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Introduction

I presented the Ontario Field Ornithologists’ (OFO) 2022 Distinguished Ornithologist Award (DOA) to Dr. Erica Nol at the Annual General Meeting of the OFO in Leamington on 24 September 2022. I have known Erica for over two decades, during which time I worked, volunteered and completed two graduate degrees under her supervision. I can safely claim that Erica is one of the most enthusiastic, dedicated and passionate ambassadors of wildlife conservation and sustainable living in Ontario and beyond. She has had an extremely productive career, with numerous important on-the-ground and scholarly contributions to bird conservation. These impressive accomplishments alone are worthy of the OFO’s DOA, but the contribution I believe distinguishes Erica the most is what she has done above and beyond these pursuits. In particular, I refer to the manner in which she has thoughtfully trained and mentored legions of highly-skilled students who have continued on to distinguished careers in bird conservation, mostly in Ontario. I also note the especially strong and unique role model she has portrayed to them (and me) in doing so. It was, therefore, a great pleasure for me to present OFO’s DOA to Erica.

In the beginning

Erica’s life path was especially dynamic early on. She was born in the Netherlands in the 1950s when the country was recovering from the Second World War. Like many other Dutch at the time, her parents immigrated to Canada. In the first few years, Erica’s father finished his medical residency at St. Joseph’s Health Centre in Toronto. Next, the family of five moved to St. Thomas briefly and then settled in Uxbridge, where Erica’s dad served as a general practitioner. Later, Erica’s father went into psychiatry and they moved to Michigan. As a result, she completed her BSc at the University of Michigan. While there, she worked in the university’s Museum of Zoology, where she met her husband Chris Risley, who had worked with the late David Hussell and Erica (or Ricky) Dunn. Chris had just graduated with his BSc, working in the museum as a Curatorial Assistant, and David and Ricky were just starting out in their careers at Long Point Bird Observatory (LPBO), now part of Birds Canada. Later, all three would come to play important roles in Erica’s professional path, as well as become long-time, dedicated OFO members. But Ann Arbor proved too urban for Erica’s liking, so she spent a year of her undergraduate degree studying at Humboldt State University in rural, picturesque Arcata, California.

Erica’s ornithological career was hatched during these diverse early years. A series of experiences during this period very likely fueled her keen interest in birds generally and the major groups of birds and their habitats that she and her students would later focus on in their research.

The hook is set: on to academia

With her passion for bird research strengthening, Erica followed her undergraduate degree with an MSc at the University of Guelph, Ontario, supervised by Ron Brooks. Her decision to do so was heavily influenced by Chris, Ricky and David, whose passion for bird research was infectious. Initially, her project was to be on grassland birds, but Erica’s growing interest in shorebirds, especially plovers, was too great, and she made a career-changing decision by switching to factors affecting the nest success of Killdeers on Long Point.

The next major turn in Erica’s professional path simply fell before her. She wanted to carry on with a PhD researching shorebirds, but she also wanted to be close to Long Point, Chris and the Hussells, who were increasingly important mentors. It just so happened that Chris’ parents had a house in coastal Virginia and Allan Baker and his students at the University of Toronto were studying American Oystercatchers (Haematopus palliatus) close by! One of these students happened to be none other than Mike Cadman, who most OFO members will be familiar with, given his role as coordinator for Ontario Breeding Bird Atlases 1 to 3. Erica completed her PhD studying the reproductive strategies of American Oystercatchers while living at the house and divided the rest of her time between Toronto and Long Point: a lucky and conveniently happy arrangement for everyone.

Another chance event sparked the next major turn in Erica’s path. She knew she wanted to obtain a postdoctoral fellowship, and she had applied to various positions, but none had inspired her. She happened to attend a talk by Jamie Smith from the University of British Columbia and was struck by his kind ways and the nature of his research and teaching. So, she completed her postdoc with him working on Song Sparrows (Melospiza melodia) and, of course, shorebirds. Erica’s thoughtful teaching and mentoring style was no doubt inspired in large part by Jamie. It was, therefore, an extreme pleasure for me to nominate Erica for the Society of Canadian Ornithologist’s (SCO) Jamie Smith Memorial Award for Mentoring, which she graciously received in 2011.

Between graduate degrees, Erica also did contract work for the Canadian Wildlife Service on gulls and terns nesting on the Leslie Street Spit at Toronto and on the distribution of foraging seabirds in the Bay of Fundy, New Brunswick. With a firm academic footing in hand and a growing portfolio of scientific publications, Erica was now in a good position to secure something more permanent.

