History of Ornithology

It's the 8 March, so let's celebrate this cover, sent 201 years ago today, to Rev. Bulwer, who discovered the petrel that still bears his name.
#ornithology #philately

From Description to Explanation: Why Social Philately Matters March 2026

In case you weren't aware, my latest Substack article, From Description to Explanation: Why Social #Philately Matters, is now available. Link below....

open.substack.com/pub/stampden...

(1/3) Shown here: an 1884 Notice of Removal postal card bearing a handstamp for the "Bulletin of the Cooper Ornithological Club." The manuscript date “8/30/99” appears beside it. Not postally used, the card was likely used to test a new handstamp.
#ornithology #philately

(3/3) The new bi-monthly Bulletin debuted Jan–Feb 1899. Donald Atherton Cohen (pictured), who had edited the COC column in The Osprey and had been on the committee, was the club's business manager. The Cohen of "Costigan, Cohen & Co." on our postal card was his brother, Edgar; hence its use here.

(2/3) In 1898, the Cooper Ornithological Club having previously relied on The Nidiologist and The Osprey as it's mouthpiece, determined it needed its own journal to publish its proceedings, activities and research. So, on Dec 3, a committee was appointed to develop plans for a bi-monthly bulletin.

(1/3) Shown here: an 1884 Notice of Removal postal card bearing a handstamp for the "Bulletin of the Cooper Ornithological Club." The manuscript date “8/30/99” appears beside it. Not postally used, the card was likely used to test a new handstamp.
#ornithology #philately

British Postal Guide (1902) for comparison...

As someone who values context as much as content, my preference is for the detailed write-ups. In the end, detailed work is what creates authority, and authority is what keeps serious history-minded readers coming back.

Thank you for helping spread the word. This Substack is a placeholder for now while I prepare a body of articles for launch. In the meantime, I’m publishing monthly pieces on my History in the Mail Substack.

(3/3) In his book, Modern Bird Study, Griscom argued that the “growing army of bird watchers... can really assist the ornithologist in solving problem after problem by controlled, careful, and thorough observation." A 1994 biography of Griscom was titled “Dean of the Birdwatchers."

(2/3) The shift came with Ludlow Griscom at the American Museum of Natural History. He argued birds could be identified by field marks—plumage, structure, behavior—without collecting. Observation, disciplined and comparative, could rival the specimen.

(1/3) When Frank Chapman published Color Key to North American Birds (1903), he insisted a bird be “in hand” to be identified. Field observations by amateurs carried little scientific weight; authority still rested with the gun and the specimen drawer.
#ornithology #philately

Seen today on Kotokunuma, all winter visitors (some resident as well)...
ヒドリガモ – Eurasian Wigeon
ハシビロガモ – Northern Shoveler
オナガガモ – Northern Pintail
マガモ – Mallard
ミコアイサ – Smew
オオバン – Eurasian Coot
オオハクチョウ – Whooper Swan

Kotokunuma (古徳沼) in Naka City, Ibaraki, Japan, is one of the leading wintering site for migratory swans (mainly Whooper Swans) in the Kanto region. The pictured signboard shows the annual count since S41 (Showa 41 = 1966). The numbers since H29 (2017) have been steadily increasing.
#ornithology

(3/3) The cover was likely prepared before Beck’s departure and dispatched on the next available mail ship from Tahiti. Correspondence indicates it may have enclosed financial documents relating to the schooner’s December 1921 purchase and refit, which would explain why it was sent registered mail.

(2/3) Handwriting comparison suggests the cover was likely addressed by the ornithological collector and expedition leader Rollo Beck (1870-1950). However, logs show that Beck had departed Papeete on 1 Feb aboard the France, a 75-foot Tahitian schooner recently acquired for the expedition.

(1/3) Registered cover dated 13 February 1922, sent from Papeete, Tahiti, to Robert Cushman Murphy at the American Museum of Natural History, New York. The envelope bears no sender’s name but is clearly connected to the Whitney South Sea Expedition.
#ornithology #philately

(3/3) The expedition’s winter camp was at Wainwright, with the local school serving as headquarters. It was here that Muriel sent this cover. A Roman numeral “XI” on the reverse suggests it was her 11th letter, using a numbering system to alert Alfred if any correspondence went missing.

(2/3) Bailey accepted and resigned from the Bureau. Unable to take his wife, Muriel Etta Eggenberg (1895–1998), and their newborn daughter Beth, he arranged for them to settle in Iowa City, renting a house on Evans Street, near her parents and sisters to await his return 16 months later.

(1/3) In 1921, the Director of the Colorado Museum of Natural History offered ornithologist Alfred Marshall Bailey (1894–1978), the U.S. Bureau of Biological Survey's first representative in Alaska, a job collecting birds and mammals for the museum north of the Arctic Circle.
#ornithology #philately

(3/3) In 1884, Balch represented Vermont at the New Orleans World’s Fair with an extensive display state birds and mammals, earning him a position as the state taxidermist. Later, as director of the Vermont Fairbanks Museum natural history department, he became known for his full-habitat dioramas.

(2/3) The cover is addressed to naturalist and taxidermist William Everard Balch (1854-1919) of Lunenburg, Vermont. Balch came to taxidermy in 1876, after serving an apprenticeship in his father’s carriage shop, and a two-year sojourn on America's western frontiers.

(1/3) Another cover from Frank Blake Webster (see quoted thread), publisher of The Ornithologist and Oölogist. Here he has animated a plain envelope with six different handstamps applied front and back, then sealed it with a paper fox silhouette pasted over the rear flap.
#philately #ornithology

A pleasant day at the Kasai Seaside Park Bird Sanctuary, Japan.

(3/3) On the front of the cover, Webster advertises “Photographs of Natural History Specimens $1.25 per dozen,” while the entire reverse is filled with a product list, including artificial eyes, the line that had launched his natural history empire in 1875 as A.L. Ellis & Co. of Pawtucket.

(2/3) For the new premises, Webster chose a site opposite Hazelwood Station on the busy Old Colonial Railway line, giving customers easy rail access and ensuring high visibility to commuters; the engraving on his postal stationery shows the white-washed building from a rail passenger’s perspective.

(1/2) In 1890, ornithological publisher, taxidermist, and natural history dealer Frank Blake Webster built a new Museum and Naturalists’ Supply Depot at Hyde Park, Massachusetts, 7 miles from Boston, after the firm’s existing Boston premises proved too small to accommodate its growth.
#ornithology

(1/3) This March 1928 cover from mammalogist and field naturalist John Alden Loring (1871–1947) of Owego, New York, was sent to Thomas Calderwood Stephens (1876–1948), chair of biology at Morningside College, Sioux City (1906–46), and editor of The Wilson Bulletin.
#ornithology #philately

(3/3) The sender, John Alden Loring, is widely recognised for his work as a collector for the U.S. Biological Survey and the Smithsonian. He participated in major North American expeditions, including the Smithsonian-Roosevelt African Expedition of 1909 with Colonel Edgar Mearns and Edmund Heller.

(2/3) Stephens was editor of The Wilson Bulletin from 1925 to 1938. He was also active in numerous scientific societies including the AOU and Cooper Ornithological Club. He published about 75 ornithological papers and in 1945, privately issued An Annotated Bibliography of South Dakota Ornithology.