Remarks by Tom Clark at the Celebration of Bob's Life, Sept. 20, 2004

It was on my first trip with Bob, Wally and Jim, actually the first time the four of us went birding together. January, 2002, and we were down in the tip of South Texas, around Harlingen and McAllen. Our first morning found us getting out of the rental van at Benson-Rio Grande park. Bob and Wally were standing around, Bob puffing slowly on his pipe as was his wont upon getting ready to head out on the trail. I heard some unknown birds calling from a dense stand of small trees. I asked Wally and Bob if they knew what they were. Bob shrugged and suggested I go see if I could spot them. So I eased on up to the trees, trying to locate the mystery birds. Closer and closer. Some more movement and sounds, but they were still invisible. Bob and Wally were just standing a ways off, checking out the distance with their binoculars, chatting, etc., but basically Bob was watching in his bemused way as I would creep up to try and spot these things. Finally I saw the birds--Green Jays! Large, spectacular, brilliantly colored in greens, yellow and black. My first lifer of the trip! --Later I would realize we would practically be shooing them away like sparrows, they were so common. Now he could have told me all this, but that would have spoiled it for me, wouldn't it? Bob would never just tell you what something was, he gently guided you into figuring it out for yourself, whether you were a new volunteer naturalist trainee or someone he was grooming to be a birding buddy. Even if he had seen a particular bird a hundred times, he reveled in your joy of first time discovery and relived his own through ours. Funny how some people, just like some birds, stand out in your mind.

Bob was what some folks might call lethargic; others, just easy going or contemplative. But boy, could he move when he wanted to! We had been on the hunt for a couple of days at Santa Ana NWR for the one new life bird Bob was confident he could get on this trip, a Tropical Parula warbler. We had been thwarted up to this point, with other folks saying they had just seen it "just 10 minutes ago", but we never could find it. Supposedly hanging out in a foraging group with some chickadees, titmice and nuthatches. Finally I spotted the group come into the tall trees, and the warbler was with them. A call out to Bob "Here it is, the Parula!", followed by his shout to "Keep your eyes on it!!", followed by the sound of his jingling as he hustled up the road to where we stood. Funny how he still had that set of keys, even out and away from Oxley. He was so happy, so satisfied, to see that bird. Even though it meant he had to buy the celebratory "new life bird" round of beer that night. Sometimes I would suspect that was why they invited me along, as most of the birds down there or up in Canada were life birds for me. It got to where it was much easier for Bob to rack up new Life Beers instead of Life Birds, which makes sense if you think about, 'cause there are new brews coming out all the time, but I haven't heard of any new birds being made. I think he enjoyed some of those rarer beers almost as much as the birds. But he was neither bird nor beer snob, with a mass market cream ale playing as important a role as a Cohlmia Warbler the first time he saw or tried it in order to get counted on his lists, those oh so important lists. A poor brew might be proclaimed mere slug bait, but the highest accolade he could give a worthy beer was the admonition never, ever to put a glass of it on your head, because your tongue would beat your brains out trying to get to it.

Another big bird moment was at Anzalduas Park where there was this tiny, brilliant orangey flash, flitting to the top of a post more than a football field away. "Holy shit! It's gotta be a Vermilion Flycatcher!" I had dreamed of seeing one of those for years, and just couldn't contain my excitement. Bob got a real kick out of that, chuckling at me as Jim and Wally got the scopes out. I got embarrassed then, but Bob said he, too, could remember the first times he spotted a particularly desired bird. So what special bird is he enjoying now? Labrador Duck? Carolina Parakeet? Some of you are running down names of your own, aren't you? A dodo, perhaps? Ah, a good one, for sure, but not one Bob would put on his list, and you know he was pretty particular about his lists. Because the rules of Bob's list mandate that it has to be seen in North America, on the north side of that imaginary line down the middle of the Rio Grande. Strange? Yes, but that was the rule. A striking Ivory-billed Woodpecker? A secretive Bachman's Warbler? Or the wonder of Passenger Pigeons in their vanished millions? . . . . Yeah, that's the one.