Up in the sky with the bird club…

You can be walking alongside Bob Dunlap and suddenly he’s not there. You turn around and he’s standing absolutely still about 20 feet back, his head cocked and his index finger pointing up. “Longspur,” he announces. You follow his finger skyward and barely note a few dots against the cloud cover. But you know that he’s not just guessing.

A Gustavus sophomore majoring in English and environmental studies, Bob is a birder. Several faculty and staff members at the College go birding frequently, but Bob is a birder. He has rushed to his car after class to travel to an obscure bog hours away from the campus for a glimpse of a rare brown pelican reported on the Minnesota Ornithological Union’s hotline (the species had never before been sighted in the state). He frequents St. Peter’s sewage treatment ponds looking for migrating shorebirds. He visited northern Minnesota during last winter’s great grey owl irruption, not just once but nearly every weekend. He has already managed to accomplish two “big years,” recording more than 300 different species statewide during each while also keeping up on high school or college coursework.

Born in Minnesota, Bob moved to the Phoenix area with his family when he was very young. Southern Arizona is a paradise for birders, with many local species and also a host of accidentals from south of the U.S.—Mexican border. Bob recalls that, for his fifth or sixth birthday, his father opted to give him a bird book instead of a basketball, “and my course was set.” By the time Bob reached high-school age, his family had moved back to Chaska, Minn., and he was already advanced in his hobby.

Like most serious birders, Bob is an inveterate counter who keeps several lists—yearly lists, state and even county lists, yearly state lists—you get the picture—as well as a life list. He passed 200 on his Nicollet County list when he spotted a rare snowy egret at Swan Lake on April 22. He’s on a first-name basis with naturalists, DNR officials, and top birders throughout the state, to whom he regularly calls in sightings from the field on his cell phone. But it’s not just about counting and finding rarities—he’s also become extremely knowledgeable about avian behavior, migration and nesting patterns, and conservation issues.

Bob’s new project is to open the eyes of his fellow students to the wonders of observing nature. He recently approached the Student Senate with a proposal to fund a birding club as an officially recognized student organization at the College. With the funds the club was granted, he purchased 9 binoculars that students (and faculty) may check out from the Linnaeus Arboretum Interpretive Center for arboretum walks or off-campus birding trips. The club funds will also enable Bob to cover school van mileage for weekend club excursions. In the meantime, he’s conducting early-morning “birdwalks” in the arboretum twice a week. Recently he led a large group of faculty and students to the prairie area of Mankato’s Minneopa State Park on a Saturday evening to see (or, more accurately, hear) the mating ritual of the male American woodcock.

Bob’s passion for his avocation is contagious. Says one staff member, “You become a better birder yourself when you go out with him.”