Fern Davies

Dr. H. Ross Hawkins June 9, 1939 to July 9, 2020 We are saddened to announce the death of Dr. H. Ross Hawkins. Ross was in Hospice of the Valley for five days in Scottsdale, Arizona, and died at 81 of complications from an aortic aneurysm. Ross lived a ‘hummingbird-inspired’ and ‘joy-filled’ life. As Founder and Executive director of the International Hummingbird Society headquartered in Sedona, Arizona, he touched many lives in the community with his unwavering enthusiasm for and deep knowledge of hummingbirds. This wealth was shared through the seven years of the successful Society-sponsored Sedona Hummingbird Festival that brought hummingbird lovers to Sedona from every state and 12 different countries. Ross liked to say that he had a checkered past, as he began his career as a chemist, with a PhD from the University of California, Berkeley, and was employed as a research scientist for E. I. DuPont de Nemours in Wilmington, Delaware for 9 years. Too gregarious to work in seclusion forever, he changed careers and became an investment advisor and worked as Vice President in investments for Morgan Stanley, retiring after 22 years. In 1987, he married Beth Kingsley Hawkins, who shared her love of hummingbirds with him, and in 1996, while still working in Delaware. he founded the non-profit Hummingbird Society. Upon his retirement in 2006, they left Maryland (a state where the Ruby-throated hummingbird was the only nesting species and it didn’t stay for the winter) and moved to Sedona, with its abundance of hummingbirds. Traveling to learn about and photograph hummingbirds in their natural habitat, they made eight trips to Trinidad and Tobago and one to Costa Rica. Ross himself made two trips to Robinson Crusoe Island off the coast of Chile to study the endangered Juan Fernandez Firecrown (hummingbird) and one to Honduras, hoping to and succeeding in finding expanded habitat for the Honduran Emerald hummingbird. Few people know the back story of how he received the idea to create the Society. Michael Godfrey, Arthur Godfrey’s son, had made a definitive video of the hummingbirds up close in Arizona. As Ross spoke with him about it, Michael lamented that there wasn’t a Hummingbird Society and suggested maybe Ross was the one to create it. That was an AHA moment for Ross. The idea took root. He was shocked to learn that there was no organization to protect these tiny jewels. Once off the phone, Ross took a big blank white chart, drew a wheel with the Society at the center and spokes out from the center naming all the things he would need to know and do to found a non-profit, and the Hummingbird Society was born. He then proceeded to put feet under his dream, defining a mission to help people understand and appreciate hummingbirds and to provide a channel to help save the ones that are endangered. Of 365 species of hummingbirds, 39 of the ones found in Central and South America are endangered. He summed up the purpose of the Society in this way: it is to teach people about hummingbirds, so they will understand them better; knowing that from that understanding and caring, will come support for their protection. In this way Ross connected many people more intimately with nature and created a way for many people to express that love. If you knew Ross, you know how much he loved speaking and teaching about these precious flying gems, and he became certified as a Professional Speaker by the National Speaker’s Association in 2010. He also relished nature photography and he and Beth were charter members of the North American Nature Photographer’s Association. They also joined the local Northern Arizona Audubon Society. In addition, he was a resonant baritone and an enthusiastic member of the local barbershop group, Harmony on the Rocks. With diverse musical tastes, he and Beth also sang the magnificent O Magnum Mysterium with the composer Morten Lauridsen conducting. Ross was born in Fayetteville, Arkansas to Dero B. and Mary E. Hawkins, Ross was preceded in death by his younger brother, Gary Hawkins. Ross grew up in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He is survived by his devoted wife Beth Kingsley Hawkins of Sedona, and his two amazing daughters; Sandra West, and her husband Mike West of Lakewood, Colorado, and Anita Hawkins and her husband Rev. Craig Cowing of Rocky Hill, Connecticut. Donations to continue the valuable conservation work of the Society are welcomed in honor of Ross, its founder, as we seek to find and fund a new director. To donate, go to www.hummingbirdsociety.org and click on the button that reads, Join, renew or donate. In addition, the family would value help for the funeral expenses, since Beth’s Sedona Hummingbird Gallery has been closed since March, due to the risk of the Covid virus A contribution in that regard would go to Beth Kingsley Hawkins P. O. Box 20398, Sedona, AZ 86341. We are grateful for your support.

For several years, word has been circulating about an international effort to reconcile the differences among various taxonomic checklists of birds. In response Frank Gill and David Donsker initiated discussions amongst the various checklist compilers on the possibility of developing a single, consistent checklist of all the birds of the world. As the IOU notice explains, "The International Ornithologists’ Union (IOU) has formed the Working Group on Avian Checklists (WGAC) with a broadened purpose and function. Its primary purpose will be to produce and maintain on the IOU website an open-access global checklist of birds in the mould of the great Peters-Mayr checklist of the 20th century and intended to serve as the benchmark reference for all taxa of the class Aves. Eminent representatives of the international community of professional avian systematists will compile and maintain it. Australian ornithologist Les Christidis, who will chair the executive committee of the working group, reports, "There is now a team working on a unified world checklist of birds. It is under the auspices of the IOU and involves the teams currently working on the IOC List, Clements, e-bird, Avibase and Cornell's Birds of the World. The IOC list will continue to be updated while the working group develops the new list in the background. Things are finally beginning to move forward." The final checklist will produce more than just a hierarchical list of species and recommended names. It will provide, through its detailed fields and connections to external references, the basic information for all ornithology – professional ornithologists, citizen scientists, conservationists and students – to draw on the full record of diversity of earth’s birdlife.

