This a.m.pond way down.lots of yellow legs and a few of what looks like a
winter dunlin because of low water birds concentrated east side

Thomas D. Burleigh lived in Moscow ID for 11 years (1947-58), working as an ornithologist for U.S. Fish and Wildlife and he was charged with completing a detailed study of the bird life in Idaho. He had collected much of the material that he presented in his Birds of Idaho, and he included descriptions of then known subspecies. Other publications by Burleigh include The Birds of Newfoundland (1951) and Georgia Birds (1958). For more about his life please refer to his “memoriam” in The Auk 92: 539-46 (July 1973): [ http://vertebrates.si.edu/birds/Hall_of_fame/InMemoriamPDFs/Burleigh.pdf | http://vertebrates.si.edu/birds/Hall_of_fame/InMemoriamPDFs/Burleigh.pdf ]

I didn’t think I’d ever get my hands on a copy of his book, thinking it to be a collector’s item and out of circulation. But last week I almost tripped over a copy at our local (Garden City) library. It was part of an impressive display about birding that included not only books, but Nature Packs for kids that could be checked out of the library! =) These Packs are still available and include a pair of 8x binoculars, Sibley’s guide to western birds, as well as local birding guides and checklists!

Burleigh’s Birds of Idaho is hardbound, 467 pages, of which 441 pages are devoted to “species accounts” for 318 species of birds. This represented the entire avifauna recognized for Idaho as of 1971, i.e., including only species that had been well documented by sight records and/or collected specimens. Each species account follows a basic format of 1) general distribution, 2) status in Idaho, and 3) habits. I was a little disappointed not to find any type of analysis or summary, e.g., a state checklist or something. So, I developed a half-baked, “attenuated” species list with some notes for species considered “accidental” at that time (41 species). It’s an Excel spreadsheet (attached) for visualization of that old phylogenetic order that some of us grew up with, i.e., of the sequence of orders, families, species and of the common names we learned. For this work, Burleigh had referenced the 5 th edition of AOU’s Checklist of North American Birds (1957). For comparison, i f our IBRC “Birds of Idaho Field Checklist” (2007) were current, it would likely include the 433 species now listed in eBird, maybe?!

Me and my wonky projects!

Larry Arnold

Boise ID

p.s.

Fun Fact #1… At the time of publication, Barn Owl was considered “accidental” in Idaho, with only one specimen collected near Moscow (Arvey, 1947), and there were no sight records anywhere else in the state, eyiyi!

Fun Fact #2… Using Google and by searching old obituaries, Missy discovered that Thomas Burleigh was the great-grandfather of our daughter’s boyfriend in Grand Junction CO. This didn’t surprise Katey because her boyfriend’s middle name is Burleigh.