On the Wing #6: Griscom's Legacy: Birds of Concord, Sudbury, and Wayland
Ludlow Griscom (1890-1959) while not as famous as Concord's Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, or Nathaniel Hawthorne, his presence is still appreciated by ornithologists and birders who have graced a local library and perhaps found a curious volume called "Birds of Concord". The book itself isn't a field guide, but instead a reference for any bird lover that wished at the time to better understand the mechanisms behind bird abundance and rarity as well as why migration occurred and what birds were considered common in this small, but rigorously surveyed portion of Massachusetts. Griscom himself was one of the first ornithologists to shift away from "shotgun ornithology" and instead use the field marks present on a bird body to determine its identity. Around the time of Griscom, it was common for those studying birds to have to shoot them in order to tender an identification of the bird in hand. This was certainly true for smaller, harder to see songbirds like sp...