Anchored in one place: productivity soars

Shortly after completing her postdoc, Erica obtained employment at Trent University in Peterborough, Ontario, where she has happily remained for decades as an Assistant, then as an Associate and, ultimately, as a Full Professor, along with multiple appointments as Biology Department Chair and Director of the Watershed Ecosystems Graduate Program, which later became the Environmental and Life Sciences Graduate Program. It is from this vantage point at Trent that she really dug in and began delivering her legacy of contributions to ornithology and bird conservation in Ontario and elsewhere.

Erica’s academic accomplishments are impressive. She has attracted nearly 3.5 million dollars in research grants and has published over 150 peer-reviewed publications. She has taught countless undergraduate students through courses such as Introductory Biology, Ecology, Ornithology (20+ years) and her popular Research Design and Data Analysis (30+ years). She has also taught numerous field courses including Ecology of the Kawarthas, in Ontario, Coastal Field Ornithology, in Virginia and the Ecology of the Galapagos Islands. She has mentored over 70 graduate students, sometimes over a dozen simultaneously. Over half of her graduate students have gone on to professional careers in wildlife science in Ontario, almost all of them in ornithology.

Notably, at least 12 have gone on to work for the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry, five for Birds Canada at Long Point, three for Canadian Wildlife Service and Environment and Climate Change Canada, three for Ontario Conservation Authorities and three for environmental consultants in Ontario. The collective influence that these numerous, well-trained individuals have had on bird conservation in Ontario and beyond is remarkable.

I once asked Erica, “How many grad students have you got now?” She replied, “Oh, I’ve really cut back, I’m down to single digits.” I continued, “So how many is that?” In all seriousness and without a hint of irony, she looked me in the eye and said, “nine.” Nonetheless, Erica always seems to provide the support and mentorship that each of her many students requires by throwing simply herculean effort to the cause.

The majority of Erica’s and her students’ research has been on forest-breeding birds (24% of her peer-reviewed publications) and arctic-breeding shorebirds (47%). The rest of her and her students’ research (29%) has involved a diverse set of topics, such as factors influencing the reproductive success of threatened Bobolinks (Dolichonyx oryzivorus) breeding in hayfields, effects of hyperabundant arctic-breeding geese on sympatric species, drivers of habitat quality in at-risk swallows and monitoring and conservation of secretive marsh birds.

With a strong start in forest bird research, Erica and her students turned to other timely questions of interest. Much of this involved measuring the response of forest bird abundance, diversity and reproductive success to different silvicultural techniques. Some of the work focused on the influence of harvest on specific species. Erica and her students also measured the effects of logging on insects) and the cavity-nesting bird community. And they looked at habitat selection, the influence of roads and trails and incidental take of nests in harvested and unharvested conifer plantations. This large body of silvicultural research led to improved forestry regulations, numerous best management practices and more sustainable harvests.

While Erica’s forest bird research was blossoming she was also becoming a world authority on shorebirds. Soon after starting at Trent University, she initiated a long-term research program on the behavioural ecology of Semipalmated Plovers (Charadrius semipalmatus) breeding at Churchill, Manitoba. She also continued studying the ecology of American Oystercatchers breeding along the Atlantic coast of the US, which was the focus of her PhD research. Later, Erica’s shorebird research expanded to many other species and locations including Akimiski Island, Nunavut; Mackenzie River delta, Northwest Territories; state of Georgia; Cuba; Argentina and Venezuela. This large body of shorebird research later became critical for measuring the impacts of climate change on shorebirds and has been especially important for identifying where and when shorebirds are most vulnerable throughout the annual cycle: on the breeding grounds or at migratory staging or overwintering sites. The research has led to action groups (e.g., American Oystercatcher Working Group), conservation plans and on-the-ground efforts to protect key sites, all of which are vital for conserving populations of these species, some of which are rapidly declining.

There is ample additional evidence of Erica’s scholarly successes. She has served as a peer reviewer for over 35 different journals, often reviewing up to 20 articles per year. She has been a subject editor for Avian Conservation and Ecology and Ornithological Applications, formerly The Condor. She is or has been President of the SCO and the Waterbird Society, an elected Fellow and Councilor of the American Ornithological Society (AOS) and co-Chair of the AOS’s Ad Hoc Committee on English Bird Names.

