Ontbirds subscribers,
With the passing of Douglas S. Miller at age 100, Ontario loses its birder with the longest tenure in our province. With his first birding in the 1920s, by the mid-1930s, 1940s and 1950s Doug's fingerprints were all over the birding and ornithology scene in the Toronto area. He was a regular finder of rare birds in the Toronto area, including the first record of Bell's Vireo for Ontario, found just west of High Park on Ellis Avenue with Frank Cook, John MacArthur, Henry Barnett and Thomas Barnett on May 18, 1940. Whether finding Laughing Gull on the waterfront, Nelson's Sparrow at Sunnyside, Western Meadowlark in King Township, Canada Jay at Vandorf or Buff-breasted Sandpiper on the Toronto Islands airfield, Doug kept his contemporaries running to see interesting finds on a regular basis. He is mentioned frequently in Richard Saunders' 1947 book 'Flashing Wings' which paints a vivid portrait of the birding scene in Toronto in the late 1930s and early 1940s. On July 23, 1938, he and Ott Devitt confirmed the first breeding of LeConte's Sparrow in the Toronto area when they found a fledged young bird only a few feet out of the nest in the York Region side of the Holland Marsh in King Township. On July 31, 1948, he and Richard Saunders confirmed the first breeding of Green-winged Teal in the Toronto area when they found adults with 8 downy young in the last remnants of the once great Ashbridge's Bay Marsh near Leslie Street. Throughout the late 1930s and early 1940s he was part of a large contingent of birders including Jim Baillie, Richard Saunders, Murray Speirs, Victor Crich, Dick Ussher, Ott Devitt, Terry Shortt, Cliff Hope, Dalton Muir, Dick Robinson, Robert Bateman, Al Gordon, John Crosby, Yorke Edwards, Charles Molony, Bill Wasserfall, Hugh Halliday, Jack Satterly, Robert Ritchie, Don Holland, Chuck Wheeler and Andy Laurie, who documented the breeding of Upland Sandpiper, Grasshopper Sparrow, Henslow's Sparrow, LeConte's Sparrow and Short-eared Owl right within the city limits in the Armour Heights section of the former York Downs Golf Course lands. He was a talented nest-finder and found the nests of many species for which there are very few nests all-time in the Toronto area. He first became a member of the Toronto Ornithological Club in 1939 and the Brodie Club in 1947. Now gone, but most assuredly not ever easily forgotten. Glenn Coady Whitby _______________________________________________ ONTBIRDS is presented by the Ontario Field Ornithologists (OFO) - the provincial birding organization. Send bird reports to birdalert@ontbirds.ca For information about ONTBIRDS including how to unsubscribe visit http://www.ofo.ca/site/page/view/information.ontbirdssetup Posting guidelines can be found at http://www.ofo.ca/site/page/view/information.ontbirdsguide Visit the OFO Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/OntarioFieldOrnithologists
