Ornithology Commons^™

In Loving Memory Paul Austin Johnsgard: Memorial Service, Paul Johnsgard

Paul Johnsgard Collection

3:00 p.rn. Sunday, June 20, 2021 Unitarian Church of Lincoln, 6300 A Street Lincoln, Nebraska. Officiating, Rev. Dr. Oscar Sinclair; Musician, Karine Gil

ORDER OF SERVICE Gathering Music Ringing of the Bell Welcome, Chalice Lighting, Responsorial Reading

Biography

Music - Morning has Broken by Cat Stevens

Personal Reflections - Part 1 Music - Sounds of the Platte River

Personal Reflections - Part 2

Summation - On Honor and Respect

Music - Blue Boat Home by Peter Mayer

Closing Words

Postlude - Migrations

In lieu of flowers, memorials should be directed to Spring Creek Prairie Audubon Center, P. O. Box 117, …

Game Birds Of The World: A Catalog Of The Madson Collection, Paul A. Johnsgard, Eric Fowler, Michael Forsberg, Mary Bomberger Brown, Dee Ebbeka, Jacki Loomis, Patricia W. Freeman

Paul Johnsgard Collection

This remarkable collection of ornithological specimens is a gift of Everett C. Madson, M.D., a graduate of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, to the University of Nebraska State Museum in honor of Paul Johnsgard, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus of the School of Biological Sciences.

Contents:

Foreword

Introduction

Biography - Paul A. Johnsgard

Biography - Everett C. Madson

Species Profiles and Photographs

Tinamous (Order Tinamiformes, Family Tinamidae)

Spotted Tinamou (Nothura maculosa)

Waterfowl (Order Anseriformes)

Ducks, Geese and Swans (Family Anatidae)

Whistling Ducks (Tribe Dendrocygnini)

White-faced Whistling Duck (Dendrocygna vidu

Geese and Swans (Tribe Anserini)

Black Swan (Cygnus atratus).

Tundra [Whistling] Swan (Cygnus columbianus) …

Rare Trophy Varmint Bagged, Paul A, Johnsgard

Paul Johnsgard Collection

This beast was shot during a special hunting season on hummingbirds opened by the Game and Parks Commission after reports of possible threats to people and livestock.

It was taken in one shot at 15 yards with a high-powered Canon and special high-velocity electronic ammunition. The state is now safer for everyone.

P. (Dead-eye) Johnsgard

Prairie Dog Lesson, Paul A. Johnsgard

Paul Johnsgard Collection

It seems to me, in view of all the concerted efforts of our state's elective officers to enact a set of morals for every Nebraskan to live by - especially relative to marriage and reproduction - they could take a lesson from prairie dogs, rather than passing a law requiring the poisoning of entire colonies at the whim of an unhappy neighbor. ...

Ralph W. Schreiber Conservation Award, 2012, Paul A. Johnsgard

Paul Johnsgard Collection

The 2012 Ralph W. Schreiber Conservation Award is presented by the American Ornithological Union to Paul A. Johnsgard for his outstanding contributions to the conservation of the Great Plains of North America. Few living ornithologists have written as widely about birds, been more instrumental in promoting awareness of birds generally and the Great Plains avifauna specifically, or have influenced the public more than Paul A. Johnsgard.

The Great Plains of North America is one of the most imperiled landscapes in the world. The birds that depend upon these fragile habitats are being lost. Without the support of the public, policy-makers, …

The Feathers Of Winter, Paul A. Johnsgard

Paul Johnsgard Collection

For many Nebraska birders, the last big event of the year is the Audubon Christmas Bird Count, which is held annually during the last week of December. It is an occasion to join with friends in a day out to try see as many species as possible in a single day. More importantly, it provides a database that, combined with those of more than 50,000 other observers, provides a highly documented population sample of early-winter birds throughout North America, Latin America and the Caribbean region. The tradition began in 1900, and as of 2011 there have been 111 national counts. …