NEWS RELEASE (from The Peregrine Fund) For immediate release, 17 June 2020 To save a species from extinction we must know that it exists Boise, Idaho - A new study shows that there is substantial disagreement among scientists on the number of species of birds, which prevents accurate decision making for prioritizing conservation efforts. The study, “Toward reconciliation of the four world bird lists: Hotspots of disagreement in taxonomy of raptors,” uses birds of prey as an example for why this problem requires immediate resolution. Birds of prey represent approximately 5.5% of the world’s bird species, but are significant in this discussion because roughly 52% of raptors have declining global populations. The lead researcher for this effort, Dr. Chris McClure of The Peregrine Fund says, “A place may or may not be deemed a priority for protection depending on the number of recognized species in the area. So we decided to compare the four most widely used world bird lists that scientists use and found that, among raptors, there was only 68% consistency in the species recognized across all four lists. That’s not very consistent and could lead to confusion among conservation practitioners and government agencies.” The four most widely used lists for recognized bird species include 1) the IOC World Bird List which is used by the international ornithological journal IBIS, 2) the Howard and Moore Checklist of the Birds of the World, which is used by several major museums around the world, 3) the eBird/Clements Checklist of Birds of the World, which is used by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology in the implementation of all of their programs, and finally 4) the Handbook of the Birds of the World and BirdLife International Digital Checklist of the Birds of the World, which is followed by BirdLife International when determining the Red List of Threatened Species and for several international agreements. McClure adds, “If this all sounds a bit confusing, that’s because it is. In fact the differences between the four world bird lists was recently referred to as ‘taxonomy anarchy.’” Dr. Jeff Johnson of the University of North Texas’s Department of Biological Sciences explains the problem from a conservation perspective, “Typically conservation efforts are focused on saving species, however subspecies can provide considerable genetic and ecological diversity.” Take the Cuban Kite, for example. This is a critically endangered raptor, but only considered a species on two of the four lists. The other two identify it as a subspecies of hook-billed kite, which is not considered to be threatened with extinction. While its current numbers are dangerously low, “losing the Cuban Kite entirely due to extinction would be a travesty,” according to Johnson. “Consistent recognition of the Cuban kite as a distinct species could help elevate its prominence and thereby increase efforts for its conservation.” Dr. Thomas Schulenberg of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology states, “In this study we looked at the ‘hotspots of disagreement’ between the four lists. We found that there’s a lot of disagreement about owls, particularly in southern Asia. More broadly, the classification of raptor species is not well aligned across the high diversity regions of Indonesia, India, and China.” Dr. Denis Lepage of Birds Canada says, “The bottom line is that, if we want to conserve birds, including raptors, working together to develop a single world bird list would go a long way.” According to McClure, efforts are now being discussed to consolidate the four lists, but no official announcement has been made concerning when that may happen. “Oftentimes, taxonomic research is not well funded,” lamented Lepage, “but this study demonstrates that a concerted effort is critical for conservation of biodiversity. This is too important to not give our best effort.” This study was a collaboration between the University of North Texas, Birds Canada, Boise State University, Ornithologi, Southern Cross University, Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Michigan State University, and The Peregrine Fund.

Nominees Sought for Theodore Roosevelt Genius Prize Advisory Council to Promote Technology Innovation in Wildlife and Habitat Conservation May 12, 2020 Contact(s): Laury Marshall, 703-589-6947, Laury_Parramore@fws.gov The U.S. Department of the Interior seeks experts and leaders in wildlife and habitat conservation technology to advise the Secretary of the Interior as part of the newly formed Theodore Roosevelt Genius Prize Advisory Council. The Council, established under the 2019 John D. Dingell, Jr. Conservation, Management, and Recreation Act, will act as a catalyst for technological innovation to advance wildlife and habitat conservation. It will focus on endangered species protection, invasive species management, poaching and wildlife trafficking prevention, and nonlethal solutions to human-wildlife conflicts. “We are looking for leaders and highly experienced professionals who can help guide our efforts to more fully incorporate innovation into conservation,” said U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director Aurelia Skipwith. “This Council will do more than just award prizes for innovation, its members will serve as guides to competition winners, helping mentor them and chaperone their ideas towards their full potential.” The Council will administer $500,000 in prizes and advise competition winners on opportunities to pilot and implement their nascent technologies, helping them develop partnerships with conservation organizations, federal or state agencies, federally recognized tribes, private entities and research institutions with relevant expertise or interest. The Council will be governed by the Federal Advisory Committee Act. The Secretary of the Interior David Bernhardt will appoint 12 to 18 Council members who have expertise in one or more of the following areas: biology, economics, engineering, endangered species, invasive species, technology development, business development and management, international wildlife trafficking and trade, wildlife conservation and management, nonlethal wildlife management, social aspects of human-wildlife conflict management, or any other discipline the Secretary determines to be necessary to achieve the purposes of the Council. For more information, please visit: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2020/05/11/2020-10008/call-for-nominations-for-the-theodore-roosevelt-genius-prize-advisory-council-and-advisory-boards.