Erica has also received numerous academic awards including: Trent University’s Merit Award for Research and/or Service (which she has received in nine different years: 1992–2021), SCO’s Doris Huestis Speirs Award for outstanding lifetime contributions in Canadian ornithology (2015), Trent University’s Distinguished Research Award for outstanding achievements in research and scholarship (2019) and AOS’s Loye and Alden Miller Research Award for lifetime achievement in ornithological research (2020).

Casting long and far: on-the-ground contributions

There is no doubt that Erica has had a very productive academic career, although this is only part of the full story. She has been involved in a number of initiatives that go above and beyond her academic pursuits. For instance, she has contributed to Trent University’s Annual United Way Campaign, Peterborough Sustainable Development Committee and the Large Woodlands Conservation Cooperative. She has been heavily involved with assisting Syrian and Afghan refugees to get comfortably settled in Peterborough. She has also led a banding program for Northern Saw-whet Owls (Aegolius acadicus) at Trent University’s James McLean Oliver Ecological Centre on Pigeon Lake north of Peterborough for 25 years. The program has captured and released ~2000 owls and has en­hanced the practical skills of over 100 young ornithologists, three of whom have used the dataset for their honours thesis and one of whom published their results in Ontario Birds (Henry et al. 2015). With so many contributions to worthy causes, it is hard to imagine how Erica could fit anything else into her busy schedule. Although you can rest assured that if she can fit more, she will.

The motherly role

With such a long list of her own professional accomplishments, you would think that Erica might be the most demanding supervisor of all in terms of what she expects from her students. In fact, she is one of the most thoughtful and understanding academic advisors anywhere.

She definitely expects her students to work hard and to show good progress, but she is also a strong advocate of a healthy work-life balance. She very much appreciates that there is much more to life than your thesis or getting a publication submitted. She also has a remarkable ability to provide unfailing confidence and encouragement despite the challenges. No issue is insurmountable. It seems students always leave Erica’s office feeling better about everything than when they entered. And it is not just help and advice with research that is open to discussion. Just about anything can be brought to the table. It is quite possible to go into Erica’s office and get questions answered about data analysis, for example, but also come out with advice on how to improve your relationship with your partner, for instance. In fact, I can honestly claim that I have discussed things with Erica that I have only ever discussed with my own mother. Erica is quite literally an all-purpose supervisor: a true friend and a student’s mother away from home, so-to-speak. I suspect that many of Erica’s students have had a much more positive experience in graduate school due to her thoughtful guidance and mentoring.

Leading by example

Erica’s thoughtful mentoring is only one of the ways by which she positively influences others. She also teaches by example, by doing what she advocates. During my time at Trent University, Erica was one of the few professors, for instance, who regularly and consistently rode the bus or her bike to school, or went out of her way to carpool, to reduce carbon and mitigate climate change. There were other professors who did this too, of course, but Erica got noticed the most due to her dedicated regularity, and because of this, many graduate and undergraduate students were inspired to copy her lead. She would also proudly display and discuss her worm composting unit in her lab, as a means of diverting waste from the garbage stream to save energy. One of Erica’s former graduate students, Anne Corkery (Corkery 2013, Corkery et al. 2019), sums up Erica’s leadership in this manner quite nicely: “One of the most inspiring things about Erica, is that the way she lives her life is truly reflective of what she teaches. She cares deeply about the people and the natural world around her and will openly discuss these matters with those she meets. I always stand to learn something new from her, and I can truly say that knowing Erica has played a significant role in shaping me into the person I am today.”

Concluding thoughts

Prior to Erica, OFO’s DOA had been granted 22 times to 23 recipients. Only three (13%) of the previous recipients have been women. Ricky Dunn was the first in 2010, who received the award along with her now late husband David Hussell, presented to them by none other than Erica herself. Then Jean Iron in 2016 and Margaret Bain in 2019. Erica is, therefore, the fourth woman to receive the award. I have had the great pleasure of knowing and/or being closely mentored by all four of these accomplished individuals, and I am quite pleased, as I am sure you will be too, that Erica now joins them along with the many other worthy recipients.

It should now be very clear that Erica has made outstanding and authoritative contributions to the scientific study of birds in Ontario and beyond, that she has been a resource to the Ontario birding community, and that her research on birds has resulted in much new ornithological knowledge. All of these major accomplishments are, of course, worthy of the award. As we have seen, however, it is what Erica has accomplished above and beyond these professional accomplishments that I believe distinguishes her the most. Especially the manner in which she has thoughtfully trained and mentored legions of highly-skilled students and the strong and unique role model she has portrayed to them in doing so. And even more impressive, Erica, along with her husband Chris, somehow found time during all of this to raise three wonderful daughters!

