190 Harry Lumsden (right) receiving the Distinguished Ornithologist Award from Ken Abraham at the OFO Annual Convention in Hamilton on 4 October 2008. Photo: Jean Iron Har ry G.Lumsden Distinguished Ornithologist Kenneth F. Abraham I had the privilege to present Harry rolled into one. Harry’s interest in birds Lumsden with the Distinguished Orni - can be traced to his youth in Scotland, th ologist Award on behalf of the Ontario but his professional contributions began Field Ornithologists (OFO) on 4 Octo - in the early 1940s, and he is still publish - ber 2008 at the Annual Convention and ing in refereed journals, newsletters, and Banquet in Hamilton. society publications to this day. That Let me start by suggesting that if makes over 65 years of written output Ornithology were an Olympic sport, we spanning seven decades. Certainly this would have some difficulty deciding qualifies as a feat of endurance in any whether Harry was a marathoner, a field, a true marathon. Harry has a pas - decathlete or a high jumper, and we sion for grouse, for geese, and of course, might well conclude that he was all three for swans, an d he has developed an d led ONTARIO BIRDS DECEMBER 2008 191 major programs on all of these groups their garden at the age of 4 1/2 and being during his long career and in “retire - enthralled to see his first Song Thrush, ment”. However, he has also studied and which was sitting on a nest on a low published papers on a host of other spruce branch over a grass midden. He species from Tree Swallows to guillemots. said he was hooked on birds from that He is a life-long student of the behaviour moment. His youthful fascination also of birds, has contributed to taxonomy included initiation into the game bird and classification, written about migra - hunting tradition, which was to play a big tion ecology, refined methods of captive part in his early career as an ornithologist. breeding, developed trapping technolo - He also confided that he isn’t much of a gies, and described regional avifauna, not “bird watcher” in our modern sense of the to mention constructing wetlands and words, partly because of poor hearing, but developing habitat management tech - mostly because he would rather spend niques and adaptive hunting regulations. that time in focused observation because That long list certainly qualifies him in of his fascination with bird behaviour. the decathlon or perhaps that should be This was much aided by the fact that his the centathlon. What about high jump - father was a contemporary of the like- ing? Well, he was named a member of the minded Sir Peter Scott, the founder of the Order of Canada in 2004, he’s been cited Slimbridge Wildfowl Trust, with whom by the Ontario Heritage Trust in the Nat - he traded waterfowl that he raised in cap - ural Heritage category, and has received tivity. This gave Harry great opportunity recognition for significant contributions to observe nesting birds and their young to his community. I think you will agree in close proximity. Interestingly, Harry that three medals can comfortably rest himself interacted professionally with Sir around his neck. Peter when he visited Canada on expedi - Despite all of this, I would guess that tions. Of course, these experiences in the majority of you have little knowledge youth also laid the foundations for of Harry’s life and career, beyond his well- Harry’s captive rearing programs for known contributions to the restoration of swans and geese involving private avicul - Trumpeter Swans, and perhaps his invol - tural co-operators. ve ment in the reintroduction of Canada Geese in southern Ontario. So now I Coming to Canada for the first want to share some of the details and time: the RAF and ROM high lights of his life and career in orni - During World War II, Harry joined the thology. Royal Air Force (RAF). Like many other British pilots, he was sent to Canada for Impressions of his youth training. This involved a three year tour Harry told me that one of his earliest of duty, and for Harry it meant training at memories is of walking with his father in Bowden, Penhold and Vulcan, Alberta, as VOLUME 26 NUMBER 3 192 an instructor at Moose Jaw, Sask at che - collected in the mountains and tropics of wan, Mt. Hope, Ontario, and at an Oper - Colombia, South America, where, among ational Training Unit on Mosquitoes at other species, he collected Cinnamon Deburt, Nova Scotia. His first formal Teal, Torrent Ducks and Ruddy Ducks. experience with birds occurred while he His contributions to Cinnamon Teal tax - was on a week’s leave from his training onomy led to the discovery that there station at Mt. Hope. He went to the were three subspecies, the North Ameri - Royal Ontario Museum (ROM), where can septentrionalium and two resident he met Jim Baillie, Lester Snyder, Terry South American forms ( borreroi and trop - Shortt and Cliff Hope — all legends of icus ). Ontario ornithology. Harry ended up Over his career, Harry has contrib uted spending that week in the basement of 1506 specimens to the ROM in 19 avian the ROM learning to prepare bird skins Orders. (ROM catalogue information — especially starlings that Cliff shot daily supplied by Mark Peck). Lest you shy at the Toronto dump. away from this fact, remember that muse - This training led seamlessly to Harry’s ums and their collections were the foun - first significant contributions to Ontario dation of the study of ornithology, from and world ornithology. He was then able anatomy to classification to food habits to combine his skill and love of hunting and even behaviour. Through DNA stud - with his opportunity to travel while in the ies now and in the future, museums will RAF, as well as his new skills as a museum be the bank from which many research skin preparator, to become a consummate "cheques" will be cashed. This was the era collector for the ROM. During his war - in which Harry began his long road in time service, he was posted for about a ornithology and it reflects the kind of year each in India and Japan. While there, work without which Roger Tory Peterson he collected birds, prepared them and could not have created his classic guides shipped them back to the ROM. He was and David Sibley would not be the house - particularly interested in the grouse, hold name he is in birding circles today. pheasants and waterfowl. Upon return to the British Isles after his tour with the Coming to Canada for good: occupation forces in Japan, he continued the Ontario Government the practice of preparing skins during After the war, Harry contemplated a hunts in his native Scotland. After he peace time career in the RAF, but fortu - immigrated to Canada, it became a habit nately for all of us, the RAF stalled in and hallmark of his career. He used vaca - making a decision. Harry had also written tion time, and once with a leave of to Cliff Hope asking about the possibility absence, to study grouse behaviour in of a job at the ROM. Cliff replied that no Saskatchewan, British Columbia, Mon - job of that sort was available , but that the tana, Wisconsin and Oklahoma. He also Ontario governmen t wa s lookin g for ONTARIO BIRDS DECEMBER 2008 193 biologists. By this route, Harry shortly The Hudson Bay Lowland thereafter accepted a job offer from the The Hudson Bay Lowland became an Ontario Department of Lands and area of special interest for Harry from the Forests’ Doug Clarke and came to Cana - 1950s, when he went there to attend da for good in March 1948. annual trappers meetings and record Harry became the District Biologist wildlife harvests, throughout the balance in the Erie District, where he lived at St. of his government career. Working with Williams for two years. He moved to the the Cree, he found the first Ontario nest - Tweed District where he worked for four ing colony of Snow Geese near Cape years on a variety of projects, but espe - Henrietta Maria and conducted the first cially on muskrat management in marsh - photographic survey of the kind that has es. In 1954, he moved to Maple to become the standard for such invento - become a game management coordinator ries. He discovered nesting Black Guille - for over eight years. He then took his mots and wrote accounts of the regional final position with the Wildlife Research avifauna of Cape Henrietta Maria. He group, as Waterfowl and Upland Game conducted annual summer surveys of Scientist, remaining there until he retired productivity of Canada Geese and Snow in 1988. Geese along the Hudson Bay and James Almost from the beginning, he estab - Bay coast from the Northwest Territories lished a pattern of travelling across the to Quebec for over 35 years, with col - province, doing what he thought was leagues from the Canadian Wildlife Serv - important in each region, with support ice, the United States Fish and Wildlife from Doug Clarke, and his supervisors Service and the Illinois Natural History Jack Grew and Rod Stanfield and a host Survey. He established the first on-the- of colleagues. Among other areas, the ground nesting ecology research of sub - Hudson Bay Lowland became an area of arctic Canada Geese in eastern Canada in concentration for Harry’s excursions and cooperation with Dennis Raveling and study of birds. I will summarize Harry’s the Mississippi Flyway. He also tracked work on two bird groups of special inter - their productivity with fall counts in est: the grouse and the waterfowl.