Stuart Keith

George Stuart Keith (born September 4, 1931 in Clothall , Hertfordshire , † February 13, 2003 in Chuuk , Micronesia ) was an American ornithologist of British origin. In official publications, the first name George is often abbreviated or not used at all.

Live and act

Keith was born in the village of Clothall, near Baldock , Hertfordshire. During World War II, he moved to Toronto , Ontario , Canada with his mother and four siblings . In 1943 he returned to Britain, where, after the war at Marlborough College , a classics began -Studies. During the Korean War , he served in the King's Own Scottish Borderers Infantry Regiment, where he achieved the rank of lieutenant. Then he graduated Master of Arts in Classics at Worcester College of the University of Oxford .

In 1955 Keith settled in North America. In 1958 he became a research fellow in the ornithological department of the American Museum of Natural History in New York City . He joined the American Ornithologists' Union in 1959, became an elected member in 1970 and was made a Fellow in 1991. From 1965 to 1973 he worked first as a secretary and then as president of the US section of the International Council for Bird Preservation (now BirdLife International ). In 1969 he co-founded the American Birding Association (ABA). From 1973 to 1976 he served as its president.

Between 1961 and 1965 Keith led expeditions to Africa, where he recorded the calls and songs of large numbers of bird species, some of them for the first time. A selection of 90 bird calls was recorded on audio cassettes and LPs by the American Museum of Natural History and published in 1971 under the title Birds of the African Rain Forests .

Keith has long been considered one of the world's most active bird watchers. In 1956 he completed a bird watching excursion through Canada and the United States, where he observed 598 species in just one year, surpassing the annual record of 572 species set by Roger Tory Peterson in 1953. In the early 1970s, Keith was the first person to observe over 4,000 species of birds. Upon reaching 5,450 species, he received an entry in the Guinness Book of Records in 1979 . At the time of his death in February 2003, there were around 6,500 species.

In 1978 Keith joined Emil K. Urban , Leslie H. Brown and Kenneth B. Newman as a member of the preparation team for the book project The Birds of Africa . Before the first volume appeared in 1982, Brown died in 1980. After Newman left the project, Keith and Charles Hilary Fry were co-editors of six volumes of this series between 1986 and 2004.

Keith became a US citizen in 1994. On February 13, 2003, he died of a stroke after a diving trip. Just one day earlier, he was able to add the Ponape Earth Dove ( Alopecoenas kubaryi ) to his "Life-List" (list of observed bird species).

Appreciations and dedication names

In 1993 Keith was awarded the Eisenmann Medal of the Linnaean Society of New York. In 1999 he received the Ludlow Griscom Award from the American Birding Accociation in recognition of his tireless passion and commitment to the bird world of North America. In 1987 Kenneth Carroll Parkes named the subspecies Cisticola chiniana keithi of the red-headed cistus singer from Tanzania in honor of Stuart Keith.

Works (selection)

• Collins Bird Guide: A Photographic Guide to the Birds of Britain and Europe. Collins, London, UK, 1980 (with John Gooders ) (German: BLV-Vogelführer: 467 bird species of Europe, 1982. Translation: Walther Thiede )
• The Birds of Africa, Vol. 2: Game Birds to Pigeons, 1986 (with Charles Hilary Fry and Emil K. Urban )
• The Birds of Africa, Vol. 3: Parrots to Woodpeckers, 1988 (with Charles Hilary Fry and Emil K. Urban)
• The Birds of Africa, Vol. 4: Broadbills to Chats, 1992 (with Charles Hilary Fry and Emil K. Urban)
• The Birds of Africa, Vol. 5: Thrushes to Puffback Flycatchers, 1997 (with Charles Hilary Fry and Emil K. Urban)
• The Birds of Africa, Vol. 6: Picathartes to Oxpeckers, 2000 (with Charles Hilary Fry and Emil K. Urban)
• The Birds of Africa, Vol. 7: Sparrows to Buntings, 2004 (with Charles Hilary Fry and Emil K. Urban) (posthumous)

literature

• Urban, Emil K. (2004). In memoriam: G. Stuart Keith, 1931-2003 . The Auk 121 (1): 253-256. doi : 10.1642 / 0004-8038 (2004) 121 [0253: imgsk] 2.0.co; 2
• Lewis, Paul (March 8, 2003). G. Stuart Keith, a Leading Bird-Watcher, 71 . The New York Times.
• Gill, Boyd (June 22, 1975). Club Promotes Hobby and Sport of Birding . Sarasota Herald-Tribune. P. 51.
• Merritt, James (June 25, 1979). Its Devotees Prefer 'Birding' to 'Bird-Watching' - whichever, Stuart Keith Is Their Superstar . People 11 (25).

Individual evidence

1. ^ The Prescott Courier According to Guinness, May 30, 1980
2. ↑ Our past Eisenmann medalists ( Memento of the original from September 20, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
3. ↑ ABA Award Recipients ( Memento of the original from May 16, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
4. ↑ Kenneth C. Parkes: Taxonomic notes on some African warblers (Aves: Sylviinae) In: Annals of Carnegie Museum 56 (13) pages 231–243 (1987)