Subject: [Tweeters] Ken Knittle
Date: Wed Jan 8 18:07:07 PST 2020
From: RUSSELL E ROGERS JR - rrogers at olypen.com

So sorry to hear of Ken's passing. I don't recall when I first met him but it was shortly after I moved to Washington in 1991. I always enjoyed running into him in the field, sometimes in pretty remote places. When I was compiling WOS Field Notes he would always send a regular report to me. With most folks you could tell where they lived by the location of a majority of their observations. Not with Ken, his observations were pretty evenly spread throughout the state. They would also be exhausting to consider, one day he would have notes from Walla Walla, the next day would be from Grays Harbor, then the next day would be from Whites Pass, and so on. If for some reason I was late sending my county and year list totals to him, he would always call or send a message to remind me to get on it.

Ken inspired me, not so much for county listing, but more the desire to get out there and see it all. In addition to my county list, I kept a DeLormie Atlas with every road I ever went down highlighted with a marker. If I was going somewhere and could take a route that I'd never been on, I would take it, then mark it off. I'd like to think that in the 20 years I lived in WA I saw most of it. My big test was a number of years ago I met a person in Philadelphia who was from Washington. I said "oh, where are you from." He said "a tiny town way out in the woods, I'm sure you've never heard of it." I said, "oh, I don't know, give me a try." He said "Labam." I said, "Oh, isn't that a suburb of Swiss Camp?" The guy nearly fell over. Swiss camp was one of the many places I ran into Ken. We were there looking for the White-tailed Kites that use to frequent the area. I credit Ken for that drive to get out there and see it all.

Rest it peace,

Russell

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Russell Rogers
302 N Franklin St
West Chester PA 19380
(360) 808-7197
president at olypen.com
flyingabalone.com
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