Anne Rose Shanahan passed away peacefully on September 5, 2023, at the age of 92, in the city she loved, New York. Anne was born to Thomas J. Shanahan and Anne Rose (née Burke) Shanahan in Brooklyn, NY. Anne was a scholar, a gifted artist, a beloved sister, aunt and an avid birdwatcher. She spent her early years as a teacher at both Marymount Academy and Marymount College in Tarrytown, New York. An accomplished academic, Anne spent a year studying theology at Regina Mundi in Rome. She also received a doctorate in history and a master’s degree in theology. After history, Anne’s true passion was nature. She was happiest amongst the bird watchers of Central Park photographing the birds, butterflies, flowers, and fauna. Her photographs were featured in multiple publications and exhibited at the Museum of Natural History and the New York University Institute of Fine Arts.
Anne Shanahan was loved by all simply because she was kind and polite to everyone. Birding can be challenging, but Anne always had your back. She made birding and photography fun! Anne was one of the longest Pale Male followers, and she shared her knowledge with all those who fell in love with this beautiful Red-tailed Hawk. She always managed to find and photograph Pale Male on Christmas Day, her definition of a happy holiday. Anne spent years during migration photographing dead birds around the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Despite her attempts to get the museum to place decals on the windows, her pleas fell on deaf ears. But she encouraged the younger people she met to continue to push the museum to change, hoping a new generation will succeed in protecting the birds. That would be a great tribute to Anne.
Because Anne’s funeral was private, there will be a memorial gathering on November 12, 2023 (Sunday) from 1-3 pm by Azalea Pond. All are welcome to join us.
I met John Yrizarry in September of 1988. I was a beginning birder and he was the instructor of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden (BBG) birding class that I had just signed up to take. My experience with birds was basically limited to the Cardinal and Blue Jay that I had gotten to know from the recently established bird feeder that I set up in my backyard. I remember the first bird that I saw with John right outside of the administration building in BBG. It was a Red-eyed Vireo and as I was later to find out this bird was called a “lifer” for me as it was the first time in my life that I had seen the bird. It was great! I started to ask John all kinds of questions about birds and birding and through his enthusiasm and knowledge I began learning. John told me and the class about the terminal moraine that went right through Brooklyn and especially Prospect Park and Greenwood Cemetery. Prospect Park was his favorite venue and he only lived a block away. We saw, on that brisk fall day, a Ruby-throated Hummingbird, a bird I didn’t know existed and better than that a bird that could be found right in Brooklyn. John told us why it didn’t have a ruby throat and that it was a female migrating south. All his knowledge bestowed on our group made the classes a real treasure for all the students. John really touched a nerve in me and my enthusiasm which he ignited has remained with me for all these years.
He made every trip exciting with tons of knowledge about birds, plants, butterflies and the entire natural world that we experienced. There were always stories related to birding and sometimes he acted them out getting many laughs from the class. As I got to know John better I found out that he was a top bird artist and illustrator. At that time he was working on the “Parrots,” a project for the U.S. Government to identify birds that were being smuggled into the U.S. I also found out that he illustrated some of the plates in the “Birds of Colombia,” the number one book for any birder going to Colombia.
With the BBG group John took us to many birding hotspots in the NYC area. I remember my first trip to Riis Park where I recorded my first Brown Creeper and to Jones Beach where I actually ran after a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, another “lifer.” In 1990 John led me and the BBG group on our first overnight birding adventure to Delmarva. We saw about 100 bird species. But more importantly, it was the beginning of the socialization of birding—traveling with a group of people, getting to know them and enjoying the great venues with people of like interests. John made us all feel as one. I have to thank John for all that.
In 1992 we talked John into leading a birding trip to Venezuela. It was so popular that we had to have a huge bus to transport all of our group, I believe 25 in all. His wife Mary came with us. She made everything work smoothly and found many of the birds. John and Mary were the team that made birding that great experience that it was and still is. The BBG birding classes continued every spring and every fall. It was something that you always looked forward to. No matter what happened during the week, at your job or your home, you always knew that there was birding with John on Saturday.