Raptors Of Nebraska, Paul A. Johnsgard

Paul Johnsgard Collection

Nebraska is a regular host to 17 species of hawks, as well as two eagles and eight owls. Collectively, all these impressive-looking birds are known as “raptors,” which refers to their strong, sharply decurved and pointed beaks, their sharp, curved talons and their associated predatory abilities. Hawk and eagles are often called “diurnal raptors,” since they all hunt during daylight hours, whereas most of Nebraska’s owls hunt at night and are described as nocturnal raptors. But few biological statements lack exceptions, and some owls such as the burrowing owl are daytime-hunters, and some such as the great homed owl hunt …

The Secretive Shorebirds: Nebraska’S Phantom Migrants, Paul A. Johnsgard

Paul Johnsgard Collection

Much less apparent and well known than the annual crane migration is Nebraska’s role in the spring and fall migrations of shorebirds such as sandpipers, plovers, curlews and godwits. These migrations are inconspicuous, in part because of the fact that most long-distance shorebird flights occur at night. Shorebirds also never migrate in the enormous flocks that are so typical of geese and cranes, and their flights are usually unaccompanied by loud calls. Yet, they are massive if nearly invisible migrations, involving over 30 species and an estimated 200,000–300,000 birds. Many of the species travel from South American wintering grounds, and …

The Oldest Romance In The West, Paul A. Johnsgard

Paul Johnsgard Collection

FOR A FEW SHORT WEEKS each June, the stately flowering spikes of Great Plains yuccas illuminate Nebraska’s Sandhills and western plains. On each plant, spires of 20 to 60 ivory-white flowers emerge from a radiating array of needle-sharp leaves. The flowers rise above the rest of the vegetation like Roman candles freeze-framed in flight. Entire hillsides are sometimes transformed by this sudden flower display – often along with sprinklings of blue spiderworts, golden yellow hoary puccoons and white daisy fleabanes. After a few weeks the spectacular show is over, but for the yucca the story’s best chapter has barely begun. …

Nebraska’S 8 Great Natural Wonders, Paul A, Johnsgard

Paul Johnsgard Collection

FOR MANY PEOPLE, Nebraska is part of a large, indefinite segment of the central United States dismissively known as “flyover country,” which is best observed through a jet’s window from at least 30,000 feet and while sipping a cool drink. I like to think of such persons as “flyover people,” who have probably never known, at close range, the wonders of our state’s natural landscapes. In the traditions of those romantic souls who would like to visit the seven natural wonders of the world, I humbly offer my own suggestions for visiting Nebraska’s inherent wonders. They are not ranked in …

Autumn On The Prairie: Grasses Of Nebraska, Paul A, Johnsgard

Paul Johnsgard Collection

To visit any prairie in Nebraska is in a sense a visit with our very distant relatives, each of which has its own story to tell, if we will only try to understand. Although each season is different, autumn in a Nebraska prairie is a very special time to visit. Life has by then come full circle, and it is a perfect time to sit or lie down in the grass, to enjoy the sights, sounds and smells of nature close at hand and to at least briefly merge one’s soul with our natural world.

The Altruistic Cardinal?, Paul A. Johnsgard

Paul Johnsgard Collection

Cardinals also are known for their intense parental behavior. Most feeding of fledged young is done by the males, since females typically begin a new nesting cycle very shortly after their first young fledge. I’ve seen male cardinals feed female cardinals, cowbirds and house finches. One researcher in Oklahoma reported a cardinal attempting to feed goldfish in a pond! While photographing backyard birds in Lincoln, I noticed that a male cardinal was tending to a single newly fledged cardinal chick, but also was being constantly pestered by two young house finches. Cardinals raise their young on insects while house finch …

Prairie Suite: A Celebration, Twyla Hansen, Paul A. Johnsgard

Paul Johnsgard Collection

25 poems by Twyla Hansen, with illustrations by Paul A. Johnsgard, including:

Walk on the Prairie

There is mystery here, in the shapes of grass,
in the dim movements of an inland sea,
connections to an earlier time. Wander barefoot,
hypothesize the dance of millennia, the unbearable
carvings of the built environment, this ragtag escape.