Congratulations, Erica, as recipient of OFO’s 2022 DOA, and thank you for going above and beyond with your many important and meaningful contributions to ornithology and bird conservation in Ontario and elsewhere.

Doug Tozer

Margaret Jean Christine Bain came to what was seen around the world as a very desirable Canada, flush with promise and optimism in the immediate aftermath of hosting the world at the very successful Expo ’67, and one still freshly caught up in the excitement of ‘Trudeau-mania’. She was part of the tail end of the great post-war British ‘brain drain’ that was to see many highly educated and adventurous ex-patriots seek out opportunities spanning across the globe.

As with Charles Fothergill, William Pope, Thomas McIlwraith, William Loane and William Brodie in previous eras of immigration in the 19th century, the loss to the British Isles was to prove to be a source of great benefit to ornithology in Ontario.

From an early age, Margaret was clearly set on a course of achievement and pushing through established ‘glass ceilings’. Between 1956 and 1961 she studied medicine on scholarship at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, and after residency in London hospitals she specialized in obstetrics. By the end of the decade she had emigrated to Canada, where she initially worked in Toronto in the country’s two busiest obstetrical departments at Women’s College Hospital and Mount Sinai Hospital. In 1971, she moved to Durham Region to raise her family and begin a private practice in obstetrics and accepted a staff position in the obstetrical department at Oshawa General Hospital, where over the next two-and-a-half decades she would rise through the ranks to become Chief of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, and eventually Vice-Chair of the hospital’s entire Department of Surgery.

One day in the early 1970s, an initial lifelong casual interest in birds was to provide one of those pivotal ‘spark moments’ that most birders can instantly relate to, and it was to transform the remainder of Margaret’s life. During the peak of spring migration, she went out into her garden at 210 Byron Street North in Whitby to find a very heavy grounding of warblers and other passerines literally filling every tree and bush with a blaze of colour and activity. She was stricken with awe at the wonder and joy of bird migration and soon joined the local natural history club, the Oshawa Naturalists (later the Durham Region Field Naturalists), where she met many fine early mentors like Murray and Doris Speirs, Edge and Betty Pegg, George Scott, Naomi Le Vay, Ron Tozer, Jim Richards, Dennis Barry and Dave Calvert. She soon learned all the wonderful birding hotspots available in Durham and dove into learning and mastering Ontario’s birds and in no time at all there was no stopping her. Despite a very demanding career and a young family, she seemed to effortlessly be everywhere and always in tune with where the birding was the most productive. It was not very long before she was regularly turning up rare birds and she was soon considered one of the leading local birders in Durham, and inevitably in Ontario as a whole.

This brings me to the dilemma I first considered when I proposed Margaret for the Distinguished Ornithologist Award. I knew that all of the longtime OFO members and birders in Ontario were well acquainted with Margaret, but I was trying to figure out a way make her relatable to the young generation of new birders, many of whom would not be familiar with her history. After thinking about it for some time, I think I found the perfect way to make her experience relatable to this new generation. It was crystallized in a simple analogy — Margaret Bain was Jean Iron before Jean Iron was Jean Iron! Judging by the response that line got at the OFO banquet where I presented Margaret with the Distinguished Ornithologist Award, I believe it achieved the desired effect.

Much like Clarence Decatur Howe, the war-time Liberal government Cabinet minister who worked on so many important files that he was nicknamed the ‘Minister of Everything’, Margaret soon had her finger in so many pies that in retrospect it is very hard to believe it left much time for either birding or delivering babies!

In 1980, she took over summarizing the monthly notable bird sightings in the newsletter of the Durham Region Field Naturalists, a task which she continued to perform for more than two decades. One of the most interesting records for which she had uncovered the details and found material evidence was the sighting by two non-birders of Ontario’s first ever Black Skimmer at Whitby Harbour in the fall of 1977. She also served on the Durham Region Field Naturalists’ executive for many years, culminating in service as its President and past President.

During the first Ontario Breeding Bird Atlas from 1981 to 1985, she stepped in to serve as Regional Coordinator for Durham Region and recruited and organized atlassers and a series of square bashes to ensure that all of the region’s squares achieved the desired coverage targets. During the second Ontario Breeding Bird Atlas, from 2001 to 2005, she served as Regional Coordinator for Northumberland County.