John moved from Brooklyn up to Sterling Forest. Through his actions and with the help of his wife Mary they protected the 17,000 acres that we visit for birding. It was the breeding location of what I believe to be his favorite bird, Golden-winged Warbler. The commute from Sterling Forest to Brooklyn on Saturday started to become too much for him. So in the fall of 2002, John asked me to take over the guiding of the BBG group. It is a position that I still have to this day.
John made all of this possible. He was the inspiration for getting out in nature, being a birder, working with people and basically just enjoying life. He will be truly missed.
Though Matt Cormons was a Linnaean Society member for nearly 50 years, many current members did not have the pleasure of knowing him, since he left the New York metropolitan area in 1985. He joined the Society in 1973—coincidentally, the same year I joined, and we got to know each other through our involvement in the Great Gull Island project.
Matt was a native New Yorker, born in the City on March 30, 1941. After graduating from the City College of New York in 1963 with a degree in biology, he worked for five years at the American Museum of Natural History as a teacher and lecturer, and, later, as a scientific illustrator. In that last capacity, he accompanied Dr. Pedro Wygodzinsky to Venezuela to study black flies, two new species of which were named for him (Simulium cormonsi and Gigantodax cormonsi). He received a master’s degree in animal behavior from the University of Wisconsin in 1972.
From 1974 to 1983, Matt served as director of the Tenafly Nature Center in New Jersey. It was during those years that I first got to know him. He personified the spirit of the Linnaean Society, being interested in all aspects of the natural world, with a special focus on birds. He was a licensed bird bander and expert bird carver. His wife, Grace Donaldson Cormons, was also a bird bander and led the Roseate Tern work on Great Gull Island for many years. Together they imbued their two sons, Tom and Peter, with their love of birds and nature.
In 1985 the family moved to a 43-acre working farm on the Eastern Shore of Virginia. There, Grace established an innovative, nature-based family learning program: SPARK (Shore People Advancing Readiness for Knowledge); she and Matt ran the program along with the farm for many years. Besides leading nature field trips, Matt contributed material and photographs to SPARK’s nature books for young people and wrote the young peoples’ guide, “Wildflowers of the Chincoteague Wildlife Refuge.” Whenever possible, he continued his involvement with the Great Gull Island project. His trips to the Azores to band Roseate Terns are featured in the recent award-winning film about the project, “Full Circle.”
Matt passed away on his farm on December 16, 2022, after a long fight with cancer. In recent years, his illness curtailed much of his active field work, but he continued to work on his writing. The Entomological Society of Washington recently published a paper on digger wasps based on his master’s thesis, and a longer one on homing behavior has been submitted to another journal.
Grace says that “sharing his love of nature with his five enthusiastic grandchildren was probably his greatest joy.”
Alan Messer, past president of the Society, passed away at home on December 26, 2022, after a lengthy battle with cancer. Alan was born in Albany, Oregon, and attended the San Francisco Art Institute. After moving to New York he began spending time in Central Park, deepening his love for nature and birding. Alan was an accomplished artist, especially of the landscapes of New York City and the Oregon coast. He was also a published illustrator of birding journals and guidebooks, and his line drawings graced the pages of both the Linnaean Society’s Proceedings and our annual schedule of events for many years.
Alan joined the Linnaean Society of New York in 1991. He led walks and served on the council (now called the board of directors) for several years, as recording secretary from 1999-2001 and 2003-2005 and as president, from 2005-2007. Below is the eulogy that I prepared for the memorial service that was held on Friday, December 30. A recording of the service is available.
—Rochelle Thomas, President
I know the exact date I met Alan for the first time. It was Saturday, June 2, 2012. The Wild Bird Fund’s center had just opened, and it was packed shoulder to shoulder with people from all over, anxious to see the inside of New York City’s brand-new wildlife hospital.
On that day, I was the unofficial tour organizer, shouting at people to sign in, form lines, and make donations. In the midst of all this chaos, a tall, bespectacled man walked up to the front desk and said, “I’m here to lead the Central Park walk.”
“What walk!?” I barked, “No one told me about a walk! It’s not on the tour list!!” And because the center was teeming with bodies, I sent him immediately to the Columbus Avenue curb, where he waited patiently until I rounded up four people who would go on to enjoy the extraordinary experience of an Alan Messer-led bird walk.
