Florence Merriam Bailey

Florence Augusta Merriam Bailey (née Florence Augusta Merriam; August 8, 1863 – September 22, 1948) was an American ornithologist, birdwatcher, and prolific nature writer. In 1929 the American Ornithologists' Union elected her their first female Fellow. In 1931 she became the first woman to receive the Brewster Medal. In 1933 the University of New Mexico awarded her an honorary doctorate.

Quotes

Even on the train we began to feel the grateful influence of restful country life. From the windows we watched the quiet lake, the wayside flowers, and the sea-gulls, engaged in the surprising occupation of following the plow. At our station, a Western meadow-lark sang his sweet strain from a telegraph pole; we could hear blackbirds calling from the marshes.
We took the only wagon that met the train, and drove through the village. It was a typical Mormon village, one of a line of closely connected settlements running along the valley between the Wasatch and the great lake.
- My Summer in a Mormon Village. Houghton, Mifflin & Company. 1894. p. 3. (171 pages)

New Mexico has the distinction of being the first State in the Union from which bird notes were recorded by white men. These notes refer to birds seen on the Coronado Expedition in 1540, three hundred and eighty-eight years ago, eighty-two years before the first recorded birds were seen in New England (see Thomas Morton's New English Canaan, printed in 1637).
The actual study of the birds of New Mexico has attracted naturalists from the the days of the earliest explorations that crossed parts of New Mexico, the first records being made on the Long Expedition to the Rocky Mountains in 1820. ...
The systematic survey of New Mexico was definitely undertaken in 1903, under the direction of Dr. C. Hart Merriam, then Chief of the Biological Survey; and Mr. Vernon Bailey, who had just completed a survey of the adjoining State of Texas, .. was put in charge of the work.
- Birds of New Mexico. based mainly on field work of the Bureau of Biological Survey, U.S. Department of Agriculture. published by New Mexico Department of Game and Fish. 1928. p. 1. (807 pages; with contributions by Wells Woodbridge Cooke; illustrated by Allan Brooks & Louis Agassiz Fuertes)

The amazing views of the Grand Canyon naturally dominate and absorb the attention of the hurried visitor to the canyon rims, but between views the bird-minded may hear arresting songs and cath glimpses of feathered passers-by that will add intimate pleasures to the memories of the "great abyss."
After a night in El Tovar Hotel the familiar song of the western robin may be heard on awakening, followed by the happy song of the rosy house finch well associated with the sunshine of the Southwest. Then perhaps will come the coarse croak of the American raven, adding a grateful bass note to the morning chorus.
- Among the Birds in the Grand Canyon Country. U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service, 1939. p. 1. (211 pages)

A tribute to Florence Merriam Bailey (1863-1948), a passionate ornithologist who revolutionized the way scientists and general nature lovers study birds. Keating introduces Florence as a child who was delighted to sit patiently in the woods to watch birds and take careful notes on their features and behavior. As an adult, she is outraged by the fashion of piling feathers and dead birds atop women’s hats and killing birds in order to study them. She popularized bird watching and promoted protective legislation. She turned her years of note taking into field guides for professionals and the general public alike.
- Barb Rehmeyer, "review of Birdlore: The Iridescent Life of Florence Merriam Bailey by Devon Holzwart & Jess Keating". MSL Book Review.