One of the most celebrated parts of her legacy involved a conservation initiative forced on her by events. In the inaugural issue of OFO’s journal, Ontario Birds, Margaret wrote the first OFO birding site guide to one of her most cherished Durham Region birding sites, Whitby’s Thickson’s Woods, which she brought to the popular consciousness of the entire Ontario birding community as one of the finest bird migration traps on the north shore of Lake Ontario. Many did not realize, however, how close this site had recently come to being lost forever.

In 1982, the developer who owned the woods, frustrated by an inability to obtain permits to develop the site for lucrative condominiums, decided to sell the logging rights to the two hundred year-old eastern white pines. Work crews came in and felled 66 of the old growth pines from the woods before much could be done to stop them. Local birders and the residents of the Thickson Point community were dismayed with the pace of the destruction of this vital migratory bird stopover, and receiving little help in effectively thwarting this via government agencies, had to spring into action and come up with their own solution.

Into the breach stepped Margaret Bain and a group of other influential birders and local residents. After literally standing in the way of the chainsaws in protest and employing cheque-book bribes to send work crews away without felling any trees, they bought the time to organize that solution. In addition to frustrating the developer, Margaret had the time to organize the Thickson’s Woods Heritage Trust, a land trust which would serve as the model by which she and a few key supporters could make a serious effort to outright negotiate an offer to purchase the woods from the developer. In dipping into her children’s education funds and convincing other friends to make similar large donations to the cause, they were able to come up with a down payment on that purchase and to secure a mortgage for the balance of the funding. Disaster was averted and by 1984 it was clear that the woods had been saved. Margaret went on to become the long-time Chair of the Thickson’s Woods Land Trust and served on its Board of Directors for more than twenty-five years, during which time countless successful donor campaigns, bake sales, wildlife art auctions and fall fairs were organized to see to it that the mortgages on the woods, as well as the addition of the adjacent meadow and a couple of privately held woodlots, were all duly paid off, thus saving the resultant Thickson’s Wood Nature Reserve in perpetuity.

On 13 April 1985, Margaret discovered a new bird species for Ontario a little north of the woods on Thickson Road South when she found a Eurasian Jackdaw on a hydro pole near the railway line. This record was accepted by the Ontario Bird Records Committee and she documented the occurrence in a paper in Ontario Birds.

Perhaps Margaret’s greatest contribution to ornithology in Ontario has been her trailblazing ways and her stellar example as a role model for other women in birding and ornithology. In 1982, she became only the fourth female member of the formerly all-male Toronto Ornithological Club (after Phyllis MacKay, Joy Goodwin and Linda Weseloh were accepted as members in 1980). In 1988, she became the first female President of the Ontario Field Ornithologists. The rapid succession of successful and effective female presidents in Margaret Bain, Gerry Shemilt and Jean Iron, during OFO’s greatest period of growth, definitely had a transformative effect on the role of women in field ornithology in Ontario. Talented female birders like Mary Gartshore, Sarah Rupert, Barbara Charlton, Cheryl Edgecombe, Seabrooke Leckie, Sarah Lamond and Amanda Guercio now garner a respect from their male counterparts that was reflexively denied to an earlier generation like Margaret Mitchell, Doris Speirs, Naomi Le Vay and Phyllis MacKay.

Continuing on the same theme, Margaret was elected as the first female voting member of the Ontario Bird Records Committee and served as both Secretary and Chair in her time on the committee. She has also served OFO as an editorial assistant for Ontario Birds in the past.

Between 1990 and 1994, she teamed with Brian Henshaw to produce a series of excellent annual Durham Region Bird Reports summarizing the years 1989 through 1993 in the region.

Between 1991 and 2004, she teamed with Phill Holder as the co-founder and co-editor of the magazine Birders Journal, a highly respected print journal that had many exceptional articles on identification and status of birds, and she co-wrote a Cross-Canada Roundup each issue, first with Matt Holder and then with Don Shanahan. In November 2000, Birders Journal sponsored and organized a hugely successful North American Gull Conference at Niagara Falls that was attended by birders from all across North America.

As if this wasn’t enough to fill her time, Margaret also served terms as Chair of the Board of the Long Point Bird Observatory and as a board member of the American Birding Association. For many years beginning in 2000, she wrote the fall seasonal summary for the Ontario Region in the journal North American Birds.

In starting a draft manuscript on the Birds of the Greater Toronto Area, it quickly became obvious to me that Margaret was involved in so many of the significant bird records in Durham Region over the past 45 years, that an important consideration in staving off carpal tunnel syndrome for me, was to create a hot-key shortcut on the keyboard, so as not to have to type out her name so frequently!