From The Ibis: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/ibi.12822?fbclid=IwAR0nsfy9G0r78EzfGAJqJUpxes3utTyygvYwuruCG7qwuAzU3iitB8I1tpc With the death of Colin Pennycuick on 9 December 2019 at the age of 86 years, the ornithological community has lost a doyen of avian biology whose passion for flying informed his pioneering research into avian flight for over five decades. His innovative studies, which famously include developing the use of wind tunnels for studying flight performance, led to him to describing key principles underlying the mechanics of flight. A leading authority on the mechanics and physiology of flight in birds and bats, he was also an expert on their navigation and migration. He was particularly driven by a wish to test, and thus understand, why birds and bats fly in the way that they do. His own enthusiasm for piloting light aircraft – pursued from his student days – provided him with fresh insights into the constraints encountered by the birds during their daily movements and longer distance migrations. Colin James Pennycuick was born in Windsor, Berkshire, on 11 June 1933. His father, Brigadier James A.C. Pennycuick, served with distinction in the Royal Engineers during WWI, and his grandfather was Treasurer of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). Educated at Wellington College, Berkshire, and at Merton College, Oxford, Colin enlisted in the Oxford University Air Squadron for the Royal Air Force Voluntary Reserve, and this triggered his life‐long love of flying. A keen birdwatcher since childhood, whilst still an undergraduate he joined a goose‐ringing expedition to Spitsbergen. The results were published in the Seventh Annual Report of the Wildfowl Trust (now the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust; WWT). He moved on to Peterhouse, Cambridge, for a PhD study on muscle physiology, and as a research fellow at Cambridge, he studied the navigation of the Common Pigeon Columba livia, before moving to become a lecturer in the Zoology Department at Bristol University. His association with Bristol continued over many years, though interspersed with periods spent working elsewhere. He also became a regular visitor to the Wildfowl Trust at Slimbridge, and flew gliders with the WWT’s founder, Sir Peter Scott. During his initial stint in Bristol, from 1964 to 1968, Colin used the university’s first computer to design and build a wind tunnel, which he famously hung in a stairwell in the Zoology Building and then trained and pigeons to fly within it. His observations led to him adapting the existing aerodynamic theory for helicopters to birds, using the results of his wind tunnel experiments to derive a quantitatively accurate mechanical model of bird flight, which was published in a landmark paper in the Journal of Experimental Biology. During this period, he also used the wind tunnel to estimate basic properties for birds in steady gliding flight, with information gained about wing lift and drag from the body and wings leading to his classic ‘momentum jet’ model of flapping flight mechanics, and to addressing the key point of how the mechanical power required to fly varies with airspeed. A second seminal paper on this theory appeared in Ibis in 1969, describing its significance for the flight of birds of different sizes and with varying migration ranges. Colin concluded at the time that there is an upper limit to the body mass at which birds are capable of flight and migration, with larger birds more limited by the amount of body fat which they can carry as fuel, which reduces their range, but they can economize by soaring. He suggested that the upper limit lay approximately with the Kori Bustard Ardeotis kori. PDF Tools Share With the death of Colin Pennycuick on 9 December 2019 at the age of 86 years, the ornithological community has lost a doyen of avian biology whose passion for flying informed his pioneering research into avian flight for over five decades. His innovative studies, which famously include developing the use of wind tunnels for studying flight performance, led to him to describing key principles underlying the mechanics of flight. A leading authority on the mechanics and physiology of flight in birds and bats, he was also an expert on their navigation and migration. He was particularly driven by a wish to test, and thus understand, why birds and bats fly in the way that they do. His own enthusiasm for piloting light aircraft – pursued from his student days – provided him with fresh insights into the constraints encountered by the birds during their daily movements and longer distance migrations. Colin James Pennycuick was born in Windsor, Berkshire, on 11 June 1933. His father, Brigadier James A.C. Pennycuick, served with distinction in the Royal Engineers during WWI, and his grandfather was Treasurer of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). Educated at Wellington College, Berkshire, and at Merton College, Oxford, Colin enlisted in the Oxford University Air Squadron for the Royal Air Force Voluntary Reserve, and this triggered his life‐long love of flying. A keen birdwatcher since childhood, whilst still an undergraduate he joined a goose‐ringing expedition to Spitsbergen. The results were published in the Seventh Annual Report of the Wildfowl Trust (now the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust; WWT). He moved on to Peterhouse, Cambridge, for a PhD study on muscle physiology, and as a research fellow at Cambridge, he studied the navigation of the Common Pigeon Columba livia, before moving to become a lecturer in the Zoology Department at Bristol University. His association with Bristol continued over many years, though interspersed with periods spent working elsewhere. He also became a regular visitor to the Wildfowl Trust at Slimbridge, and flew gliders with the WWT’s founder, Sir Peter Scott. During his initial stint in Bristol, from 1964 to 1968, Colin used the university’s first computer to design and build a wind tunnel, which he famously hung in a stairwell in the Zoology Building and then trained and pigeons to fly within it. His observations led to him adapting the existing aerodynamic theory for helicopters to birds, using