By Tom Flagg
Ornithologist David Parmelee had been telling his wife for years that he was born a century too late.
If only he had been born a hundred years sooner, there would be stretches of the world uncharted and unworked by other ornithologists. There would be new places where he could study birds' habits and habitats, collect samples of their eggs and nests - and of the birds themselves - and produce beautiful paintings of them, like the others he has used to illustrate his books and articles throughout his career.
But he had come to believe that no such place existed. He had visited all of the continents and the oceans of the world as an ornithologist and expert on polar birds. It seemed there was nowhere left that hadn't been studied.
That was before he came to Southern Nevada in 1992 to rejoin an old friend and colleague and to take the position of research curator of ornithology at UNLV's Marjorie Barrick Museum of Natural History.
Now that he has spent more than a year participating in a long-term study of the vast Lake Mead National Recreation Area, the distinguished ornithologist and artist says he has found his untouched birding ground. "I came here for a number of reasons," says Parmelee, former curator of birds at the University of Minnesota's Bell Museum of Natural History. "But mainly it was because of Donald [Baepler, director of the Barrick Museum]. I knew what he was doing here, and of his interests, and that was all important to me."
Baepler, a friend of Parmelee's from graduate school at the University of Oklahoma and a fellow ornithologist, was in the process of building a fine small collection of bird specimens at UNLV. He was also remodeling and expanding the Barrick Museum and extending its research efforts.
Parmelee brought to UNLV his collection of thousands of birds' nests and eggs from all over the world, particularly the Arctic and Antarctic, as well as a significant collection of more than 1,000 stuffed birds. Added to Baepler's collection, which was strong in tropical birds, Parmelee's contribution makes for an important collection indeed - one that Baepler says few people would expect to find in a small museum in Southern Nevada.
Parmelee and Baepler are continually adding to the collection. They gather specimen birds from the Lake Mead area, from the university campus, and from surrounding areas.
"In order to document the distribution of birds, to identify subspecies, and so on, ornithologists are always collecting specimens," Baepler explains. "We don't collect rare or endangered species, but we do document them."
Although there are mounted birds on display in the museum, the main collection is stored in special metal cases, away from damaging light and insects.
"The collection is for scientific study," Baepler says. "We may display some of the nests and eggs occasionally, but not for long periods of time."
There are, however, frequent private showings. Just recently, for instance, a father and son were visiting the museum, and the father wanted his son to see some of the birds. Parmelee took them back to the collection room and slid open drawers in some of the large steel cabinets.
The drawers contain row after row of stuffed birds, stiff and straight, but soft to the touch. All of them, even the big owls, eagles, penguins, gulls, and falcons, are extremely light; the little hummingbirds and finches seem weightless. Because they are stored away from damaging light, they have all retained their natural colors, and they will for many years to come.
Visitors who see part of the collection are thrilled.
"That sort of thing goes over really big," Parmelee says, adding that the collection is shown to high school classes, to people who have seen a bird in the wild and come in to find out what it was, and to other ornithologists who are interested in particular groups of birds.
Parmelee and Baepler come by specimens in several ways. They have the numerous state and federal permits required to shoot individual birds they want to add to the collection. And many are salvaged from accidents. Many of the big birds of prey in the collection - such as hawks and owls - were road kills.
"Just today someone from the campus brought us one that had flown against a window," Baepler said. "We take every dead bird we can find."
The challenge now is to build up the collection of Nevada birds. The two ornithologists spend several days each week in the Lake Mead National Recreation Area, particularly in the southern and northern extremities.
"The area is enormous," Parmelee says. "One needs to go by foot, by car, and by boat. Possibly even an aircraft flight over some of the colonies would be helpful."
With 1.5 million acres and a wealth of bird species, the recreation area is much larger than one or two scientists can cover alone. Parmelee and Baepler use volunteers and students. A Ph.D. candidate who is writing her doctoral dissertation on certain aspects of the Lake Mead National Recreation Area is also helping.
Parmelee is particularly interested in the Overton Wildlife Management Area. Because of the numerous ponds and marshes in the area, a variety of aquatic birds pass through it.
"It has taken a year for the people in the area to become accustomed to me," he says. "At first they were very suspicious that we were going to spoil things in their duck-hunting paradise. But I have gotten the idea across that that's not my purpose; now, they are quite helpful. They have even approached us to establish more nature trails and observation blinds in the area."
Parmelee and Baepler encourage birds to nest in certain areas by setting up artificial nesting sites large bird houses that are appropriate to the size of the birds for which they are intended. In the Overton area they established several nesting platforms atop tall polls in hopes of attracting ospreys, large fish hawks that are very rare in the Lake Mead area.
But much of their time in the field involves watching birds. There are two kinds of bird watchers, Parmelee explains: those who do it for a hobby and those who do it for a living.
"The typical person who is doing it for fun is constantly looking for the unusual," he says. "They will pass up a lot of common stuff to look for the rarity. The South Africans call them 'tickers,' because they are always ticking birds off their lists, once they have seen them."
The professional, on the other hand, is interested in the abundant species in a particular area, and in relative abundance (how often you might expect to see a particular species in a particular area).
"Sure, it's fun to see a frigate bird that has come up from the Gulf of Mexico to Lake Mead. Everybody gets excited about that," Parmelee says. "But if I'm out with a group of bird watchers, and I see something interesting, no matter how common the bird might be, I'll sit down and watch. So I'll come back with five birds, and they might come back with 50, and I'll look like a dunce."
Parmelee's and Baepler's field work will ultimately result in a book about the birds of the Lake Mead National Recreation Area. It will also become part of the massive database being compiled by researchers in the Barrick Museum, who are conducting an extensive five-year study of the area with a $500,000 donation from resort developer Kirk Kerkorian's LINCY Foundation.
The Southern Nevada desert and Lake Mead are a long way from Iron Mountain, Mich., where Parmelee grew up and developed his lifelong interest in birds. And they are half a world away from the Arctic and Antarctic regions, where he has done much of his work and developed his reputation as one of the leading experts in polar birds. But Parmelee is excited about his work here and his collaboration with Baepler, of whom he says, "Not only is he a tremendous colleague from the standpoint of professional ornithology, but his administrative ability is beyond belief."
Perhaps it is a measure of his adaptation to Southern Nevada that he is ready to paint local birds.
"People often ask me about my painting," he says. "First of all, I have to have the experience. If I were asked to paint a bird that I had not seen in the wild, I would have a really tough time. I wouldn't be stimulated.
"I've been struggling with that. It has taken me a year to get the feel of them and get in the mood. But now I'm getting the urge to paint Southern Nevada birds."
When Parmelee first came to UNLV, he was not fully aware of how vast the Lake Mead National Recreation Area is, nor of how little is known about its biological and archaeological resources. But as he helps Baepler and others at the Barrick Museum study and document the area, he is inspired by the discovery of his uncharted land.