The Society’s Annual Meeting & Dinner was held at the Liederkranz Club on March 8 2016. The featured speaker and recipient of the 2015 Eisenmann Medal for excellence in ornithology and encouragement of the amateur was Professor Tim R Birkhead, FRS from the University of Sheffield. His presentation entitled “What it’s like to be an ornithologist” provided a personal and often humorous account of his own career, beginning as a small boy with a natural curiosity in birds that blossomed over time into a very successful academic career that uses birds to understand the evolution of mating systems.
The Awards And Program
Andrew Rubenfeld, newly elected President of the Linnaean Society of New York by Sherry FelixTim Birkhead receiving the Eisenmann Medal from Andrew Rubenfeld, President of the Linnaean Society of New York by Angus WilsonTim Birkhead with coauthor and research collaborator Bob Montgomerie, Professor of Reproductive Strategies, Queens University, Kingston, Ontario by Angus Wilson
Andrew Rubenfeld holding Tim Birkhead’s new book “The Most Perfect Thing: Inside (and Outside) a Bird’s Egg” by Angus WilsonTim Birkhead by Neil EmondTim Birkhead by Neil EmondTim Birkhead by Neil EmondTim Birkhead by Neil Emond
Tim Birkhead by Neil Emond
After the lecture, Dale Dancis and Tim Birkhead by Neil Emond
Sherry Feilx and Tim Birkhead’s book signing by Neil Emond
Socializing Before The Dinner
by Neil Emond
Before the dinner by Sherry Felix
by Neil Emondby Neil Emondby Neil EmondHelen Hays by Neil Emond
Stephen Chang, treasurer by Neil Emond
Alice Deutsch by Neil Emond
The Dinner
The Salad by Neil Emondby Neil Emondby Neil Emondby Neil Emondby Sherry Felixby Sherry Felixby Sherry Felixby Sherry FelixRochelle Thomas, recording secretary (third from left)Angus Wilson and Andrew Rubenfeld (rear) with Lydia and Megan, and Linnaean secretaries (second and third from left)The killer chocolate desert
A Sampling Of Items In The Silent Auction
Explore Central Park by Ken Chaya. item for the Silent Auction bidTour of WBF with Rita McMahon, item for the Silent Auction bid by Sherry FelixLittle Ringed Plover – art by Peter Prall, Item for the Silent Auction bid by Sherry FelixMallard Banana Stand made by Chuck McAlexander, item for the Silent Auction by Sherry FelixRaffle Prize winner by Neil EmondRaffle Prize winner by Neil Emond
On May 10, 2015, the University of Connecticut awarded Helen Hays an honorary degree and selected her as the 2015 College of Liberal Arts commencement speaker. The event took place in Storrs CT and these awards recognize Helen’s notable achievements as an ornithologist and her remarkable 45 years as the director of the Great Gull Island Project.
Presented by Andrew Rubenfeld at the at the regular meeting of the Linnaean Society of New York on January 13, 2015
Yellow-breasted chat just seen in Maintenance. American woodcock by Humming Tombstone. We know exactly where to go to get to these locations quickly. We take the Ramble’s geography for granted just as we take Central Park’s existence as a given. When Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux conceived the park in the 1850s, the 14-acre Ramble was designed to be a seemingly natural woodland on whose winding paths one could, well, ramble around big trees, abundant shrubs, tangled undergrowth, and a field here and there.
Don’t take anything for granted is the first axiom of environmentalism.
On May 30th, 1955, the New York Times ran the following item: “City’s Senior Citizens to Have a Recreational Center in Central Park.” According to New York City Parks Commissioner Robert Moses the Ramble was to be converted into a gated indoor and outdoor recreational center for “oldsters” aided by a $250,000 gift from the Lasker Foundation. The city agreed to spend an additional $200,000 to match the grant.