the results of his wind tunnel experiments to derive a quantitatively accurate mechanical model of bird flight, which was published in a landmark paper in the Journal of Experimental Biology. During this period, he also used the wind tunnel to estimate basic properties for birds in steady gliding flight, with information gained about wing lift and drag from the body and wings leading to his classic ‘momentum jet’ model of flapping flight mechanics, and to addressing the key point of how the mechanical power required to fly varies with airspeed. A second seminal paper on this theory appeared in Ibis in 1969, describing its significance for the flight of birds of different sizes and with varying migration ranges. Colin concluded at the time that there is an upper limit to the body mass at which birds are capable of flight and migration, with larger birds more limited by the amount of body fat which they can carry as fuel, which reduces their range, but they can economize by soaring. He suggested that the upper limit lay approximately with the Kori Bustard Ardeotis kori. In 1968 Colin moved to East Africa, where he was seconded to Nairobi University for 3 years and first acquired his own aircraft (a Piper Cruiser). There he used his wind tunnel to study gliding flight in the Egyptian Fruit Bat Rousettus aegyptiacus. This was followed by 2 years in the Serengeti National Park as Deputy Director of the research station, at which time he flew a powered glider with pelicans Pelecanus spp., storks Ciconia spp. and vultures Gyps spp. and discovered that soaring birds are able to travel across vast areas with little effort, using currents of rising air to gain height, then gliding to the base of the next thermal. In preparation for his return to Bristol in 1973, he adapted his Piper Cruiser for long‐distance flight and made a ‘stepping‐stone’ migration back to the UK, calling in at Addis Ababa, Cairo and Crete en route. This time he remained in Bristol until 1983, using the Piper to track migrating cranes in southern Sweden and also developing the ‘ornithodolite’, a portable instrument which recorded in real‐time on to a computer the azimuth, elevation and range of birds in flight. This he used in South Georgia to measure glide patterns for albatrosses Diomedea spp. and Phoebetria spp. to determine how the wind and waves of the Antarctic Ocean powered their flight, thus shedding light on gust‐soaring phenomena in the species. He also renewed his collaborative work with the WWT, including undertaking an aerial survey of Barnacle Geese Branta leucopsis across Scotland and Ireland in the Piper, and being instrumental in bringing the first computer to the organization. In 1983 Colin moved to the US as the Maytag Chair of Ornithology at Miami University where he continued his studies of flight performance, using the ornithodolite to study frigate birds Fregata spp. flight, and the wind tunnel to refine his flight mechanics model. Here he developed his ‘Flight’ software, which he made readily available to other researchers, and his book Bird Flight Performance, a Practical Calculation Manual was published in 1989. He collaborated on several projects with the Patuxent Research Centre, including developing bird‐borne transmitters that could send data via the Argos satellite system, and recording basic flight characteristics data for several falconry‐trained raptors and wild sage grouse to test the effects of radio‐tagging on avian flight. When he returned to Europe in 1992 he again made an inter‐continental flight in his own aircraft, this time a Cessner 182, flying via Greenland and Iceland to Bristol. Once back in Britain, following much commuting between the US and the UK by both parties since the early 1980s, he married his wife Sandy, also in 1992. Several new projects commenced, with Colin making regular visits to Lund University where a new wind tunnel was inaugurated by King Carl XVI of Sweden and also, with WWT, tracking Whooper Swan Cygnus cygnus migration between Britain and Iceland. This was of particular interest to Colin because the species was deemed to be at the upper limits for making the long‐distance overseas flight. His VW campervan became a familiar sight in Lund and at Whooper Swan catch sites in Iceland. Always generous with his time, Colin mentored a number of undergraduate and PhD students who went on to be highly successful in their fields, including such luminaries as Julian Hector, Anders Hedenström, Malcolm Ogilvie, Keith Scholey and Geoff Spedding, their tributes to Colin having contributed substantially to this article. Colin’s life‐long love of flying and his innovative spirit never diminished; on co‐supervising a PhD on Whooper Swan breeding biology during the early 1990s, he suggested that inaccessible parts of Iceland could perhaps be reached by the new method of paramotoring, a concept viewed less enthusiastically by others involved. He also took trouble to ensure that the results of his somewhat technical research were made accessible and understandable to a wider audience, including joining the WWT/BBC/Nenetskiy State Nature Reserve expedition to ring Bewick’s Swans Cygnus columbianus bewickii in the Russian arctic in 2003, an expedition which included tracking Bewick’s Swans fitted with satellite tags for BBC Radio 4’s ‘Migration’ programme. Although recovering from treatment for cancer at the time, Colin was a calm and steadfast presence throughout, clearly delighted to be back in the field. Colin was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 1990 for his innovative work on the flight of birds and bats, and was made Honorary Companion of the Royal Aeronautical Society in 1994. In 1996 he was also awarded an honorary doctorate by Lund University. His publications, including the textbook Modelling the Flying Bird (2008) and his ‘Flight’ software models on the mechanics of flapping and gliding flight and long‐distance migration, set out the principles of aeronautical engineering and how they may be adapted for exploring bird flight. These will remain valuable tools for future generations, and form a basis for the continuing research into avian flight and the dissemination of this information by those who he inspired.