Durham Region has been blessed over the years with an abundance of excellent leaders in ornithology: Charles Fothergill, George Gwynne Bird, Earl Calvert, Albert Ellis Allin, Doris and Murray Speirs, Betty and Edge Pegg, Naomi and Bert Le Vay, George Scott, Alf Bunker, Ron Tozer, Jim Richards, Dennis Barry, Ross James, Rob Nisbet, Jim Mountjoy and James Kamstra, to name but a few. All of them have one thing in common — none are any more distinguished than Margaret.

Although she has moved to Cobourg and now shares her brand of magic in Northumberland County, rest assured that many of us will always view her as the ‘Grand Dame’ of Durham birding.

Congratulations on a long overdue honour Margaret!

Introduction

It was my great honour to present the 2018 Distinguished Ornithologist Award (DOA) posthumously to Alan Wormington at the Annual General Meeting of the Ontario Field Ornithologists (OFO) in Leamington on 29 September 2018. Although I dearly wished he could have been there to accept it in person, I am sure almost all of you know that he died a little over two years ago of cancer at the age of 62.

Alan was, simply put, one of the finest birders in Ontario and for that matter all of North America (Figure 1). He combined skilled field identification of birds with research and writing as few birders have ever done. Upon Alan’s death, Jim Richards of Orono, Ontario, himself a Distinguished Ornithologist Award recipient, remarked that Ontario ornithology had lost its single most important figure since James L. Baillie died in 1970. I could not have said it better. Alan’s birding skills were renowned across the continent. As an example, I remember one amusing anecdote from about 20 years ago when a visiting American birder, obviously a novice and obviously mis-hearing the name “Worm-eating Warbler”, was impressed that Alan had a warbler named after him. I also remember Alan saying to me several years ago that he was better than anyone else in Ontario at spotting and identifying birds (Figure 2). This sounds like boasting but Alan was matter of fact about his skills; he was simply making an assessment. He also stated his hearing was second to none in the province for bird identification — although he did mention a couple of other birders who could keep up with him in this regard.

Normally in these DOA articles for Ontario Birds, a detailed account of that person’s accomplishments follows. However, for Alan this was essentially done shortly after his death on 3 September 2016. There was a tribute piece to Alan in Ontario Birds (Lamond 2016a), another one in Ontario Insects (Lamond 2016b), two tribute articles in the Wood Duck (Curry 2016, Lamond 2016c), an extended article on Alan in the Windsor Star (Sacheli 2016), a lengthy obituary in The Globe and Mail (MacKay 2016) and another obituary in the National Post and the Hamilton Spectator (Anonymous 2016). Nonetheless, I will highlight some of Alan’s most noted accomplishments below.

The Early Years

Alan Wormington was born in west Hamilton, Ontario, on 20 June 1954. His first love was butterflies and he amassed quite a collection at a tender age. Of course, those were different times from today and Alan remembered his mother dropping him off in the “wilds” of rural Ancaster to pursue butterflies when he was only 12 years old. A friend of Alan’s sister remembers that his bedroom was an absolute disaster, covered in butterfly boards and books. Alan wrote his first article when he was 16, entitled “Butterflies of the Hamilton area and other interesting areas” (Wormington 1970) which was published in the Wood Duck, the journal of the Hamilton Naturalists’ Club.

It was soon after this that he got into birds. Alan, as a young teenager, was able to explore the nearby Cootes Paradise daily. In fact, he birded so much that it was interfering with his schooling and by Grade 10 he was a major-league truant. Alan and his parents were summoned to the principal’s office at Westdale High School where he was told in no uncertain terms that if he did not shape up he would be expelled. Alan vividly remembers how upset his parents were when he exclaimed, “I can live with that.” Well, it was not long after that that his wish came true as he never did complete Grade 10.

