Secure A Copy A Love Affair With Birds: The Life Of Thomas Sadler Roberts Designed By Sue Leaf Ready In Digital Version
Sadler Robertsmoved from Philadelphia to Minneapolis with his family when he was a boy, and when the Twin Cities were still in their youth more twin villages than cities.
He became an avid ornithologist birder early in life, His profession as a grownup was that of doctor, and he delivered many of the babies of Minneapolis' uppercrust families.
He continued doctoring until very late in life, but more and more of his time was devoted to birds.
He was primary author of the authoritative "The Birds of Minnesota, " He was the first curator of the Bell Museum of Natural History at the University of Minnesota.
He never spent a whole lot of time outside of Minnesota, but he knew his state and its birds thoroughly.
This book is ideal for the person with both a deep interest in the history of Minnesota and in birds.
I have an interest in both, but not a deep interest, and a long magazine article probably would have sufficed for me.
Still, "A Love Affair With Birds" is interesting and wellwritten, As a zoologist married to a doctor, Sue Leaf writes knowledgeably and well about both aspects of Roberts, and she gives the reader a good sense of the times and places.
I don't know the Twin Cities all that well, but it was still fun for me to read about what our state's only major metropolitan area was like in its early days.
It turns out Roberts had a close association with Francis Lee and Florence Jaques, Lee Jaques offered illustrations for his book and dioramas for his museum, Reading about them was a bonus for me, because their book, "Canoe Country," is a favorite of mine.
Florence's line about finally encountering a bull and cow moose
"When they finally did see us, they didn't believe in us" is one of my alltime favorite sentences in any book.
As an ornithologist living in the midwest myself, this book hit home on a numbers of levels.
The history of our relationship to birds and how weve treated natural habitats is fraught with losses, all of which are exemplified in the story of Robertss life.
His love and knowledge of birds started from a very young age, but more than that he life began on a western frontier, making him a first hand witness to how the evolution of a civilization parallels the destruction of nature.
Reading his account of this tale tears at your soul and makes it feel like a loss experienced firsthand.
As he watched the nature he loved fade around him, he fought harder and harder to share what was and what could be with as many as possible.
Ever hoping that fostering a connection between people and nature could save what was disappearing,
The Bell Natural History Museum at least the website bears little to no mention on Thomas Sadler Roberts and how he was the driving force of the institutions creation and curation.
Not being the financier or the artist of the dioramas, his name seems to have faded into the background.
I hope to visit there some day when all this Covid crisis is passed, And while there, I will look at the exhibits how Thomas would have, and try to see, once again, through his eyes.
What a wonderful biography! Im not sure why I enjoyed this so much, Its a great natural history of “Industrial Age” Minneapolis and Minnesota for that matter, While it chronicles the destruction of some of the natural beauty in my town, it also gives hope that some environmental disasters can be turned around like the return of Bald Eagles and Sandhill cranes to our area.
The history of one of our Minnesota treasures, the Bell Museum, is well covered as well.
I was shocked to learn how early naturalists just shot/killed the birds they wanted to observe so they could get up close and personal.
Roberts himself wasnt controversial, so theres not a lot of drama yet the book keeps you engaged.
Well done. The father of Minnesota ornithology, whose life story opens a window on a lost world of nature and conservation in the states early days
Imagine a Minneapolis so small that, on calm days, the roar of St.
Anthony Falls could be heard in town, a time when passenger pigeons roosted in neighborhood oak trees.
Now picture a dapper professor conducting his ornithology class the universitys first by streetcar to Lake Harriet for a morning of birdwatching.
The students were mostly young womenin sunhats, sailor tops, and long skirts, with binoculars strung around their necks.
The professor was Thomas Sadler Roberts, a doctor for three decades, a bird lover virtually from birth, the father of Minnesota ornithology, and the man who, perhaps more than any other, promoted the study of the states natural history.
A Love Affair with Birds is the first full biography of this key figure in Minnesotas past.
Roberts came to Minnesota as a boy and began keeping detailed accounts of Minneapoliss birds.
These journals, which became the basis for his landmark work The Birds of Minnesota, also inform this book, affording a view of the states rich avian life in its early daysand of a young man whose passion for birds and practice of medicine in a young Minneapolis eventually dovetailed in his launching of the beloved Bell Museum of Natural History.
Bird enthusiast, doctor, author, curator, educator, conservationist: every chapter in Robertss life is also a chapter in the states history, and in his story acclaimed author Sue Leafan avid bird enthusiast and nature lover herselfcaptures a true Minnesota character and his time.
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