Obituary: Frederick Zumdahl Lesher

Peregrine Falcon nesting sites in Minnesota

and elsewhere along the Mississippi River.

Established a raptor count site near Reno in

Houston County.

Designed the “Lansing Loop,” a three-state

birding route with sites along the Missis-

sippi.

In 2001, co-authored the booklet A Birder’s

Guide to Houston County.

Wrote several President’s Page columns,

book reviews, notes, and articles for The

Loon, including accounts of both King Rails

and Yellow-crowned Night-Herons breeding

in La Crescent in Houston County.

Received the MOU’s Thomas S. Roberts Me-

morial Award in 2012, our lifetime-achieve-

ment award “For Outstanding Contributions

to Minnesota Ornithology and Birding.”

And, as recalled by Janet Green: “In the

early days of birding in Minnesota, five de-

cades ago, practically every bird was new

and exciting. The most memorable experi-

ence with him was on December 17, 1966

in Grand Marais when we chased a shore-

bird that he had first spotted flying over the

water. The bird was a Purple Sandpiper,

Minnesota’s first record.”

Some other memories of Fred: He took a

sabbatical leave from the University of Wis-

consin, La Crosse, to study ravens — not as an

ornithological inquiry, but their place in mythol-

ogy, religion, communications, and literature.

He once set out to canoe the length of the

Mississippi River from Itasca State Park to the

Gulf of Mexico; after a few days, however, he

realized his physical limits and reluctantly had

to give up about a hundred miles later near

Grand Rapids. But he and a friend did canoe

the Churchill River in Canada in the late 1980s.

They drove to Thompson, Manitoba, loaded the

canoe in the train’s baggage car, got dropped

off literally in the middle of nowhere as the

tracks neared the river, and canoed the rest of

the way to Churchill on Hudson Bay.

Like the rest of us, Fred had his faults, and

some considered one of them to be his no-

tion that the MOU and The Loon focused too

much on science and listing and not enough

on poetry. Imagine that — an English professor

interested in poetry! (And so, I dedicate this

couplet to him... Roses are red, violets ain’t

maroon. Poetry’s nice, but not in The Loon.)

Whether or not there is too much emphasis

on listing, he actually has the distinction of

being the very first MOU member to write an

article for Birding, the journal of the American

Birding Association. This was back in 1974.

The title was “Listing Eponymous Species Hom-

onymously Eponymously Reviewed” (i.e., the

L.E.S.H.E.R. list), and it poked fun at listing by

suggesting birders look for species named for

someone with the same name as their birding

companions. (“I sighted a MacGillivray’s Warbler

while in the company of Charlotte MacGillivray

— in fact, Charlotte’s real name is Bertha Bjorn-

sturm, but she wants to be a movie star, so...”)

During the later years of our friendship,

Fred would occasionally lament that he seldom

heard from some of those he used to bird with

years ago. Especially poignant was the time I

happened to run into him as he was camped

out alone on the Gunflint Trail on his 60th

birthday. He described this camping trip as sort

of running away from home when he reached

that milestone age, and — even then, more than

20 years before he died — he began to wonder

aloud if he was ever really noticed. By then,

Fred’s ornithological achievements had dimin-

ished with age to the point where many reading

this now may have no idea who he was.

Fred is survived by Jolene Lesher, his wife

of 60 years, son Jonathan Lesher, daughters

June Lesher and Sarah Burdick, and 11 grand-

children.

I suppose, in a way, you could say he is

also survived by his beloved Houston County,

though it is less the destination of choice as it

once had been. The bobwhites are now gone,

its gallinules and night-herons no longer as

consistent as before, and birders have discov-

ered other places for Acadian Flycatcher, Tufted

Titmouse, Louisiana Waterthrush, and Blue-

winged, Prothonotary, and Cerulean warblers.

Finding these birds in Houston County decades

ago had been — much like Fred Lesher — part

of the early days of birding in Minnesota, when

“practically every bird was new and exciting.”

—Duluth, MN.

88 The Loon Volume 91