Bird Conservation Comes Out of Its Shell By Carrol L. Henderson
What can a now-forbidden hobby tell us about today’s bird populations? That was my skeptical approach to this book. I have to confess that when I first heard about this book, I was skeptical about what I could learn from a practice that was seen as detrimental to bird populations. But, I knew about the other books the author published (Wildlife of Costa Rica and books on birdhouses and feeding for Minnesota, where he as been the director of non-game species for years!) and figured the topic would be well handled, and the book well written. It is, and it is beautifully produced and illustrated besides. Henderson has brought a collection of over 4,000 eggs from around the world out from the cabinet they’d been locked up in since the 1960’s, and shows us how we can all benefit from the stories they tell. From the publisher: Before modern binoculars and cameras made it possible to observe birds closely in the wild, many people collected eggs as a way of learning about birds. Serious collectors called their avocation "oology" and kept meticulous records for each set of eggs: the bird's name, the species reference number, the quantity of eggs in the clutch, the date and location where the eggs were collected, and the collector's name. These documented egg collections, which typically date from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, now provide an important baseline from which to measure changes in the numbers, distribution, and nesting patterns of many species of birds.
In Oology and Ralph's Talking Eggs, Carrol L. Henderson uses the vast egg collection of Ralph Handsaker, an Iowa farmer, as the starting point for a fascinating account of oology and its role in the origins of modern birdwatching, scientific ornithology, and bird conservation in North America. Henderson describes Handsaker's and other oologists' collecting activities, which included not only gathering bird eggs in the wild but also trading and purchasing eggs from collectors around the world. Henderson then spotlights sixty of the nearly five hundred bird species represented in the Handsaker collection, using them to tell the story of how birds such as the Snowy Egret, Greater Prairie Chicken, Atlantic Puffin, and Wood Duck have fared over the past hundred years or so since their eggs were gathered. Photos of the eggs and historical drawings and photos of the birds illustrate each species account. Henderson also links these bird histories to major milestones in bird conservation and bird protection laws in North America from 1875 to the present.
EXCERPT:
1. The House of the Talking Eggs….. Then he took us to the egg collection. There were two large wooden chests of drawers in Ralph Handsaker's living room. Each was about five feet high and three feet wide, with shallow drawers only two to four inches deep. The first chest had fifteen drawers, the other thirteen. As I pulled out the first drawer, I was amazed to see dozens of small cardboard compartments filled with hundreds of wild bird eggs.
Each compartment contained a set of eggs from a single nest. They were bedded in red cedar sawdust that had kept insect pests out of the egg collection for over a hundred years. Each compartment contained a small label that listed the bird's name, a reference number for that particular species, the number of eggs in the clutch, the date collected, the location where the eggs were collected, and the name of the collector. In many compartments there was also an old Arm and Hammer baking soda trading card illustrating that species of bird.
The top drawers held hundreds of smaller eggs of wrens, chickadees, warblers, and sparrows. The middle drawers were deeper and held larger eggs of ducks, sandpipers, and plovers. The lowest, deepest drawers held the biggest treasures of all—eggs of emus, penguins, geese, cranes, and loons.
The first oological chest of drawers held most of Ralph's egg collection. The second chest held some of Ralph's eggs and the lifetime collection of Ralph's acquaintance, John L. Cole from nearby Nevada, Iowa. Mr. Cole collected eggs from 1903 through 1937. When John Cole passed away, the Cole family gave John's cabinet of eggs to Ralph.
Each chest held thousands of eggs from all over the world. While many eggs had been personally collected by Ralph Handsaker and John Cole, there were hundreds of other collectors' names on the data tags. The tags revealed eggs from forty-four states as well as Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Japan, Iceland, Scotland, England, Turkey, Russia, India, Mexico, Antarctica, and Argentina. Oology must have been a fascinating way for people to learn geography because it related birds and their eggs to faraway countries around the world.
The size of the collection, the remarkable amount of detail recorded about the eggs, and the worldwide scope of the collection made it obvious that this was a biological treasure. However, the eggs were more than scientific artifacts. They were beautiful creations, like gems. They showed incredible designs, shapes, and textures that few people ever see up close.Hardcover with dust jacket 6 x 9 in., 200 pp., 244 color and b&w illus., Oct. 2007
