schmoker). I think that this book is going to be published sometime in
the near future and I believe the title will be "The Coolest Bird: A
Natural History of the Black Swift and Those Who Have Pursued It".

Here are just some of his other accomplishments:

- The number of known Black Swift breeding sites in Colorado increased
from 34 to 102 since 1998 when Rich started the MCB special species
program. Rich also initiated a search for Black Swift breeding sites
in cooperation with the New Mexico Game and Fish Department and
increased the number of known breeding sites in that state from one to
three in 2003.

- Prior to Rich's efforts with the MCB program, there were 22 known
Purple Martin breeding sites in Colorado. There are now 136 known
breeding sites in the state. Rich also assisted with the discovery of
the first breeding confirmation in Wyoming in 2004.

- Rich helped place nest boxes all over the Grand Valley of Mesa
County for Western Screech-Owls. I recently learned that at one point
there were over 200 nest boxed distributed throughout the valley.
During this project Rich taught many citizens of the Grand Junction
area about the "little owls in their yard". He also located a
remarkable number of natural cavities in which the species bred in the
Grand Valley.

- Rich started Project ColonyWatch which is primarily a volunteer
driven effort to gather data on sixteen of Colorado's colonial
waterbird species (such as, Great Blue Heron, Double-crested
Cormorant, Western Grebe, etc). As a result of this project, we now
know virtually every breeding location for all of these species in
Colorado.

- Rich compiled the most comprehensive list of Flammulated Owl
detections that exists for Colorado. He also assisted with the first
breeding confirmation of Flammulated Owl in Wyoming in 2005.

- Rich also found an impressive number of Long-eared Owl nest sites in
the Grand Valley area. In 1998, Rich and friends banded over 100
nestlings during that banner breeding year for the species in Colorado.

- Through Rich's work Coloradoans also know more about Barrow's
Goldeneye, Pied-billed Grebe, American Bittern, Osprey, Black Rain,
Virginia Rail, Sora, Snowy Plover, Willet, Eurasian-collared Dove,
Burrowing Owl, White-throated Swift, Lewis's Woodpecker, Black Phoebe,
Bell's Vireo, American Dipper, Bobolink, and Scott's Oriole in their
state.


In his final days, Rich and his family worked to establish the Richard
G. Levad memorial Fund at the Rocky Mountain Bird Observatory. This
fund is dedicated to continuing research projects initiated by Rich
related to the MCB special species program. Money from this fund is to
be used for special species projects that cannot be monitored by more
traditional means.


Anyone wishing to donate to this fund can send a check to:


Rocky Mountain Bird Obervatory

ATTN: James Pauley

P.O. Box 1232

Brighton, CO 80601-1232


Rich Levad was truly a one-in-a-billion human being!


Thank you,

Jason Beason

Special Monitoring Projects Coordinator

Rocky Mountain Bird Observatory


From: Larry Schwitters <lpatters at ix.netcom.com>
Sent: Sunday, March 09, 2008 12:22 PM
To:
Subject: Rich Levad?
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