Within a few short months, Alan’s walks were a regular feature at the center, and he and I formed a pretty solid partnership. I organized and promoted the walks and checked folks in at the desk, and then Alan took over, pointing out the subtle beauty of a grackle while implanting an ever-so-important conservation message (along with a requisite number of jokes). On those walks, Alan taught me nearly everything I now know about birds. (I mean—I knew a few birds before I met Alan, but didn’t really consider myself to be a birder.) And for this I feel extremely lucky, because to learn to see birds or to observe any kind of nature with Alan was a special gift. In Alan’s world, every bird or plant had a distinctive shape and color that when described by him, made them seem even more beautiful than they actually were. I joked that Alan had some kind of supernatural color vision, or, at least, could see more shades of green than humanly possible; but I really thought it was true. And it’s because of Alan that I’ll never NOT see the “citrine” breast of the Great Crested Flycatcher or think of a Prothonotary Warbler as anything but “cadmium” yellow.
The Wild Bird Fund walks were also great fun. They were filled with jokes, inappropriate political rants, discussions about art, culture, and New York City, old and new. Often there was more talking than walking, and when Alan got stuck on the splendor of a bird’s scapulars, I’d be right there behind him, physically pushing his body forward so we could move faster than 50 feet an hour.
Alan was the best kind of best friend. The kind who always had my back no matter what. The kind who did not take it personally when I was too stressed out to even meet up in the park. He was also an inspiration to most of us in this room, never giving up on his causes, social and environmental, despite being so sick for so long. Alan’s will to go on, to endure treatment after treatment, hoping to see the return of migrants in the spring, or refine a painting that was already perfect, or, most importantly, to spend just a little more time with his beloved Janet, are sentiments I will carry with me forever.
It’s winter now, but soon it will be spring and I’ll think of Alan when the warblers return. In summer, I’ll remember sitting with him on a park bench while he sketched a robin on its nest, somehow capturing the look of sweet love the mother robin gave to the young she was protecting. When autumn comes, I’ll channel his keen eye and patience whenever I try to differentiate between blackpoll and bay-breasted in fall plumage. And when the leaves fall, and winter comes again, I’ll think about one of my first park memories with Alan, a day in late November when we tallied three different Barred Owls, or as we liked to refer to it later, “the three-owl tour.” I feel so lucky for everything that Alan has given me and although I’ll miss him so very much, I also know that he will always and forever be a part of all of the wild and wonderful things that are outside waiting to greet me.
Louise Fraza passed away on November 15, 2022. She was a member of the Linnaean Society for 26 years and a friend to many in the field. I last saw her on February 14, 2021, when a few brave souls battled what felt like near-Arctic conditions at Croton Point Park. She will be missed by many in our community. — Rochelle Thomas, President
A Personal Tribute: Our Memories of Louise Fraza
Our dear friend has passed. She left swiftly and in peace.
We met Louise Fraza while birding more than thirty years ago, and quickly became fast friends. First we birded together locally, then ventured farther out by visiting parts of Central and South America and Manitoba.
Louise was a kind, generous, and adventurous person who loved being in nature, the sort of person that everyone liked because they sensed her caring nature. She saw good in everyone and was sensitive to the feelings and needs of others. One memory that stays with us took place at the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge. We were on a trip with the Linnaean Society when we received a report of a Ruff on the East Pond. We hastened our walk, but then noticed that Louise wasn’t with us. She had fallen behind to help a birder who couldn’t walk quickly, because she didn’t want that person to feel alone. Happily, we all saw the Ruff.
Louise gave so much. She was active in the anti-fracking movement. She devoted time and energy to a close friend who was sick in the aftermath of 9/11; this interfered with her beloved birding, but she gave her all the support she could. She also gave much of herself to the Linnaean Society, from her participation on the Council to her work registering many trips, including some to distant places like Arizona.
