[cobirds] Joe

Those of us who knew Joe Himmel will always remember him as the kindest of souls who was respectful of everything: us, habitats, landowners and most of all, the birds.  He loved warblers.  I believe he was the first among us to see a Common Ground-Dove and Fulvous Whistling-Duck on Colorado soil.  Anybody who visits the ponds on Weld CR59 s of the old Monfort feedlot e of Greeley, or Norma's Grove nw of Crow Valley, in large measure has Joe to thank for helping put those places on our map.  I saw my first Colorado Snowy Owl at Riverside Reservoir because he told me it was a good place to go.  I cringe when I hear somebody start a COBIRDS post with "there are no records in eBird of.....", because there were a lot of birds and birders before eBird.  Joe and the things he saw bear testimony.  That makes eBird no less powerful a database but should remind us it is nevertheless very incomplete, the filters imperfect, and thru no fault of Tony or anybody else, they always will be.  His passing reminds me anew the world didn't start with one institution, person or technology coming on the scene.  He connects us to an earlier Colorado avifauna that was just as real as the myriad species counted on this year's CBCs.  We need not wring our hands that Joe and his many observations might go wherever we go when we cease breathing.  We just need to remember his humility and apply it to our thinking about our year-end number, our particular style of birding, the collective knowledge of us birders lucky enough to still be birding, and even our birding tools, however technologically savvy they might be.  Joe didn't worry if he was going out the door with everything charged up and what the some alert or digest said was present according to the latest intel.  He just went out the door, probably figured out where he wanted to go after he left the house, and thoroughly enjoyed whatever birds he came across.  And in that mode, probably because of that mode, he saw a ton of birds.

Today we should all listen to a Chopin nocturne, drink a cup of tea, daydream of seeing a Blackburnian next spring at our patch, maybe even shed a tear -  in Joe's honor. 

Dave Leatherman

Fort Collins