Even at the age of 15, Alan was a formidable bird finder. For example, on 6 May 1970 at Cootes Paradise, Alan showed several long-time birders their first Hamilton area Summer Tanager (Piranga rubra). Alan was largely self-taught although he did go birding quite a bit with very talented birders in his early years such as Alf Epp and then later with George North and Bob Curry. According to Bob, “Alan was a wunderkind who almost immediately could find more birds and better birds than any of us.” As an example, he found Hamilton’s second record of Kirtland’s Warbler (Setophaga kirtlandii) on 1 September 1969 at Cootes Paradise. At the time, no one believed Alan about this incredible sighting and dismissed it. Alan went back to the same location the next day and saw the bird again. But still, no one believed him until later when people realized how talented he was, and although it sounds like a hyperbole, his talent became legendary in Ontario. For example, most of us would consider ourselves exceptionally fortunate to add one new bird species to the Ontario checklist. Alan added seven: Fish Crow (Corvus ossifragus) (James 1983), Royal Tern (Thalasseus maximus) (James 1984), Cave Swallow (Petrochelidon fulva) (Wormington and Curry 1990), Plumbeous Vireo (Vireo plumbeus) (Dobos 1998), Lesser Nighthawk (Chordeiles acutipennis) (Roy 2002), Sooty/ Short-tailed Shearwater (Puffinus griseus/ tenuirostris) (Wormington and Cranford 2011) and Kelp Gull (Larus dominicanus) (Burrell and Charlton 2016). Of course, he also found so many other rare birds, as designated by the Ontario Bird Records Committee.

Documenting and Publishing

You do not get the Distinguished Ornithologist Award by just being a birder, even an exceptionally gifted one. There was much more to Alan than just watching birds. He was a well-published author with dozens of notes and articles on birds, this despite not finishing Grade 10! His first ornithological publication was entitled “The big May day” (Wormington 1976). More articles followed such as “Nesting of Acadian Flycatcher in Hamilton” (Wormington 1977), “Concentrations of migrant diving ducks at Point Pelee National Park, Ontario in response to invasion of Zebra Mussels” (Wormington and Leach 1992), “The status and distribution of Mississippi Kite in Ontario” (Wormington 1993), “Point Pelee Little Gull banded in Finland!” (Wormington 2001a); “Brown Pelicans on the Great Lakes” (Wormington 2003), and “Historical overview, seasonal timing and abundance of Bonaparte’s Gull at Point Pelee” (Wormington 2013). For several years, Alan was also the compiler for the Ontario spring seasonal summary in North American Birds (e.g., Wormington 2010) and he was tireless in his desire to get this as comprehensive and correct as it could be.

In the “In Memoriam” article in Ontario Birds (Lamond 2016a), I listed 48 publications in the selected bibliography that he authored or co-authored; the majority of these he wrote as the sole author.

The most important of Alan’s traits was, I think, his hunger to meticulously record all bird records, be that at Hamilton, Point Pelee or anywhere in Ontario. When Alan was documenting a record it had to be complete and correct. He had to know who found the bird, the exact location, the first date and the last date and the observers had to be listed accurately. For example, it would not be correct to list me as Bill Lamond, it had to be William G. Lamond, or it had to be Robert Z. Dobos or Robert H. Curry or Kevin A. McLaughlin, which was ironic as Alan never used his own full name. He used just “Alan Wormington” but the name on his birth certificate is “Laurie Alan Wormington.” Alan completely ignored the Laurie part of his name for his whole adult life.

A Legacy of Initiatives

Alan also started things; he initiated significant projects, many of which still operate. For instance, at the age of 20, in 1974, he started the Hamilton Fall Bird Count, a count which is going stronger than it has ever been with upwards of 140 participants annually. This bird census, which was renamed the Alan Wormington Fall Bird Count in his honour following his death, has amassed an incredible amount of data on the migration of birds through the Hamilton area in the first week of November. These data were of great importance for many species accounts in Bob Curry’s Birds of Hamilton (Curry and the Hamilton Naturalists’ Club 2006).

Alan started the Point Pelee Annual Spring Migration report (Wormington 1978a) which was published by the Park until 1987; he continued producing the report privately until 2015 (G. Coady pers. comm.). Another contribution was that in 1978, Alan began a sixteen month stint of writing a weekly birding column in The Globe and Mail newspaper (e.g., Wormington 1978b, 1979) which Peter Whelan had initiated the year prior and which Alan assumed until Peter resumed writing it in late 1979. The column ran until shortly before Peter’s death in August 1999.