Louise participated with us in the Christmas Bird Counts as long as she could, including those at Stuyvesant Town and the Cove. It was she who found the Varied Thrush during one CBC. She loved Doodletown, and we shared many joyful moments there among the birds, butterflies, and other denizens of its enchanting woodland. She also devoted time to Keep Conservation, a grassroots organization started by her friend Linda Atkins. It is devoted to preserving and upgrading donated and purchased land for birds and other animal and plant species. In addition to being an expert birder, Louise was an accomplished folk dancer, with a repertoire that included both international and American dances.
She birded with us until mid-July of 2021. On our final trip she saw the Little Blue Heron. On July 28, 2021, she departed for Holland. We always kept in touch, and she sent us pictures of Dutch butterflies.
The bulk of our happy bird memories include Louise. We will miss her each time we go to Central Park. She will also be missed by the many other friends she made here, by her spouse, and by her family in Holland. Her special energy will always be remembered. At the end, she sent us all her love, and that love will always remain with us.
Emily Peyton passed away quietly in her sleep on October 15, ending a brave, 5-year ordeal with stage-four cancer.
As Emily’s companion and husband for 25 years, the obituary here will run personal, with a focus not just on Emily’s considerable accomplishments, but also on her quiet but indominable character, and her deep attachment with the natural world around her. I believe this perspective will ring true with the many Linnaean members who knew her, from the park and elsewhere, many of whom have expressed deeply appreciated remembrances.
Emily was born in Richmond, Virginia, spent her high school years in Rocky Mount, NC, and attended University of North Carolina (math major), later Stern School in NYC for a masters. She worked for 45 years in technical sales with IBM, before retiring in 2018.
Emily and I met on a Linnaean trip to Brigantine I was leading (on April 8, 1995, to be perfectly exact). By then I was in full transition to butterfly study, working on East Coast book photos. As our orbits began to synchronize, Emily continued to bird actively, while I jaunted off on one photo trip or another. Eventually she would scold me on missing a birding field mark I’d formerly known, but which had slipped away from disuse. She really was good in the field.
As “book work” intensified, Emily became my co-traveling field manager, invaluably helping me relocate subjects that had spooked and flown off, and (importantly) retrieving exposed film cartridges that had slipped from my pocket. But all the while she was quietly studying, and once the book was done, I gave her an old Nikon body, along with a flash and macro lens. She quickly became a proficient field photographer, with a specialty on capturing butterflies in flight that significantly surpassed my own abilities. She never wanted to show her shots in a separate presentation – she was happy just to take them and enjoy what she was seeing. (I have a memorial deck of her photos, presented to NYC Butterfly Club, for any interested.)
Photographs courtesy of Rick Cech
We traveled widely in our time together, to visit nature and photograph butterflies – Peru, Ecuador, Brazil, Argentina, Panama, Belize, Mexico, Jamaica, Hungary, South Africa, multiple US/Canadian locations. Photographing 350 some-odd butterfly species at Cristalino in Brazil, in just over a week, was perhaps the epitome of our life together.
Many of us will miss her, and may she rest in peace.
Hoary Redpoll. A species I have rarely seen as it stays up in the far North even in the bleakest, snowiest of winters. But–Hoary Redpoll will forever be associated in my mind with Eleanor Mattusch, a long-time Linnaean Society Of New York member who died June 1, 2022.
I first met Eleanor in 1977, when I was a rather new member of LSNY. She was one of those people who I had a rapport with, as we had similar views on the absurdities of life, and was able to share it with observational, sometimes ironic humor. She also was a forthright person, never mean-spirited but not sugar-coating either.
Photograph courtesy of Richard ZainEldeen
Eleanor was a retired school teacher out in Queens, where she resided. She often birded in Central Park, as well as attended LSNY meetings. However, it was on the LSNY’s Centennial trip to Churchill, Manitoba in June 1978 that I really got to know her better.
It was I who discovered the Hoary Redpoll in a low, dense thicket east of the town of Churchill. Despite the fact that Eleanor, in her bright, smooth blue jacket and light patterned scarf, was directly behind me, she failed to see the bird. For years after that, she joked that it was my fault she hadn’t seen the Hoary Redpoll; it was years later while in Alaska, that she finally had that species as a Lifer.
Eventually, Eleanor moved from Queens to Cranberry Township, a place north of Pittsburgh where she had family. Just before she left, I paid a visit to her apartment for the first (and last) time and I have a photograph of our having dinner at a local diner. It is something I will always cherish.