Let its divine simplicity ooze into your pores.
Comb the steel from your hair, blanket your
tongue with orange. Your breathing will slow.
Breathing slow, unbutton the child within.
Give her permission to go fly a kite.

Great Gathering On The Great Plains, Paul A. Johnsgard, Michael Forsberg

Paul Johnsgard Collection

Early spring along the Platte River is sheer magic. For more than a month migratory sandhill cranes pour into central Nebraska, attracted by the shallow river’s abundant roosting sites and nearby meadows and farms for feeding. Looking like legions of gray ghosts from a distance, the birds often cover wet meadows and cornfields from one end to the other. Flocks of a thousand or more fly low over the river, their voices rising and falling as they approach, pass overhead and disappear. With nearly a half-million cranes stopping here each spring, the placid Platte is transformed into the site of …

Heeding The Call Of The Sandhill Cranes, Malcolm G. Scully, Paul A. Johnsgard

Paul Johnsgard Collection

Paul A. Johnsgard has made this trip almost 200 times—as many as five times each March for the past 40 years. He leaves Interstate 80 near this central-Nebraska city and follows Platte River Road along the southern banks of the braided river toward Kearney, some 40 miles to the west. On one such trip this year, the ornithologist and professor of zoology at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln talks about a career that began in 1961 and has produced an average of a book a year ever since.

Addendum To The G. M. Sutton Bibliography, Paul A. Johnsgard

Paul Johnsgard Collection

Since the publication of "The George Miksch Sutton Bibliography" (Nebraska Bird
Review 65(2): 46-58), the following additional titles have come to light:
Sutton, G. M. 1921. "Night Voices." Bird Lore 21:108-110.
__ 1933. "Fifty years of progress in American bird art." pp 181-197 in: Fifty Years'
Progress of American Ornithology: 1883-1933. American Ornithologists Union, Lancaster, PA.
__ 1962. Is bird art art? Living Bird 1 :73-78.
__ 1977. A wood duck portrait. Living Bird 16:5-6.
__ 1978. Three pine grosbeaks. Living Bird 17:5-6.
__ 1980. A yellow rail sketch. Living Bird 18:5-6.
__ 1981. A boreal owl portrait. Living …

Crane Music, Paul A. Johnsgard

Paul Johnsgard Collection

Cranes are the stuff of magic, whose voices penetrate the atmosphere of the world's wilderness areas, from arctic tundra to the South African veld, and whose footprints have been left on the wetlands of the world for the past 60 million years or more. They have served as models for human tribal dances in places as remote as the Aegean, Australia, and Siberia. Whistles made from their wing bones have given courage to Crow and Cheyenne warriors of the North American Great Plains, who ritually blew on them as they rode into battle. These birds' wariness, gregariousness, and regularity of …

Hawks, Eagles, & Falcons Of North America: Biology And Natural History, Paul A, Johnsgard

Paul Johnsgard Collection

I have tried to present an adequate if far from exhaustive survey of the general biology, ecology, and behavior of all the included species, written so as to be understandable to the interested layman as well as useful to the biologist who might be looking for relevant literature citations or trying to deal with a specific question without resorting to extensive library searches. The larger number of species of North American hawklike birds (31, compared to 19 owl species) has required that I keep the individual species accounts substantially shorter. I have excluded the New World vultures from consideration, primarily …

Social Behavior Of North American Owls, Paul A. Johnsgard

Paul Johnsgard Collection

Social behaviors in animals include a very wide range of interindividual communications, both within and between species. They include such rather generalized social responses as social flocking or roosting behavior, as well as much more individualized and complex interactions such as courtship, aggression, and parental behaviors. Regardless of their complexity, social interactions involve some level of communication or the transmission and interpretation of social signals. These signals can be transmitted in any of several sensory channels, which in owls are most likely to include visual, acoustic, and tactile modes of communication.

