This is a tribute to Irv Black.
Irv Black? Irv Black? Wasn’t he the character played by Brad Pitt in the movie with Anthony...?
No that was another guy named Black. And even though the one I am referring to has, in fact, surrendered his mortal life to that other guy named Black, what I remember most about this life-long birder was his zestful engagement with the living world.
Irv, former and long-time Region 2 Editor for Records of New Jersey Birds and retired curator of the Newark Museum was a birder’s birder. One of the last of the old breed.
Like contemporaries Vince Abrayties, Howard Drinkwater, Floyd Wolfarth—guys who watched birds before it was chic—he was the picture and the epitome of a New Jersey birder. A role model who inspired, among others, people like Frank Gill, author of Ornithology, brother Doug Gill, and Rich Kane, New Jersey’s titular birder, Irv’s hand, heart, and mind helped shape the course of birding and he did this with distinguished style.
Or do I mean distinctive. Fact was, Irv was something of a genial birding curmudgeon. Sightings of rare of unusual birds were characteristically suspect until proven otherwise (meaning unless Irv saw them with his own, two, falsehood defeating eyes). I’m not saying he wasn’t fair: I’m saying he brought a measure of scientific objectivity to his treatment of birds. He was, in fact, the first editor I ever faced. It happened in 1976.
It was the winter before my Spring Hawk Count on Raccoon Ridge and, being unemployed; I had a lot of time to bird in and around the family homestead in Whippany. Having become acquainted with the New Jersey Audubon Society, and aspiring to become an active member of the New Jersey birding community, I dutifully submitted a list of bird sightings to the guy who was the editor for the Region—Region II. Irv Black.
I don’t remember all the sightings I sent to Mr. Black. I note, looking at the May 1976 issue of Records of New Jersey Birds (the one with Long-eared Owls on the cover) that he saw fit to print my observations of Turkey Vultures on Feb. 12, (Northern) Goshawk on Jan. 29, Virginia Rails at the Morristown Airport, Common Redpolls on Dec. 5, and....
Most importantly, to my mind, the Red-shouldered Hawks I recorded in February but were assessed, by Irv to have “wintered at Whippany.”
It was the first time I’d opened the pages of any publication and seen my name in print. It was gratifying. It was affirming. It said, in black and white, that I was part of a community, a tribe, whose roots went back in to natural history’s past and whose branches scratched the present.
Irv was one of the main limbs. For years, I, and many other birders, clung to his words.
My favorite encounter with Irv came as a result of the discovery of five Stilt Sandpipers at the Wetlands Institute outside Stone Harbor. This encounter also underscored Irv’s celebrated skepticism.
Irv, it turned out, didn’t believe in Spring Sightings of Stilt Sandpipers. When advised of our find he dropped his hands to his sides, raised his eye-glass augmented eyes toward heaven, and, as his body shuddered in a histrionic display of disbelief, he moaned in a manner, tone and fashion that recalled Marley’s ghost.
It was Irv’s signature display. It said, “prove it.”
Which we did. Met Irv at the pond. Pointed. Watched as the skepticism on his face dissolved to be replaced by a savoring smile.
I will not claim to have known Irv well. I will only say that I was impressed by him, influenced by him, and find the world diminished by his passing.
If you fall among the ranks of those who never new this grand old legend of birding, take heart: you will bird beneath the spell of his influence for years to come.
Like most people of stature, Irv Black cast a long shadow. He might be gone. It remains.