Section of the 1955 Design Plan for the Ramble in Central Park
Look closely. Yellow-breasted chat in Maintenance? No, shuffleboard courts! American woodcock by Humming Tombstone? No, game tables! Plus croquet, horseshoes, a large state-of-the-architecture recreation building, and additional comfort stations. Moses said that Parks Department personnel with special understanding of the problems of the older generation would be assigned to the recreational facilities.
Within two weeks the Linnaean Society of New York was leading the opposition. Secretary Lois Hussey drafted a letter to Moses, noting that “the Ramble possesses considerable value as an ornithological study area unique in New York City and also as a wilderness area.” But in a memo to the Linnaean council she observed that “Moses doesn’t care a hoot about birders.” The Society’s conservation committee was opposed to any encroachment on the Ramble on an ornithological basis, but recognized that such opposition might make Moses, who was used to getting his way, “more determined than now to go ahead with the plan.”
In the meantime coordinated letter and telephone efforts by Linnaean members contacted city officials from the mayor’s office to the city council—as well as the media. Linnaean president Irwin Alperin, who offered to meet with Moses, wrote to the New York Times on June 23rd. “Increasing population pressures and the vast expansion of suburban building make preservation of any natural park area within the city a vital necessity,” Alperin wrote. “The choice of site for this commendable project is unfortunate since the Ramble is a unique oasis for migrating birds unparalleled in this region. . . . The fencing . . . of the Ramble . . . will alter and restrict the activities of bird watchers to an alarming extent. It will be impossible to follow flying birds through this fence and certainly the necessity for running back and forth to the exit gates, as birds fly into and out of fenced areas, will make accurate observation a ludicrous performance.” The Times declined to print Alperin’s letter—but had no problem some months later with printing in the Sunday Magazine section a piece by Moses called “The Moses Recipe for Better Parks.”
The battle for the Ramble continued through the summer and fall of 1955. The New Yorker and Cue magazines ran articles. Linnaean conservation chair Kathleen Skelton wrote to Alperin on September 14th: “I think the best thing to do is to keep the publicity going.” George Hallett, a member of the conservation committee, met with Mayor Wagner and Irwin Alperin wrote officially to the mayor on behalf of the Linnaean Society. “The Ramble is justly famous throughout America and in Europe too,” wrote President Alperin, “as a study area for ornithologists and for university and museum students. The continuity of decades of valuable records of observations is threatened by the proposed recreation center.”
By October opposition to the plan had gained momentum. In a New York Times article on October 2nd, entitled “Bird-Lovers Balk at Moses Project,” Richard E. Harrison (also a member of the Linnaean conservation committee) was described as “ridiculing” the idea of making the Ramble a haven for old people, pointing out that the area was one of the hilliest in the park. To get from the proposed new bus stop on the 79th Street transverse road to the proposed recreation building, Harrison observed, would be the equivalent of climbing seven flights of stairs.
Two weeks later the New York Herald Tribune printed a point-by-point critique of the Moses plan by Harrison who emphasized that much of the Moses plan was at odds with the original Olmsted and Vaux vision of the park. Not only bird watchers, but landscape painters, dog walkers, bench sitters, and aimless strollers, he said, would be “bulldozed out of their heritage.” In late November Harrison took Manhattan borough president Hulan Jack on a tour of the Ramble, as reported in the Times.
The following day the Herald Tribune printed an op-ed piece entitled “Bird Watchers and Chess Players.” “One might imagine that the bird watchers and the chess players of this unsettled world have a good deal in common. Both pursue callings that are deliberate, delicate and, in a small way, dramatic. Most citizens hope that they can compose their differences amicably and with a minimum of hard feeling. For the bird watcher and the chess player alike can be a fearsome creature when aroused, and it would be a terrible thing to be caught in a struggle between them.”
By December the plan was all but dead. The environmental opposition was focused and well coordinated. But in the end it came down to money. The New York City Board of Estimate refused to allocate funds. Who would pay for long-term staff? Continuing security and maintenance? Repair of shuffleboard sticks? Lost checkers? Cynicism aside, the city did authorize nearly a quarter of million dollars to restore and protect the Ramble.