Most and perhaps all owls show distinctive postures when …

The Monographic Literature Of The Galliformes, Paul A. Johnsgard

Paul Johnsgard Collection

Because of their extraordinarily diverse beauty and importance as sporting birds, pheasants and their relatives have been the subjects of many of the world's finest ornithological books, some of which also rank as among the most valuable from a book-collector's viewpoint. It is the purpose of this brief review to mention some of the landmark books or technical monographs dealing with major groups of Galliformes, both from the standpoints of their informational contents and their relative availability or collector's value. Emphasis is placed on English-language publications, although a few important recent German publications are mentioned.

Probably any review of galliform …

Hybridization & Zoogeographic Patterns In Pheasants, Paul A. Johnsgard

Paul Johnsgard Collection

A review of interspecific pheasant hybrids as reported in the literature reveals a relatively high rate of hybridization in captivity but a low rate of hybridization in the wild. All of the 91 known hybrid combinations have been reported from captivity, and three of these combinations have also been reported from the wild. All of the latter involve species pairs of known close relationships (red and gray junglefowl, kalij and silver pheasant, and white and blue eared pheasant), suggesting that reproductive isolating mechanisms in the pheasants are much more effective under natural conditions than are those of grouse, a group …

Etho-Ecological Apects Of Hybridization In The Tetraonidae, Paul A. Johnsgard

Paul Johnsgard Collection

A review of records of intrafamilial hybridization in the Tetraonidae indicates that at least half of the potential natural hybrid combinations that could occur in this family on the basis of known distribution patterns actually have been reported at least once. These include 15 interspecific hybridization combinations that involve 12 species and all of the genera currently recognized by taxonomists. The three most commonly reported hybrid combinations all involve lek-forming species of grouse as parental types, while the remaining 12 combinations are all considerably rarer and involve lek-forming parental species in 7 cases, promiscuous but solitary species in 6 cases, …

Review Of The Island Waterfowl By Milton W. Weller, And The Hawaiian Goose: An Experiment In Conservation By Janet Kear And A. J. Berger, Paul A. Johnsgard

Paul Johnsgard Collection

Both of these books deal with insular species of waterfowl. The volume by Weller concentrates on the ecological forces that have shaped the compar- ative ecologies and morphologies of some 30 forms of Anatidae that are confined to the islands of the world; the Kear and Berger book deals with the interesting history of the ill-fated Hawaiian goose, or nene, which has at least temporarily been saved from extinction by heroic conservation measures of the Wildfowl Trust and Hawaiian wildlife personnel.

The Breeding Birds Of Nebraska, Paul A. Johnsgard

Paul Johnsgard Collection

This brief annotated list of Nebraska's breeding birds is the direct outgrowth of the work involved in the preparation of a forthcoming book titled "The Birds of the Great Plains," which will include range maps for all species except extinct or extirpated ones, and will also provide information on breeding habitat, nest location, clutch size, incubation period, and breeding biology. The purpose of the present compilation is to provide a convenient summary for Nebraska alone, amplifying some of the more general statements of that book, and pointing out uncertain or interesting situations needing further attention from field ornithologists. It includes …

Review Of Endangered Birds. Management Techniques For Preserving Threatened Species, Ed. Stanley A. Temple, Paul A. Johnsgard

Paul Johnsgard Collection

In 1977 an international symposium brought together scientists having expertise in the conservation and management of the world's endangered species of birds. The resulting publication includes 50 papers that were presented at the symposium, together with some concluding remarks. Although this is certainly an impressive assemblage of papers and topics, it should be noted that only about 40 species are mentioned in the proceedings, as compared with a total of 265 species and 140 subspecies worldwide that are currently believed to be threatened.

