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| BPP E-Newsletter | FEBRUARY 2010 |
Current Migration Card Count: |
ANNOUNCEMENTS
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BPP Database and Interface
Coming Soon:
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THANK YOUS AND MILESTONES To the office volunteers, thank you for being flexible this month while I change some of the protocols in the office. The program relies heavily on your help and I appreciate all the time and work you've dedicated this month!
Allen Saute's 7th Grade Environmental Horticulture Students transcribing BPP cards Beginning in November 2009, each of Allen Sauté’s 7th grade environmental horticulture students have been transcribing three cards every day as part of their ‘warm up’ for the class. The students also intend to research the observers to find out more about the program history and the naturalists and citizens who originally recorded the cards. Sequoia Middle School Environmental Horticulture classes, in cooperation with the National Park Service and Conejo Valley Audubon Society has established TREE (Teens Restoring Endangered Ecosystems). This program helps students learn about plant ecology, wildlife biology, environmental science, earth science, geology. They will be serving the community and the National Park Service as Volunteers to protect, and learn about their local environment. Their latest endeavor is to become an active member with with National Phenology Network. With the NPN, their goal is to establish plants on campus that are on the list being observed by scientists so that students can observe and record this information for a national database. |
OBSERVER OF THE MONTH James Bond was born in Philadelphia on January 4, 1900. His education began at the Delancey School and then later the prestigious St. Paul’s school in Concord, New Hampshire. After Bond’s mother passed away, he and his father left the area and moved to England where James entered Harrow and then Cambridge University. He received his B.A. in 1922 and remained in England for eight years until moving back to Philadelphia. Bond’s first position post-college was in the Foreign Exchange Department of the Pennsylvania Company, a banking firm. But it wasn’t long until his childhood passion for natural history took over and he resigned from the bank in 1925, less than three years after taking the position. Bond promptly accepted an invitation to accompany Rodolphe Meyer de Schauensee on a collecting expedition of the lower Amazon River, Brazil, an assignment from the Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia (ANSP). Field notes from this trip were incorporated into a report written by Witmer Stone, Curator of Birds at the ANSP. Bond continued to publish papers on South American birds which were based on specimens in the ANSP collection and not his own field work. He soon determined that it was birds of the Caribbean Island that was really his passion and would become his life’s work. Bond’s “Check-List of Birds of the West Indies,” published by the ANSP, appeared in four successive editions, the last in 1956 and included a series of 27 Supplements, published 1956-1987. The first version of his book, “Birds of the West Indies” was published in 1936 and was later converted into a more modern field guide with color plates by Don Eckelberry in 1947. Before his death, Bond completed 6 editions of this field guide. In 1953, Bond married Mary Fanning Wickham Porcher Lewis, a published poet and novelist and widow of a prominent Philadelphia Lawyer. Soon after, Bond learned the British novelist Ian Fleming, who was a bird-watcher, had taken his name from his field guide and used it for his fictional character in Casino Royal. This novel was later made into a movie series which became an internationally recognized name and part of pop-culture. Bond joined the American Ornithologists’ Union in 1923, became a Member in 1929 and elected a fellow in 1946. Bond published about thirty papers on birds of the West Indies and peripheral islands and about six papers on the birds of Maine. He also received the Musgrave Medal of the Institute of Jamaica (1953), the Wilderness Club (Philadelphia) Medal (1961), and the Leidy Medal of the ANSP (1975) among others. Bond died on February 14th, 1989 after a long battle with cancer. University of New Mexico E-Library, Auk Vol. 106, pp 718-720.
Have a submission you would like to add to the BPP E-Newsletter? Email Jessica. |
James Bond Photo courtesy of University of New Mexico E-Library, Auk Vol. 106, pp 718-720
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