Obituary

Warren Emil Nelson

16 April 1949 – 30 December 2014

Anthony X. Hertzel

Warren Emil Nelson, Minnesota birder, photographer, columnist, bird

guide, and author, died on Tuesday, 30 December 2014, at the Aicota

Health Care Center in his home town of Aitkin. He was 65.

The son of Emil and Wanda (Beecher) Nelson, Warren was born 16 April 1949

in Aitkin Minnesota. He graduated from Aitkin High School in 1967, and attended

St. Cloud State University, earning a Bachelor of Science degree in 1971. He taught

school in Superior, Wisconsin, for a year before returning to Aitkin, taking a job at

Butler’s mercantile where he was a manager for almost 40 years.

Warren was heavily involved in the Minnesota birding community for almost

50 years, and was one of the original birding pioneers of Aitkin County, along

with Terry Savaloja and Steve and Jo Blanich. He was the first to document the

breeding of Yellow Rails at the McGregor Marsh (see his “The Yellow Rails of Mc-

Gregor Marsh,” The Loon 63:92–97). Warren followed the regular occurrence of

Great Gray Owls along Aitkin County Road 18 and always kept the birding com-

munity apprised of the occurrences of other Aitkin County specialities such as

Northern Hawk Owl, Snowy Owl, Sharp-tailed Grouse, and Nelson’s Sparrow. He

was a well-known birding guide, volunteered at Rice Lake NWR, ran marsh-bird

surveys and tanager surveys, participated in both the Crosby and Rice Lake NWR

Christmas Bird Counts, and surveyed for both the Minnesota Breeding Bird Atlas

and the U.S. Breeding Bird Survey. He was photo editor for The Loon from 1989

through 2006, and the first of many of his photos to appear on the cover was in

the spring 1979 issue (Boreal Owl). And he was co-author of “Aitkin County Natu-

rally! Your Birding and Nature Trail Guide,” a 92-page book on the birds of Aitkin

County.

He freely gave more than 400 educational slide programs at local schools, bird-

ing organizations (especially the Bee Nay She Council Bird Club), Audubon clubs,

churches, and senior citizen groups — the last in March 2014.

Warren received the MOU’s Thomas Sadler Roberts Award in 1990 for lifetime

achievement in ornithology. He had a Minnesota life list of 384 species, and his

300 species for Aitkin County is the highest recorded for that county. He also

holds the Aitkin County Big Day record of 151 species, which he accomplished in

May of 1993.

In 2015, Warren’s friends Ken and Pam Perry, Butch Ukura, Steve and Jo

Blanich, Randy Frederickson, Kim and Cindy Risen, and Judd Brink, working with

the Friends of Sax-Zim Bog, purchased a 40-acre tract of land in the heart of the

Sax-Zim Bog to honor him. This stretch of mature black spruce preserves habitat

for numerous boreal birds such as Great Gray Owl, Black-backed Woodpecker,

Boreal Chickadee, and Connecticut Warbler. The “Warren Nelson Memorial Bog”

is located along Blue Spruce Road about a half mile north of St. Louis County

Road 133.

8461 Pleasant View Drive, Mounds View, MN 55112.

Spring 2015

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