Gale Monson was a child when he discovered his life's passion.
On long afternoons sitting silently in a field on his family's farm in the Red River Valley of North Dakota, Monson realized he wanted to spend his life studying the natural world. He was particularly fascinated with wild birds.
This weekend, family, friends and fellow naturalists will gather at Catalina State Park to remember the man many considered "the father of modern Arizona field ornithology." Monson died Feb. 19. He was 99.
"He was a real inspiration to a lot of people. He was really the grand man of Arizona birding," longtime friend and naturalist Bill Broyles said. "During the service I would expect people to have binoculars around their necks. While some people are telling stories, others will be looking around at the trees, and I think Gale would have liked that."
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Monson, a prolific journal writer, recalled in a 2000 entry the moment he decided what to do with his life. He was 11 years old: "In 1923 during a summer afternoon, the exact date unknown, I experienced a revelation in which I, for the first time, saw all beauty and mystery of nature. Prior to this time I had paid little attention to such things as weather, the sky, the stars and the wild plants and animal life around me. Then the scales dropped off my eyes. I developed a deep, lifelong interest in wild birds, especially, which was a principal factor in virtually everything I did for the remainder of my life."
After earning a biology degree at North Dakota State, Monson accepted his first assignment, making a grazing "reconnaissance" of what was then the Papago Indian Reservation, now the Tohono O'odham Nation, in 1934 for the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs.
He covered the entire reservation on horseback, estimating plant density and recording species. He also fell in love with the desert Southwest. Though he went on to work in New Mexico, Utah, Texas and Washington D.C., for other agencies such as the Soil Conservation Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, he always considered Southern Arizona his home and did most of his work in Arizona, said Anne Monson, one of his five children he had with his wife of 54 years, Sally.
"His interest was in bird behavior and bird biology," Broyles said. "He wanted to know the whole story about birds, not just a particular species a bird was. He really asked those deeper questions.
"When Gale was starting out he was an acquaintance of Aldo Leopold, and I think there was some inspiration from Aldo," who is considered the father of wildlife ecology. Another early acquaintance, J. Stokley Ligon, wildlife specialist and conservationist in New Mexico, had an influence on Monson, too.
"He contributed more to what's known about the birds of Arizona and Sonora, Mexico, than anyone else," one of Monson's field partners, Tom Huels, said. "The Birds of Arizona," published in 1964, was the first book Monson co-authored and "is still sort of the bible. There really hasn't been anything comparable since."
Monson went on to co-author "The Desert Bighorn," "The Birds of Sonora" and "The Annotated Checklist of Arizona Birds."
"He focused strongly on birds, but that didn't mean he was only an ornithologist or birder. I was so impressed that he knew all the names of all the plants, all the birds, pretty much all the things in the natural world," said Mark Larson, who was in graduate school at the University of Arizona in the mid-1970s when he joined Monson on birding trips.
Monson was an active birder into his 80s.
"Even on my last few trips with him, he was kind of a mountain goat," Huels said. "I took the path of least resistance, but Gale was sometimes so focused he didn't pay attention to such things," and would amble up the side of a hill. "I enjoyed being out with Gale in the field more than anyone I've ever gone out with. Even kind of desperate times in the field with Gale were exciting. He was the perfect person to go out with to experience Mother Nature and see new areas.
"His passing is sort of an end of an era," Huels said. "I just can't imagine anyone coming along to fill the void in Arizona's history of ornithology the way Gale did."
The series
This feature chronicles the lives of recently deceased Tucsonans. Some were well-known across the community. Others had an impact on a smaller sphere of friends, family and acquaintances. Many of these people led interesting - and sometimes extraordinary - lives with little or no fanfare. Now you'll hear their stories.
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Did you know Gale Monson? Add your remembrance to this article online at azstarnet.com/lifestories
To suggest someone for Life Stories, contact reporter Kimberly Matas at kmatas@azstarnet.com or at 573-4191.