In his New York Times Magazine article of January 8, 1956 (mentioned earlier), Robert Moses claimed the last word. Referring to bird-watchers as “nature fanatics,” he added: “Dodo birds with feathers and with pink whiskers have had a field day to the delight of astonished spectators. . . . It’s a dead issue so far as my park boys are concerned. We have other work to do.”
Wrong. Not a “dead issue.” The Ramble and Central Park itself—Jamaica Bay, Sterling Forest, and other areas in our region—will always need our vigilance and support.
Presented by Patrick Baglee at the regular meeting of the Linnaean Society of New York on January 13, 2015
When I was around 8 years of age, one of my Mom’s chief ambitions for me was that I became archivist of the Royal family’s collection at Windsor Castle. Or Balmoral. In fact to be an archivist anywhere with a Royal connection would have been fine.
Much to her chagrin, I showed more of an affinity with my father’s profession. He was a compositor, and one of his books (‘Printing Design and Layout’, by Vincent Steer) held me in such rapt fascination that the idea of life as a curator paled.
And yet, the essence of an archivist’s life must have remained dormant because when I was invited by the Linnaean Society’s vice president Andrew Rubenfeld to visit the Society’s archive at the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH), I accepted without hesitation.
In the early summer of 2014, Andrew, fellow Linnaeaen Society member Anders Peltomaa and I arrived at the archive at the Ornithology Department of the AMNH to be greeted by our host Paul Sweet, Collections Manager, Vertebrate Zoology, Ornithology. Once we had signed in he led us to a rather unprepossessing grey filing cabinet tucked away in the office directly opposite his own.
With other collection cabinets looming over it there is just enough room for one person to stand before the archive and reach inside to take out material. A solid built wooden desk in the adjacent room makes for a convenient place to lay out papers. Taking my turn in the narrow gap in front of the cabinet, I carefully looked it over from top to bottom.
Hard-bound books, two boxes containing reel-to-reel tapes, loosely packed office files and an old Amazon.com box were the first things to catch my eye. A number of royal blue hard-bound copies of the Proceedings of the Society were at eye level. Alongside them were older, gilt-edged volumes that contained page after page of diligent copperplate hand recording the payment of Society dues.
Most impressive were around a dozen grey archival boxes, each neatly annotated, covering a wealth of Society correspondence, minutes and ephemera (all thanks — as I would later discover — to the hard work of Gil Schrank). But then something else caught my eye in the shadows at the back of the cabinet.
Tucked behind several volumes of Society proceedings, all but hidden from view, was a single manilla envelope. Alongside it were stacked 10 or so hard-bound books of different types, leaning to the left. Beside them was a cardboard folder tied with a pink ribbon. I reached in and lifted out the manilla envelope.
Inside were 15 notebooks, of varying shapes and sizes. Some were plain black, some wire bound and at the back was an A6 ring bound notebook with loose-leaf pages. Lifting them out, the first book (which fit snugly in my palm) was labelled ‘Dr Edmund R P Janvrin’s field notes of birds New York and Vicinity 1915-1916’. These books appeared to contain notes from the field. The larger notebooks ran from 1920 to 1968 and contained more comprehensive field trip accounts. The separate cardboard folder had a concertina-type arrangement to store its contents and held loose sheets covering all of Dr Janvrin’s observations of water birds in North America.
I took a close look at the first of the field notebooks. It opens on May 6th 1915 with Dr Janvrin’s sightings of Common Tern and Piping Plover at Long Beach. Each species is numbered in order of observation; four days later the species count rises to 11. The notebooks — at first glance — were fascinating. But I realised there was one thing I did not have a good grasp of; as a relatively recent member of the Society, and without intimate knowledge of New York ornithological circles, I was unaware of Dr Janvrin’s role and impact on the ornithological history of the city and the State.
