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Harry Nehls receiving the OFO Lifetime Service Award
At the Oregon Field Ornithologists (OFO) Annual Meeting in Bend, OR June 22-24, Harry Nehls was presented with a Lifetime Service Award to honor his dedicated service to the Oregon birding community over the past 40+ years.
Harry has devoted much of his adult life to promoting birding statewide via slide programs, field trips, writings, and coordinating the compilation of various data sets through his work with the OBRC and the USFWS Breeding Bird Survey. For more than 40 years Harry has served as a one-person clearinghouse for reporting Oregon bird sightings. Among his accomplishments and contributions are the following:
1965-present -- Field Notes Editor for the "The Warbler" (newsletter for the Audubon Society of Portland).
1966-1977 -- Served as a Co-Regional Editor for AMERICAN BIRDS (AB), which is now NORTH AMERICAN BIRDS (NAB).
1977- present -- Has been a sub-regional editor for AB and NAB. Each and every season he has provided a thorough statewide summary of sightings of interest to the Regional Editor responsible for writing the Oregon portion of the Seasonal Report.
1977-present -- Harry has been the one and only voice of the Portland Audubon "Rare Bird Alert" providing weekly phone message updates of all the rare bird sightings from around the state. In the days prior to OBOL (pre-1995) this was the source for finding out about rare sightings.
Over the past five decades Harry has traveled the state doing programs for local Audubon Societies and bird clubs. He has also led countless field trips in the Willamette Valley, in the Portland area and along the northern Oregon coast for Portland Audubon and various other societies.
Harry has served as the statewide coordinator for the USFWS Breeding Bird Survey from at least the mid-70's to present and for more than 30 years he ran routes in the Tumalo area of Deschutes Co. and up the west side of the Alvord Basin in Harney Co.
Harry has authored or co-authored several books that cover the birds of Oregon and the Pacific Northwest. He was the senior contributing author for Birds of Oregon: A General Reference (Marshall et al. 2003). Many of his works have been geared to more casual birders. The most recent of these, Birds of the Willamette Valley Region by Nehls, Tom Aversa and Hal Opperman (2004) is very popular among "feeder watchers" and is readily available at major bookstores throughout Western Oregon.
Additionally, Harry has authored dozens of short to medium length articles for OREGON BIRDS and has been among the most prolific contributors to this publication.
These collective contributions to Oregon birding are simply unmatched by any other amateur field ornithologist living or dead. It is a pretty safe bet that we will never again see someone who approaches this level of service to the Oregon birding community. Harry is very humble about his efforts and sadly more recent generations of Oregon birders have no idea how much work he has done or the extent of his influence within our community. As part of this award process, I will be writing an article for OREGON BIRDS profiling Harry and his contributions. I plan to interview him and get the exact dates of service etc. I'm also interested in any interesting anecdotes relating to interactions with Harry you may have had. I can certainly offer a few interesting stories myself.
I've known Harry since I was 10 years old and I've enjoyed birding with him on many many days. I found my first vagrant warbler (a Magnolia at Fields) in June 1980 when I made trip with Harry to help him run his BBS routes. Six years later we shared our saddest day together when we attended the memorial service for our dear mutual friend Mark Koninendyke who died in a car wreck on his way to Malheur in June 1986. In recent years I've come to more fully appreciate Harry's efforts during my own service with the OBRC and NAB. We honor a friend, a mentor and a true giant in Oregon birding.
Dave Irons
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