From Fred C. Schaffner: It’s taken me a long time to internalize this, and I can only offer my sincerest apologies to Heaven for delaying so long. Colin J. Pennycuick was the only true genius I have ever known and I cannot imagine meeting anyone of his calibre ever again. He was kind and patient with mortals like me, jovial, eccentric, and humble, sometimes hilarious, and always in good cheer. Often, we were the only ones in the room who understood one another’s jokes. I’ve tried to be as good a teacher and mentor as he, but matching his genius would be impossible. I had the honor of being his first PhD student after he came to the US from England. He taught me to fly, to master SI units in everything, and most importantly to see farther by patiently stepping back and starting with first principles. We flew together from Miami to my research site at Culebra, Puerto Rico piloting the Cessna 182 pictured in the article, which he later flew from Miami to England vía Greenland. I remember ground-breaking scientific articles he wrote on the backs of envelopes, and his home-built computers. And I remember a time when my mind was swirling with a tangled spaghetti of ideas as I tried to write my dissertation. He left the office with a magic marker in hand and returned from the restroom with a length of toilet paper on which he’d written, “When your thoughts come out, it helps to get them down on paper”. He told me to stick it on the wall and keep looking at it until the spaghetti got untangled. It worked! I remember him calling me one afternoon, years after I graduated, to tell me that for his 65th birthday he’d taken up hang-gliding and had gone to Spain to glide with the Griffons. I can’t imagine who or what or where I would be without him. He was a truly unique and stellar human being.

Colin Pennycuick, who has died aged 86, was the pre-eminent researcher in animal flight over the last century. He focused on the flight of bats and birds (and their possible ancestors), and asked the question: how do they work? To answer this deceptively simple question he brought to bear a mix of sharp logic and original and practical invention. Though he sought to ground his work in the rigorous application of physics and mathematics, he was not satisfied with abstract results and conclusions by themselves, but always sought to democratise his findings, first to the biological sciences community and then to the huge population of lay people fascinated with birds and their flight escapades. Pennycuick was an expert glider pilot, and gained some notoriety by piloting his craft in and around flocks of vultures, storks and eagles in Africa, and condors in Peru. The son of Brig James Pennycuick and his wife, Marjorie, Pennycuick was born in Windsor, Berkshire. His family followed his father’s army postings, which in 1938 took them to Singapore, which they left in 1941 shortly before the Japanese invasion. Pennycuick was later sent as a boarder to Wellington college, Berkshire, studied zoology as an undergraduate at Merton College, Oxford, and worked on his PhD at Peterhouse, Cambridge. There he studied muscle mitochondria, whose task of converting oxygen and nutrients into energy he viewed as the basic engine of flight. During two years’ national service with the RAF, he flew Provosts and Vampires, early jet-powered aircraft. He subsequently worked as a postdoctoral fellow at the Animal Behaviour Laboratory in Madingley, Cambridge, and in 1964 began a long association with the zoology department at Bristol University as a lecturer. Colin Pennycuick at work in Iceland in 1995. His career took him as far afield as Nairobi, Peru and the South Georgia Islands. Photograph: Sverrir Thorstensen He used the first computer at the university to design a tiltable wind tunnel, which he built from scratch and hung in a stairwell. He developed and adapted aeronautical ideas from helicopter theory to bird flight and tested their application based on meticulous observations of the free-flying pigeons which he kept in a loft on the roof of the building. In 1968 he traveled to Nairobi, which he made his base for three years, installing his tilting wind tunnel between two acacia trees to study bat flight in the same manner as he had previously done with pigeons. He then spent another two years in the Serengeti national park as deputy director of the research station there. He learned how to fly his powered glider alongside pelicans, storks and vultures, documenting for the first time their extraordinary and essential abilities to travel economically over large distances by exploiting thermals. From here on, his career was not so much a list of academic positions and research topics as a restless migration (frequently aerial, frequently self-piloted) of his own. He flew back to Bristol in 1973 via Addis Ababa, Cairo and Crete, in and around the Shetlands, France and Sweden, and down to Bird Island in South Georgia, Antarctica. There he first used his “ornithodolite”, an instrument he designed for measuring birds’ flight paths and speed, to track in detail the soaring flight of albatrosses. He found that the standard explanation – that they could power their flight by following a specific trajectory through a wind shear profile – was only partly responsible for their ability to fly continuously, without flapping for very long times, and that instead they used the wind in several different ways. In 1983, he left for Miami University, which became a handy launch point for expeditions to the Everglades, Tennessee, Pennsylvania and Idaho, and further afield in Puerto Rico, the Bahamas and Peru. In 1992 he left Miami, via Greenland, Iceland and Sweden. He began a continuing association with the animal ecology group at Lund University in Sweden, tracking migratory birds by radar, and in 1994 the bird flight wind tunnel was inaugurated there by the king of Sweden. In the late 1990s he collaborated with the Wildlife and Wetlands Trust at Slimbridge, in Gloucestershire, in tracking whooper swans, which as the largest flapping bird can provide a stringent test of aerodynamic theory at relatively large extremes of scale. He appeared in the 2003 BBC radio