I never saw her again. Through the years we did send email messages, and called occasionally.
She was getting frail with her maneuverability affected. But she still enjoyed her occasional Dewar’s on the rocks!
Last August 9th, I called her up to wish her a happy 91stbirthday. She told me about the assisted living place she was living at; how her wheelchair didn’t quite fit in her room. All with the same old Eleanor humor.
I never was able to speak to her again. She descended into the labyrinth of healthcare facilities where her phone kept ringing and ringing, but no one picked up and there were no answering machines on which I could leave a message.
Grateful. Yes, I am very grateful for the laughter we shared all those years. More importantly, I am certainly glad she finally saw that darned Hoary Redpoll!
I first met Tom when I interviewed for a job with him in late 1980, having been introduced by another longtime Linnaean member, Roger Pasquier. Like Tom, I was a native New Yorker, and had fallen in love with birds at Jamaica Bay and in Central Park. I met him at his family’s office in New York City, and within a second we both chuckled as we realized we were wearing identical blue Brooks Brothers suits. First impressions do count, and I was hired.
Born and raised in New York City, Thomas Lovejoy joined the Linnaean Society in 1961. He transcended his ornithological interests to become one of the most noted conservationists of our times. Tom, as he was known, became interested in birds as a child, but when he went to Millbrook School up the Hudson River, his broader intellectual curiosity in the biotic world was sparked. After Millbrook, he went to Yale, worked in the Peabody Museum as an undergrad, and even wandered off for a year to study birds along the Nile. Graduating in 1964, he stayed on for graduate work. He visited the Amazon to research avian migrants and fell in love with its magnificent flora and fauna. He then focused on the resident avian species and pioneered mist-netting in the Amazon’s forest canopy. He received his PhD in 1971 for delving into the mathematics of diversity (Lovejoy, T.E. 1975. Bird Diversity and Abundance in Amazon Forest Communities. Living Bird 13:127-191). At Yale he also became quite close to Professor Evelyn Hutchinson, who built on Charles Elton‘s idea of an ecological niche, further refining it as “a highly abstract multi-dimensional hyperspace.” Evelyn, who studied nutrient cycling, was also one of the first proponents of the notion that an increase in carbon dioxide would lead to a global temperature increase.
At Yale, Tom also fell in love with and married another professor’s daughter, Charlotte Seymour. Her grandfather had been Yale’s president, and her father a distinguished art historian. Tom and Charlotte, who was known as Mopsy (from Beatrix Potter’s tales), started their family in New Haven. Tom remained an inveterate Yalie all his life, closely involved with its School of the Environment and later chairing the University’s Institute for Biospheric Studies, known as the Biosphere 2.
After New Haven, he moved to Washington D.C. with Charlotte to raise their family and begin a career in conservation, though they amicably divorced shortly thereafter. Throughout his career, Tom was a major proponent of three key issues: the loss of biological diversity, tropical deforestation, and climate change. Indeed, he coined the term biological diversity, which he later shortened to biodiversity. He brought each of these issues to the world’s attention through both his research and his ability to bring people together. While at the World Wildlife Fund, Tom started the incredibly ambitious Minimum Critical Size of Ecosystems project, now called the Biological Dynamics of Forest Fragments Project. In perhaps the largest study ever of forest fragmentation, Tom worked with the Brazilian government and local ranchers near Manaus to preserve forest plots of one hectare, 10 hectares, and 100 hectares that were isolated by surrounding grazing areas. He then raised the funds to bring in a host of North American and Brazilian scientists and students to study the effects of isolation on each plot’s flora and fauna (Lovejoy, T.E., and D.C. Oren. 1981. The minimum critical size of ecosystems. Pp. 7-12 in R.L. Burgess and D.M. Sharp, Eds. Forest Island Dynamics in Man Dominated Landscapes. Ecological Studies Vol. 41. Springer-Verlag; and Bierregaard, R. O. 2001. Lessons from Amazonia: The Ecology and Conservation of a Fragmented Forest. Yale University Press). The project, managed on site for its first eight years by Rob Bierregaard, was not only epic in scope, but brought a host of trained academicians to the Amazon and, as importantly, trained a generation of Brazilian biologists. Over the years this project and other facets of his work involved a number of Great Gull Islanders and Linnaean members, whom Tom relentlessly recruited for his projects.
