Oology: Examining an Extinct Ornithological Pursuit

Egg collecting was regulated by both state and federal jurisdictions. Reputable collectors were registered and properly permitted and they also documented their collection activities as can be seen on the data cards in images below. (Photo by Floyd Schrock)

Building the BirdFellow community and our online Social Field Guide has involved a series of what we like to call "serendipitous collaborations." We don't know where new resources and support will come from next, but invariably they arrive on our doorstep. In a recent exchange of messages on OBOL (Oregon Birders On Line) I learned of the existence of a significant egg collection that had been amassed by the late father of one of the OBOL community members. He posted a link to a photo gallery that showed sets of eggs along with the meticulous hand-written data cards that documented each clutch of eggs. My first instinct was, "these photos would be a fantastic addition to our Social Field Guide," but then it occurred to me, many in this community might be offended by the activity that yielded this collection. 

Oology– the study/hobby of egg collecting–was once a popular and socially acceptable manifestation of one's interest in birds. It flourished in Great Britain and North America from the 1800's well into the 20th century (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oology). The heyday of this activity predates quality optics, small hand-held cameras, and readily-available field guides. Our birding predecessors, professional and amateur alike, were collectors of birds and their eggs. If you wanted your observations to be recorded and used to expand that era's understanding of bird distribution and life history, you best return from the field with physical evidence. Given the culture of that era, early birders and ornithologists were understandably just as passionate about expanding their collections as present-day birders are about adding new species to their life list. 

This set of Olive-sided Flycatcher eggs was collected by Manassa Schrock on 18 June 1957. The card below includes the pertinent data associated with the collection, including a description of the nest and where it was located. Note the height ("seventy feet") of the nest. Presumably there was some tree-climbing involved on the procurement of these eggs. (Photos by Floyd Schrock)

By the mid-20th century the notion of conserving birds and protecting them from outright slaughter, and even collection, had entered the consciousness of the mainstream. Today, "egging" is a rare and criminal pursuit, frowned upon by the general populace and abhorred by the birding community. Although oology had gone out of fashion by 1960 (it was outlawed in the U.K in 1954), today hundreds of thousands of egg sets continue to reside in British and North American natural history museums (http://www.sbcounty.gov/museum/media/2005/06-04-05a.htm). 

One such collection is that of Manassa Schrock. It is currently housed at Portland State University in Portland, Oregon. Schrock spent much of his life in western Oregon's Willamette Valley, hence his collection includes egg sets of 77 species common to his home area and the surrounding region. All but eight of the sets were collected by Schrock between 1950 and his death in 1960; the others were presumably received in exchanges with other collectors. Schrock maintained the proper federal and state permits, and his egg collecting was conducted under the guidance of Alex Walker (Floyd Schrock, pers. comm.). Walker was a respected amateur ornithologist and long-time curator of the Tillamook County (Oregon) Pioneer Museum (http://www.oregonmuseums.org/sectionindex.asp?sectionid=74).

Many may look at the label above and wonder what a "Lutescent Warbler" might be. The scientific name informs us that these eggs came from the nest of an Orange-crowned Warbler from the coastal population. Subspecific identifications were much in vogue in the early to mid-20th century. Gabrielson and Jewett's "Birds of Oregon" (published in 1940), which was the authoritative reference for Oregon birds at the time, treated many local forms almost as though they were species. Note that the genus "Vermivora" no longer includes Orange-crowned Warbler, which was  relegated to "Oreothlypis" by the AOU Checklist Committee in 2011. (Photos by Floyd Schrock)

Confident in both the veracity and legitimacy of Manassa Shrock's collection, I asked his son Floyd Schrock, a birder in his own right, if BirdFellow might add the photos of his father's collection to our online resources. He graciously welcomed the opportunity to see his father's collection used in this manner. We are very pleased to be able to make this resource available to the BirdFellow community and give modern-day birders a chance to compare their observations with collections from the past.  In the coming weeks Floyd Schrock's photos of his father's collection will be added to the BirdFellow photo galleries for those species.