Roger Clapp 2018

[Fern Davies]

Roger B. Clapp, an ornithologist who spent many years in the Division of Birds at the National Museum of Natural History, passed away on 24 December, 2018. A fellow of the AOU, Clapp co-authored the Birds of North American account for the Grey-backed Tern (Onychoprion lunatus). As a undergraduate at Cornell, Clapp studied under Charles Sibley and traveled with classmates as early as his freshman year to collect eggs for Sibley's egg-white protein studies. After graduating, Clapp conducted work with the Smithsonian Institution's Pacific Ocean Biological Survey Program, circa 1962-1969, where he banded pelagic birds at sea. Clapp served as a museum specialist in the Curatorial Project of the Biological Survey Unit of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and assisted with the curation and management of the North American Bird Collections.