Taking the dates of his notebooks as reference, I consulted an early volume of the Proceedings and discovered (much to my embarrassment) that Dr Janvrin — as well as being a highly respected and very busy man of medicine — had performed practically all the significant roles within the Society. He was elected a member in 1918, served as Secretary from 1920-22, as Vice president from 1924-26, as President from 1926-27 and as Treasurer from 1931-35. He was re-elected to serve a second term as Vice-President from 1939–41, and made a Fellow in 1956 on the recommendation of Eugene Eisenmann.
All told, he was a member of the organisation for 55 years. In his stint as President, he dealt with both Society and regional ornithological matters. In the winter of 1926 he wrote a letter, published in the New York Times, complaining about the wholesale slaughter of Snowy Owl during a major influx of the species on Long Island.
His commitment as a field ornithologist also placed him in the pantheon of New York State birders. His observations were regularly cited in published works (Ludlow Griscom’s ‘Birds of the New York City Region’, published in 1923 being one example), and his familiarity with the birds and habitats of Long Beach made him an acknowledged expert on the area and its bird and wildlife (though his modest character would no doubt mean he would never outwardly claim the same).
His tireless days in the field would lead him to make some exciting discoveries, most notably an Eared Grebe — at that time the first record of the species for the East Coast. A female King Eider was another prized sighting, though the supporting photograph of the bird serves only to indicate just how far photographic and optical equipment has come since the middle of the last century.
Leafing through the larger more formal notebooks, I found other items of interest that Dr Janvrin had been keen to retain alongside his field notes. Press cuttings about specific events of ornithological interest — like the discovery of Harlequins at Point Lookout, a wreck of Dovekie in the city and the appearance of a Glossy Ibis in Van Cortlandt Park — are glued in at the appropriate date. His own photos of sites visited are also incorporated.
More personal still are dozens of pictures of himself and his family out birding in all seasons at Long Beach and elsewhere. There are Christmas cards from his daughters (including one of a very fetching Cedar Waxwing by Don Eckleberry). There’s even a picture of a new Ford from the 1940s. At the back of each of the larger notebooks is a cross referenced list of the places that Dr Janvrin had visited during that book’s period.
The final notebook entry, dated August 23rd 1972, indicates that he was still an active field ornithologist well into his 80s and anecdotal remarks from other parts of the archive show he was still a regular attendee at Society meetings at the same time. When he passed away, at his summer home in Connecticut in 1973, an announcement was made to members of the Society during the September of that year.
In preparing to give a short talk on the notebooks of Dr Janvrin to the Society in January 2015, I was fortunate enough — thanks to the help of Helen Hays — to make contact with Mary, Dr Janvrin’s surviving daughter. In a brief conversation, I was able to outline the topics I would cover in the talk, and she was both thrilled that her father’s devotion to natural history would be spoken about, and happy to support my efforts. She spoke warmly of the days the family would spend out in the field; of generous picnics, cold days on the coast and the shared love and respect for wildlife that she and her sister Natalie carried forward.
The opportunity to dip into the archive was a privilege. I was able to piece together a unique view of a significant figure in New York’s ornithological history, and I was able to better understand the social fabric of New York ornithology (and the importance of the Linnaean Society as one of its focalpoints). Most importantly, it gave me a glimpse of the potential riches that lie within the Society’s archive. I barely scratched the surface and yet even this cursory examination revealed a wealth of fascinating connections.
I can only begin to imagine what others might be inspired to unearth from within the archive’s modest environs.
Acknowledgements: with grateful thanks to Andrew Rubenfeld for the original invitation to visit the archive and for the opportunity to prepare a short lecture, delivered at the member’s meeting on January 13th and on which these notes are based; to Thomas Trombone, Lydia Geratano and Paul Sweet for their help in providing subsequent access to the archive, and to Helen Hays for her help and assistance. Finally, to Mary Janvrin, my sincere thanks for her support and encouragement.
Linnaean Society of New York Homecoming Party on September 18, 2014, at the Cultural Center. A highlight of the evening was Richard ZainEldeen performing some of the original songs from the 1978 The Linnaean Society of New York annual dinner that marked the 100th anniversary of the society.
Parts of Viva Linnaeus presented by Richard ZainEldeen