The American Wood Quails Odontophorus, Paul A. Johnsgard

Paul Johnsgard Collection

It is ironic that the genus of New World quails that not only has the greatest collective geographic range (from central Mexico to northeastern Argentina) but also the largest number of species (12 or more, varying with the authority), is one of the least known groups of American gallinaceous birds. This is in large measure the result of the fact that all of the species are forest-adapted, and generally are associated with tropical to sub-tropical communities, where opportunities for easy observation are virtually absent.

Not only is this the largest genus of the subfamily Odontophorinae, but also the species tend …

Order Anseriformes: From Check-List Of Birds Of The World, Paul A. Johnsgard

Paul Johnsgard Collection

SUBORDER ANSERES
FAMILY ANATIDAE

SUBFAMILY ANSERANATINAE
GENUS ANSERANAS LESSON

SUBFAMILY DENDROCYGNINAE
GENUS DENDROCYGNA SWAINSON

GENUS THALASSORNIS EYTON

SUBFAMILY ANSERINAE
GENUS CYGNUS BECHSTEIN

GENUS ANSER BRISSON

GENUS BRANTA SCOPOLI

GENUS CEREOPSIS LATHAM

GENUS STICTONETTA REICHENBACH

SUBFAMILY TADORNINAE
GENUS CYANOCHEN BONAPARTE

GENUS CHLOEPHAGA EYTON

GENUS ALOPOCHEN STEJNEGER

GENUS TADORNA FLEMING

GENUS TACHYERES OWEN

SUBFAMILY ANATINAE
GENUS PLECTROPTERUS STEPHENS

GENUS CAIRINA FLEMING

GENUS PTERONETTA SALVADORI

GENUS SARKIDIORNIS EYTON

GENUS NETTAPUS BRANDT

GENUS CALLONETTA DELACOUR

GENUS AIX BOlE

GENUS CHENONETTA BRANDT

GENUS AMAZONETTA BOETTICHER

GENUS MERGANETTA GOULD

GENUS HYMENOLAIMUS GRAY

GENUS ANAS LINNAEUS

GENUS MALACORHYNCHUS SWAINSON

GENUS MARMARONETTA REICHENBACH

GENUS RHODONESSA REICHENBACH

GENUS NETTA …

The Ornithogeography Of The Great Plains States, Paul A. Johnsgard

Paul Johnsgard Collection

It has long been recognized that the Great Plains represent a major transition zone in the distribution patterns of North American birds; field guides traditionally have treated the 100° W. longitude meridian as a convenient dividing line between eastern and western faunas. Furthermore, this line rather neatly bisects the political subdivisions of the Great Plains, namely the "plains states" extending from North Dakota southward through South Dakota, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Texas. Of these, Texas is the least typical, its climate and fauna is strongly influenced by the Gulf Coast on the east and the Chihuahuan desert on the west. As …

The Ornithogeography Of The Great Plains States, Paul A. Johnsgard

Paul Johnsgard Collection

It has long been recognized that the Great Plains represent a major transition zone in the distribution patterns of North American birds; field guides traditionally have treated the 100° W.longitude meridian as a convenient dividing line between eastern and western faunas. Furthermore, this line rather neatly bisects the political subdivisions of the Great Plains, namely the "plains states" extending from North Dakota southward through South Dakota, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Texas. Of these, Texas is the least typical, its climate and fauna is strongly influenced by the Gulf Coast on the east and the Chihuahuan desert on the west. As a …

Sixty-Five Years Of Whooping Crane Records In Nebraska, Paul A. Johnsgard, Richard Redfield

Paul Johnsgard Collection

In 1933, Myron Swenk determined the status of the Whooping Crane in Nebraska by summarizing all of the records then available to him, and established the general pattern of timing and geographic distribution of Whooping Crane occurrence in this state. Although the population of this species has remained very low since that time, a sufficient number of observations have been made to warrant updating his analysis and comparing the more recent records with these earlier ones. During the summer of 1977 the junior author undertook such a summary as a class project, by extracting such records from all of the …