series Swan Migration Live, which tracked six Bewick’s swans and a whooper swan from Arctic Russia to the UK, with updates on their progress on the Today programme each morning. In 2008 Pennycuick took part in an even bigger and more ambitious Radio 4 project, World on the Move: Great Animal Migrations, which tracked brent and white-fronted geese from the UK to Canada. With the aid of very accurate meteorological data, combined with measurements of wing beat frequency and wing shape, he modelled a gauge that could estimate the fuel consumed while these geese were migrating: this would give audiences, and the scientific community, some idea of the effort involved. Pennycuick’s primary goal was to provide and test a physically reasonable theory of vertebrate flight, which could then be used to predict and understand how and why birds and bats do what they do. Many of his inventions, in techniques, procedures and instrumentation, were absolutely novel because he thought his own thoughts and proceeded by himself, according to the rigorous rules of logic and scientific inquiry. A rich and exuberant publication history burst from his activities, starting with the first practical flight theory papers in 1968 and going on to include the books Animal Flight (1972), Bird Flight Performance (1989) and Modelling the Flying Bird (2008). In later years he increasingly focused his efforts on his flight software package, which grew from a small custom Basic program to a rather versatile application with graphical interface. As well as biologists, engineers wanting to know how birds manage to achieve the things they do with apparent economy of effort and energy expenditure used the program, and both groups learned from it, which gave Pennycuick particular pleasure. He was appointed research professor in zoology at the University of Bristol in 1993, and senior research fellow in 1997. He was elected fellow of the Royal Society in 1990, and was made honorary companion of the Royal Aeronautical Society in 1994. In 1996 he was awarded an honorary doctorate by Lund University. In 1992 he married Sandy Winterson. She and his son, Adam, survive him. Colin Pennycuick at work in Iceland in 1995. His career took him as far afield as Nairobi, Peru and the South Georgia Islands. Photograph: Sverrir Thorstensen

Good article: https://www.hcn.org/articles/birds-egged-on-by-industry-lobbyists-interior-department-weakens-bird-protections/print_view

A note from Eduardo Santana about Jim: Jim was my supervisor at the Puerto Rican parrot conservation project in the Luquillo Forest during the summer of 1978 and from 1979 to 1980. He also freely offered advice while I was doing my masters thesis fieldwork there on Redtailed-hawks from 1981 to 1983. Jim, along with Joe Hickey, Tim Moermond, Stan Temple, Lloyd Keith and Ariel Lugo, was one of my main professional role models, especially for his intense commitment to doing high-quality fieldwork and his knowledge and love for birds, and his love for the outdoors. As for how his worked helped, I share what my friend Eduardo Iñigo told me: “A significant indicator that Jim’s work was highly valued is that he was the first foreigner to receive the Gundlach recognition from the Cuban Zoological Society”. Since I came to work in conservation and teaching in western Mexico decades ago I unfortunately lost track of Jim (and most of my Caribbean ornithology colleagues!). But I have always remembered him and acknowledged that he was a good teacher to many and “a teacher affects eternity.” esantanacas@gmail.com

In 2014, the Association of Field Ornithologists honored Jim with the Alexander F. Skutch Medal. This year, the council and members of the AFO are honored to present the Skutch Medal for Excellence in Neotropical Ornithology to Dr. James W. Wiley. Dr. Wiley is recognized for his significant contributions to the scientific literature that have aided in the conservation of a wide range of imperiled Neotropical species in the Latin American-Caribbean region. He was one of the founding members of the Society for the Conservation and Study of Caribbean Birds (SCSCB), and served as the editor of The Journal of Caribbean Ornithology between 1988 and 2004. His research efforts have not only assisted in the recovery of endangered species and management of critical habitat, but have also provided benefits to the public. For example, Dr Wiley has co-authored numerous popular books including three seminal field guides, Birds of the West Indies, Birds of the Dominican Republic and Haiti, and The Birds of Hispaniola. These definitive field guides have not only provided pleasure for scientists and recreational birders alike, but have also significantly contributed to the understanding of ornithology in the region. Throughout his career, Dr. Wiley’s extensive mentoring and teaching efforts have impacted a wide range of students and professionals, particularly those in the Latin American-Caribbean region. Dr. Wiley engaged students formally through supervision within Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Unitsat Grambling University and at the University of Maryland at Eastern Shore, and informally in the field, through ornithological meetings, and personal communications. His dedication to mentoring and developing his students is legendary. The Skutch Medal committee was chaired by Dr. Herb Raffaele, Chief, Division of International Conservation, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The committee consisted of Lisa Sorenson, Executive Director and former President of Birds Caribbean; Amiro Perez-Leroux, Director of Birdlife International for Latin America and the Caribbean; Bert Lenten, Deputy Secretary General of the Convention on Migratory Species; Richard Huber, Principal Environmental Specialist for the Department of Biological Protection and Management at the Organization of American States and Chair of Western Hemisphere Migratory Species Initiative; Maria Rivera, Senior Advisor for the Americas in the Secretariat of the Convention on Wetlands of International Importance; and Nestor Herrera, Director of Wildlife and Ecosystems at El Salvador’s Environmental Ministry.

