IN MEMORIAM: G. STUART KEITH, 1931–2003

Abstract

Stuart Keith, one of the most productive birders the world, a founder and first president of the American Birding Association, and a coeditor of the Birds of Africa series, died on the island of Chuuk (Truk) Micronesia. He passed away as he had said he wanted to-on a birding trip, having seen a new life bird (the Caroline Islands Ground-dove). He went snorkeling the morning of 13 February 2003; that afternoon, he died of a stroke. He was 71 years old. George Stuart Keith was born Clothall, England, near Baldock Hertfordshire, on 4 September 1931. Early World War II, his mother and her four children moved to Toronto, Ontario. In 1943, Stuart returned alone to England to attend Marlborough Collegewhere he became the top classical scholar -and Oxford University's Worcester College, graduating with honors and an M.A. Classics. Between school and Oxford, he was called up into the British Army, commissioned into the King's Own Scottish Borderers, and served as a lieutenant the Korean War. In 1945, after Stuart's family had returned to England, his sister Annabel began observing birds and their nesting habits the garden at Clothall. Stuart soon began to watch birds with her, and he quickly focused on their vocalizations. In the fall of 1955, he returned to North In 1956, he and his brother, Anthony, set out on a birding tour of the United States and Canada, intent on topping Roger Tory Peterson's 1953 record for number of birds seen a calendar year. Stuart surpassed that record, and later years was featured People Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, The New Yorker and Bird Watcher's Digest, where he was called the birdwatcher superstar and the Babe Ruth of listers. In the 1950s, he briefly pursued a career finance; but 1958 he followed his inclination and became a Research Associate the Department of Ornithology the American Museum of Natural History New York City, a post he held for the rest of his life. In the 1960s, Stuart traveled to Japan, where he produced a film on cranes, and to Madagascar, East Africa, and South Africa, where he recorded bird calls and songs. While East Africa, Stuart was accompanied by his first wife, Ronalda Whitman, who recorded amphibian calls there. He studied the birds of the Impenetrable Forest Uganda and the difficult-to-see and poorly known Sarothrurus flufftails. He produced a feature-length 35-mm film on African birds that he narrated and showed for the National Audubon Society. With William Gunn, he produced Birds of the African Rain Forests, two 12-inch 33-rpm records for the American Museum of Natural History and the Federation of Ontario Naturalists. Those discs of Stuart's recordings were the first to specialize calls and songs of African forest birds -some 90 species for the first time. In 1969, Stuart and some of his birding friends founded the American Birding Association (ABA), which today boasts more than 20,000 members. He helped make ABA an organization that birded for fun, but with a scientific approach. Stuart suggested that ABA's first newsletter be called Birding, the name of the ABA journal today. He served as ABA's first president from 1970 to 1976 and was on its board of directors until 1990. At ABA's 30th anniversary meeting 1999, he was awarded the association's highest honor, the Ludlow Griscom Award in appreciation of his vision and leadership shaping ABA and tireless passion and dedication to the birds of North America.