As vice-president for science at the World Wildlife Fund–U.S. under Russell Train, whopreviously had headed the EPA, Tom also provided scientific reviews and recommendations on all the projects the organization considered funding. Among many many others, Tom ardently supported Russell Mittermeier’s work on primates and Anne Labastille’s efforts to protect and restore the Lake Atitlan Grebe. Reflecting Tom’s panache, her work on this highly endangered species was celebrated every July 14 (Bastille Day) in his office. He wrote copiously and spoke frequently, and was considered the consummate conservation host in the nation’s capital. Nearly every week, when he was not in Brazil or traveling elsewhere, Tom would pull together splendid but low-key dinners for visiting conservationists at his home, called Drover’s Rest, in McLean, Virginia. E.O. Wilson, Paul Ehrlich, Jared Diamond, George Woodwell, Jane Lubchenco, and many others were his guests. Following a tour of his splendid garden, filled with unusual and interesting plants, guests were treated to a table laden with good food and great wines, and a long comfortable evening spent plotting conservation strategies. Indeed, it was because of George Woodwell, founder of the Woods Hole Research Center (now known as the Woodwell Climate Research Center), that late one night in the early 1980s Tom’s interest in climate change was reignited. He pondered a graph that George shared, showing rising global atmospheric carbon levels, and, recollecting Evelyn’s work, soon began to promote an awareness of the ecological consequences (Climate Change and Biodiversity. Lovejoy & Hannah, Eds. 2006. Yale Univ. Press).
Long a great admirer and close friend of ornithologist Dillon Ripley, his professor at Yale and later secretary of the Smithsonian (1964-84), Tom himself had a hankering to work for the Smithsonian, and after his time at WWF, from 1987 until 1994, he was the assistant secretary for the environment there. He stayed on a bit longer as a senior scientist. Then, in 2002, he became president of the H. John Heinz III Center for Science, Economics and the Environment. In recent years he was a professor at George Mason University, lecturing on biodiversity.
Thomas Eugene Lovejoy III was born to Thomas Jr. and Jeanne Gillette Lovejoy, their only child, in 1942. His grandfather had acquired the Manhattan Life Insurance Company in 1912, and his father was later its president. Throughout his life, Tom remained involved with the company and later chaired its board. Indeed, it is perhaps not surprising that New York City’s first re-introduced set of Peregrine Falcons were hacked off the company’s building on West 57th Street by Tom Cade. (https://www.audubon.org/news/remembering-tom-cade-father-peregrine-falcon-conservation)
Tom’s marriage to Charlotte ended in a divorce, but they remained close friends until she passed away in 2013. Tom and Charlotte are survived by their three daughters, Elizabeth, Katherine, and Anne, plus six grandchildren.
Throughout his career Tom was a prolific author (he edited 10 books and authored or co-authored 321 papers) and spoke tirelessly about the issues important to him, leveraging his charm to reach a wider audience. After working for him for several years, I came to think of him as Mother Nature’s elf on Earth—always smiling, self-deprecating, witty, welcoming, and immeasurably bright. Even amidst all his research and the need to raise funds and deal with the tentacles of bureaucracy, he still managed with his trademark effervescent joy and great aplomb to bring influential and politically connected people to the Amazon and to his side, including Walter Cronkite, Tom Cruise, Ben Bradlee, and Al Gore. Tom always danced on the edge of politics and science—even, in the 1980s, coming up with the notion of nature-for-debt swaps as a way for wealthy nations to fund nature preserves in developing countries, an idea being replicated currently in the form of carbon tax credits. Not surprisingly, Tom received a number of accolades for all his great work, including election to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, and the U.S. National Academy of Science. He was also awarded USC’s Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement and the Blue Planet Prize.
Tom was a frequent visitor to NYC and attended the Society’s banquet in 2020. Deep down, I will dare say, he was always a New Yorker at heart—bright, energetic, and competitive….just don’t tell his great circle of Washington friends.
