Biography Features Father of Christmas Bird Count and Florida Winter Resident
THE MAN WHO LOVED BIRDS: Pioneer Ornithologist Dr. Frank M. Chapman, 1864-1945 (September 2022) by James Huffstodt, is the first full-length Chapman biography. The author tells the life-story of a pivotal figure in the early history of conservation, bird study, museum innovation, and bird photography. The 400-page paperback with vintage photographs is published by Bird Love Unlimited Publishers, Tallahassee and may be purchased on Amazon.books.com
After sailing in Tampa Bay in 1892, Chapman wrote this in his journal:
“There were more water-birds in Tampa Bay than I have seen elsewhere; Laughing Gulls in adult plumage were common, up to two hundred being observed…All the buoys and stakes were crowned with either Brown Pelicans or Cormorants and some were on the wing. Some of the channel posts have cross pieces nailed to them making five or six steps and occasionally each step would have its Cormorant. Half-way up the Bay to Port Tampa we sailed through a scattered school of devil-fish. There were at least fifty…They were all near the surface, some with the back out of the water and the tips of the wings were frequently thrown up showing the white undersurface.”
Chapman’s most enduring achievement was the Audubon Christmas Bird Count launched in 1900 as a humane alternative to the Christmas side-hunt during which participants killed songbirds, raptors, woodpeckers and other non-game species to see who could compile the largest body count. Chapman conceived the CBC as a means to encourage the counting and identification of birds as opposed to shooting them.
The first CBC in 1900 saw 27 participants count several thousand birds of 90 different species. Today upwards of 70,000 bird lovers from every state in the union, Canada, Mexico, and other locations most recently counted approximately 4.5 million birds of more than 600 species. Now, more than a century later, the annual event is the oldest and largest volunteer driven biological survey of its kind.
The CBC provides ornithologists with a massive data base utilized in determining population trends, migration patterns, and other key factors.
Although remembered most often today for the CBC, Chapman made many other significant contributions to ornithology while conducting milestone expeditions to the wild and remote recesses of North and South America.
“Chapman’s life story is literally the history of American ornithology during an epic era lasting a half-century and marked by enormous change and memorable achievement,” Huffstodt said. “This self-taught ornithologist who never attended college won international renown during a life of adventure and discovery played out from the frigid waters of the St. Lawrence in Canada to the high Andes mountains of South America. He led many expeditions into the Everglades and played a key role in creating the Pelican Island National Wildlife Refuge on the Indian River Lagoon.”
Contemporaries called Chapman the Dean of American Bird Watchers and Godfather of the modern bird watching (birding) movement. He was the most popular bird writer of his era, wrote 17 books, hundreds of articles, and founded the nation’s first popular bird magazine, Bird Lore, the forerunner of today’s Audubon magazine. His scientific works on the birds of Columbia and Ecuador are considered classics in the field of South American ornithology.
The book's author, Huffstodt, was a writer, press officer, and educator for 25 years, initially with the Illinois Department of Conservation (IDOC), Springfield, and, most recently for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission (FWC) in West Palm Beach. Before embarking on a career in conservation, he was an Army journalist, reporter for a daily newspaper, and community college public relations specialist.
He is a member of the Audubon Society (Apalachee Audubon, Tallahassee), the American Birding Association (ABA), the Tallahassee Writers Association (TWA) and the National Wildlife Federation (NWF).
