This afternoon John & I attended activities in the MNWR Visitor's Center in which Larue St. Clair was honored for his 20 yrs. as a volunteer at Montezuma. As expected, a gift was presented to him.
We all know about Larue listing his counts & in what areas of the refuge birds were seen. (Jackie Bakker has been helping him as another set of eyes & by doing the driving for him in the hidden areas of the refuge the last few years. He will be 88 on 4 Dec.!) These lists, for the first time, gave the refuge a written daily, weekly, yearly record of when birds first arrived, their apparent departure times, & also alerted birders about birds which were rarities to our area. Eventually, the value of those records became known to other wildlife refuges. They are now following Larue's lead, doing counts & keeping records of birds in their areas! After the words of praise & acknowledgement of his many contributions, his gift was presented. As I saw the cover begin to come off, I gasped, clapped & had to fight back my tears, never expecting to see what I had hoped for. It was an official sign soon to be erected: LARUE'S LAGOON. Let me offer my personal thanks to all you birders who didn't accept the Yellow-legs name which was originally intended for what we mule heads insisted on calling Larue's Lagoon. He knows he has been honored & is respected. Too many wonderful people go to their graves, never having known that. Cheers and congratulations, Larue! Thank you to MNWR personnel for the gift. Fritzie Blizzard -- Cayugabirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsRULES http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/Cayugabirds 3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/CAYU.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