Jim Wiley, a mainstay of Cuban ornithology, passed away on 19 September 2018. Apart from his scientific contributions, Jim was a gem of a man, exceedingly and unfailingly kind, gentle, and humble. In 2010, the Journal of Caribbean Ornithology dedicated a volume to Jim. In the dedication, Herb Raffaele, Joe Wunderle, and Noel Snyder wrote: (Note - the Society for the Conservation and Study of Caribbean Birds is now BirdsCaribbean) Were his only contribution the monumental bibliography on West Indian birds that he published in 2000 (Wiley 2000), Jim Wiley would rank among the most important ornithologists to have ever focused their attention on birds of this region. But Jim’s contributions to the studies of Caribbean birds, beginning in the early 1970s and continuing without diminishment today, have been so much more. We know of no ornithologist of the region whose impacts have been more beneficial, going back to the first European explorers who mentioned birds in their natural histories. Therefore, it is with profound respect and admiration that this issue of JCO is dedicated to a colleague whose detailed knowledge extends to more species than seems possible and whose many publications and other contributions could hardly be more impressive. Normally such remarks are only possible for doddering ancient figures or for spirits who have already passed from the scene after lifetimes of devoted field work. Fortunately, Jim is still at the peak of his capacities, and it is reasonable to anticipate that much is yet to come, regardless of his recent official retirement from the United States Geological Survey (USGS). Jim’s energy in pursuit of worthy goals has been legendary and sets a standard for diligence that we can only dimly comprehend. Perhaps it all goes back to the Mexico City Olympics of 1968, where Jim competed as a member of the United States bicycle team and trained up to a level of fitness that he has maintained ever since. All three of us have at one time or another had the privilege of collaborating in field studies with Jim, and we are directly familiar with his tireless capacities. Even more, we have been amazed how he somehow always manages good humor and a spirit of selfless cooperation under even the most miserable field conditions. Jim’s skills range from scaling towering rain-forest trees to crossing treacherous streams (Fig. 1) and scuba diving, and we will never forget his tale of being nudged in the back by a curious Killer Whale (Orcinus orca) as he conducted field observations on marine Gobies along the California coast for his master’s degree. Fortunately for all of us, he survived this incident to finish his master's research at California State University in 1970 and to go on to many other studies. From California, Jim moved on to graduate studies at the University of South Florida on Red-shouldered Hawks (Buteo lineatus), interrupted in 1973 by taking a position with the Puerto Rican Department of Natural Resources to study Plain Pigeons (Patagioenas inornata ), White-crowned Pigeons (P. leucocephala), and other columbids, a group for which he has always had a special affection. In 1977, he took over supervision of the Puerto Rican Parrot Project for the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) after completing a detailed study of the Hispaniolan Parrot (Amazona ventralis) in the Dominican Republic for the US Forest Service. He remained in the Puerto Rican Parrot position until 1986, having overseen a steady and convincing increase of the wild population and having launched the captive breeding and release efforts that continue today. The success Jim and his wife Beth had with Puerto Rican Parrot conservation was outstanding, and included an informative experimental release effort of captive Hispaniolan Parrots to the wild in the Dominican Republic in 1982. Concurrent with their efforts with parrots, Jim and Beth also conducted diverse ecological and behavioral studies of the raptors of Puerto Rican and Hispaniola and ground-breaking studies of the endangered Yellow-shouldered Blackbird (Agelaius xanthomus ) in collaboration with Will Post, particularly with reference to the invasion of Puerto Rico by the Shiny Cowbird (Molothrus bonariensis). It was Jim’s cowbird studies that led at last to finishing his Ph.D. with Bud Owre at the University of Miami in 1982. In 1986 Jim was transferred back to California by the USFWS to conduct efforts for the California Condor (Gymnogyps californianus), a period when the very last wild condors were being trapped into captivity and when temporary experimental releases of surrogate Andean Condors (Vultur gryphus) to the wild were just beginning. This period also saw a profound change in Jim’s dietary habits that resulted, quite understandably, from his having to oversee the supplemental feeding program for condors. For those who have long wondered about Jim’s antipathy to Big Macs and Whoppers, he was faced at one point with the clean-up of a defunct walk-in freezer filled with rotting mammal carcasses immersed in an incredible miasma of toxic gases. Fortunately, despite this