Alan also got people birding into new areas of the province. He was a pioneer in the pursuit of migrants along the north shore of Lake Superior and the south end of James Bay. He understood that these areas concentrated migrants, including vagrants. One only needs to look at some of his publications to see how successful this search for vagrants was: “Fall Vagrancy of the Indigo Bunting in Northern Ontario” (Wormington 1986); “White-eyed Vireo: New to Northern Ontario” (Wormington 1987a); “Orchard Oriole: New to Northern Ontario” (Wormington and Lamond 1987); and “Inca Dove: New to Ontario and Canada” (Graham and Wormington 1993). Alan promoted the Moosonee area on southern James Bay as a great place to bird and he also repeatedly visited Netitishi Point (Figure 3) in southern James Bay beginning in the 1980s. Many vagrants have been recorded at Netitishi by Alan and others such as Sooty/ Short-tailed Shearwater (Wormington and Cranford 2011), Dovekie (Alle alle) (Wormington and Cranford 2011), Northern Fulmar (Fulmarus glacialis) (Cranford 2013) and Western Kingbird (Tyrannus verticalis) (Burrell and Charlton 2016), to name but a few. Alan, along with a few other keen birders, started the Ontario Bird Records Committee in 1982. He served on this committee for 19 years and for six years he wrote or coauthored the OBRC annual report (e.g., Wormington 1987b). I remember that Alan was so meticulous with having the report correct, that before sending it out for review, he would introduce six errors into the report and exhort the reviewers to find the six errors. In this manner, he assumed they would also find errors that he had overlooked, all in an intense desire to produce a flawless report. Alan also started a natural history publication about Point Pelee entitled Point Pelee Natural History News (e.g., Wormington 2001b). This was an excellent publication that was packed full of pure natural history articles. Alas, the publication only lasted three years and Alan gave it upasitwasjusttoomuchworktodoby himself.

Point Pelee: Alan’s Special Place

Despite these many contributions to the ornithology of Ontario, Alan will be known by most as Mr. Point Pelee. He would have hated this term but Alan was synonymous with Point Pelee. He moved there permanently in 1979 and lived in the same residence just north of the park for over 35 years. During that period, no one spent the amount of time birding at the park that Alan did; not even close. He was a fixture at the “Tip” on good migration days whether it be the spring, summer, fall or winter. Alan amassed an incredible amount of data on the birdlife in the park beginning with the aforementioned seasonal summaries. He maintained the park checklists for several years and he had files for every species that had occurred at Point Pelee. He added to these files whenever a notable record came to light. Of course, this was all in preparation for his eventual book, Birds of Point Pelee. Alan wrote accounts for every species that had ever occurred at Point Pelee. The knowledge of ornithology in Ontario is diminished in that he did not finish this book after he became ill as I am convinced it would have been an excellent book—as good as or better than any regional bird book that has been published and on such an important birding area in North America. No one knows why he did not get it finished. I have to assume that he thought he had more time to live after his initial cancer diagnosis. When we tried to encourage him to work on the book, he always demurred— “there’s lots of time for that” he would say.

When his illness progressed markedly in the summer of 2016, he finally took action. He formed a publications committee committee of Bob Curry, Glenn Coady and Phil Holder; he and they were to have their first meeting in October 2016. Of course, that first meeting never happened. After Alan’s death the publication committee endeavoured to see his project through to the book stage. However, although there is a manuscript, it cannot be published in its current form. It is hoped that funding can be made available such that a suitable person can bring this book, this life’s work, to fruition.

Conclusion

Some readers may wonder why Alan had not been offered the Distinguished Ornithologist Award before he died. Truth be told, it was, twice, but Alan refused it both times. I would not say it was modesty that prevented Alan from accepting this award. Not at all. Alan was actually a rather shy person. He was not an introvert but he was not outgoing and he shunned crowds to a large degree. I think he likely refused because he just was not a fan of this type of award. Perhaps he thought they were frivolous and he would not take part. It is hard to know for certain. One could ask if it is proper to bestow this award on him in death when he refused to accept it in life. I can never know for sure, but I think he would be fine with getting this award now. I can more or less hear him say, “Yeah, go ahead. Now’s a good time.”

At the OFO meeting, Sarah Rupert, a fellow OFO birder, and a good friend of Alan’s and an employee of Parks Canada at Point Pelee National Park, accepted the Distinguished Ornithologist Award on Alan’s behalf. Alan is survived by his sister Janne Hackl and nephew Jonathan. Although it would have been proper for Janne to accept the award, she realized that its proper place to be displayed was at Point Pelee and she agreed that Parks Canada should be the keeper of the award on Alan’s behalf. The Distinguished Ornithologist Award plaque is to be mounted in the Point Pelee Visitor Centre, which will include an interpretive panel reflecting Alan Wormington’s place in Ontario ornithology and his contributions to Point Pelee National Park with the likes of Jack Miner, William Saunders and Percy Taverner. A fitting tribute indeed.