George Kelday Peck, 1925–2020

George Peck liked to call himself a nidiologist, a person who studies the nests and eggs of birds. While his chosen profession was to be a small-animal veterinarian, he pursued his passion for ornithology at every opportunity until his long life ended on June 20, 2020. As a child, George spent many weekends and holidays at the family cottage on the shore of the St. Lawrence River near Gananoque, Ontario, where his father fostered a passion for natural history, especially birds. George Peck in Alaska, June 4, 2011 (photo by Mark Peck). By the time he graduated from the Ontario Veterinary College in 1950, and set up his own veterinary practice in Oakville, Ontario, egg collecting was already illegal (though rarely prosecuted) in Canada, but was increasingly frowned upon by birdwatchers. As a result, George soon turned his attention to photography as a way to “collect” and record the nests and eggs of local breeding birds in Ontario, before long making a photographic collection of the eggs of all species breeding in Canada and the United States his lifetime goal. To do this, George travelled almost every year to far off corners of the continent with his final major trip at age 85 taking him to remote bird-rich areas in Alaska. By the time he finally hung up his cameras due to failing eyesight, he had photographed the nests and eggs of almost 500 species. For almost 60 yr, we accompanied George on myriad expeditions both local and distant in pursuit of nesting birds. A typical day out with George would start with a plan to find some species that he wanted to photograph. Not content simply to collect photos like stamps, he was keen to study the breeding biology of each species. George was amazed that we often saw things not recorded in Bent’s Life Histories, which he considered to be the authority on North American birds. We often set up blinds near nests and spent many hours just watching and photographing the parents, and making notes on their behaviour. While many of our friends were birders, George was the only bird “watcher” that we knew, as content to watch and learn about American Robins as to search out the rarer species nesting in our region. George’s passion for ornithology brought him often to the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) in Toronto, where he soon volunteered to help with the Ontario Nest Records Scheme (ONRS). That program had been initiated there in 1956 to provide a permanent record, on file cards, of data on bird nests and eggs found during the ROM expeditions to remote parts of Ontario. In the mid-1960s, George took over as volunteer coordinator of the ONRS and began to solicit nest records from naturalists all over the province. For more than 40 yr, George went to the ROM several days a month to curate this database and was appointed as Research Associate at the ROM in 1976 to recognize this ongoing contribution. By the time the ONRS went digital and was turned over to Birds Canada in the early 2000s, George had grown the database from 1,800 to more than 150,000 nest record cards documenting more than 3 million nests of 283 species breeding in Ontario. This made the ONRS one of the largest databases on bird nests worldwide, an early example of the success of what we now call citizen science. His work with the ONRS eventually led to a 2-volume work on the Breeding Birds of Ontario, Nidiology and Distribution (1983 and 1987) coauthored with Ross D. James (Associate Curator of Ornithology at the ROM) and a chapter on egg collecting in Ornithology in Ontario (1994) coauthored with Jim Richards. He also wrote several species accounts in the first 2 editions of the Atlas of Breeding Birds of Ontario (1981–1985 and 2001–2005) as well as 110 scientific papers, federal and provincial government reports, and children’s books on birds and wildlife. George taught courses in ornithology and nature photography at Georgian College and the L.E. Shore Library in Thornbury, Ontario, where he lived after retiring in 1982 to pursue his avocations full time. For the next 30 yr, George frequently gave illustrated lectures to library groups, garden clubs, and nature clubs and led birding hikes and extended tours in Ontario as well as in Florida, Texas, Louisiana, South Carolina, and Virginia. Peck’s contributions to ornithology were recognized by being named an Elective Member (1991) of the American Ornithologists’ Union (now American Ornithological Society). Ontario Field Ornithologists presented him with its Distinguished Ornithologist Award (2001). George was also a member of more than 20 other natural history and ornithology organizations, often serving on their executive committees. In addition to his work with birds, George had a broad naturalist’s interest in reptiles, amphibians, insects, mammals, ferns, and wildflowers. He also had a deep-rooted interest in horses and game fowl, including all breeds of chickens. Like many naturalists, George was an inveterate collector, with large collections of bird stamps, cowrie shells, and recorded jazz music, as well as a comprehensive natural history library. George was predeceased by 2 wives (Sheila Wilson and Diane Schwartz) and 2 siblings (Alice and Ralph). He left behind a sister (Karen Vokes), 4 married children (Leslie, Mark, Cameron, and Erin) and 9 grandchildren. Memorials Editor: Ted Anderson, tanderson@americanornithology.org

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