brush with hell on earth, his enthusiasm for guanabana ice cream and other nutritious tropical delights has remained intact. From California, Jim moved to Grambling State University in Louisiana in 1991, where he took charge of a cooperative wildlife unit for the USGS. At Grambling, he developed a special interest in the training of wildlife students from the West Indies, especially Jamaica and the Lesser Antilles, and a number of his former Grambling students are current members of the Society for Conservation and Study of Caribbean Birds (SCSCB). There, he also had the good sense to keep all his local sightings of Bachman’s Warblers (Vermivora bachmanii) and Ivory-billed Woodpeckers (Campephilus principalis)to himself. As some indication of the importance of his mentoring contributions at Grambling, one of us (HR) recently was talking with an assistant to the Directorof the USFWS. This individual was a graduate from Grambling some 15 yr ago and spontaneously described how much he and the other grad students at the time appreciated and respected Jim’s dedication in assisting underprivileged students, particularly those from developing countries throughout the Caribbean. Jim’s ability to inspire others to careers in ornithology and conservation is one of his most important legacies. In 2001, and continuing until his recent retirement, Jim took over supervision of the Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit of the University of Maryland Eastern Shore. There, he continued to be involved with diverse conservation and research projects in the West Indies, as well as local projects in the Chesapeake Bay region, carefully guiding an impressive number of students toward their graduate degrees. Thus, despite being based in stateside locations from the late 1980s to the present, Jim’s first loyalties have always been in the Caribbean, with frequent trips to Cuba, the Cayman Islands and Hispaniola, and continued work with the psittacines of these islands, as well as many other bird species. He has been especially focused on aiding Cuban ornithological efforts in recent years, and was given special recognition for these efforts by Cuban ornithologists at the July 2001 meeting in Cuba of the SCSCB. Jim was a founding member of the Society of Caribbean Ornithology (now the SCSCB) and played an important role in launching the organization. He was the first editor of El Pitirre , and during the nine years of his editorship he was responsible not only for editorial duties, but with help of his students served also as the publisher (aided by desktop publishing software) and distributor of the publication. im oversaw the evolution of El Pitirre from a newsletter, for which he often scrambled for manuscripts in the early years, to a journal format covering a broad range of topics. As editor, he was especially helpful and patient with inexperienced authors and viewed the journal as an important forum for their contributions. Other editing contributions he has made have included serving for many years as editor of publications for the Western Foundation of Vertebrate Zoology in California. Jim’s personal list of scientific publications includes well over a hundred substantial papers, books, and monographs, mostly on West Indian birds. We find ourselves consulting his annotated A Bibliography of Ornithology in the West Indies (Wiley 2000) with frequency, and it is impossible to exaggerate the usefulness of this colossal assembly of more than 11,600 references, stretching back to the earliest ornithological writings for the region. Among his other outstanding publications, we call special attention to his coauthorship of The Parrots of Luquillo: Natural History and Conservation of the Puerto Rican Parrot in 1987 (Snyder et al.1987), coauthorship of A Guide to the Birds of the West Indies in 1998 (Raffaele et al. 1998), coauthorship of The Birds of Hispaniola in 2003 (Keith et al. 2003), and his authorship and coauthorship of numerous shorter papers on the Shiny Cowbird, the Puerto Rican Parrot, the Yellow-shouldered Blackbird, and various other psittacids, raptors, and columbids of the West Indies, not to mention his publications on such subjects as the effects of hurricanes on West Indian birds and techniques of captive breeding and reintroduction for endangered forms. For his overall contributions to field studies of Caribbean birds and to ornithology in general, the SCSCB is truly indebted to Jim Wiley. LITERATURE CITED KEITH , A. R., J. W. WILEY , S. C. LATTA , J. A. OTTENWALDER . 2003. The birds of Hispaniola.British Ornithologists’ Union Checklist 21:1-293.. RAFFAELE , H., J. WILEY , O. GARRIDO , A. KEITH , J. RAFFAELE . 1998. A guide to the birds of the West Indies. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ. SNYDER , N. F. R., J.W. WILEY , C.B. KEPLER . 1987. The parrots of Luquillo: natural history and conservation of the Puerto Rican Parrot. Western Foundation of Vertebrate Zoology, Los Angeles. WILEY , J. W. 2000. A Bibliography of ornithology in the West Indies. Proceedings of the Western Foundation of Vertebrate Zoology, vol. 7.