Posted by Bill Boeringer on January 01, 1970 at 00:00:00
I've known Paul since TAS trips in the mid 1990s, and especially those early sod farm trips, where we'd ride together and talk not only about birds, but about baseball (including his family relationship to Puerto Rico's Hiram Bithorn Stadium), UM football, 1960's rock & roll, and of course about celebratory libations to be enjoyed at the end of the birding day. Memories from long trips stand out - Slaty-backed Gull walking up to us in Key West, the first MacGillivray's Warbler at Sanibel, Paul's long-sought first state junco on a North Florida trip, and his condo-sized tent in the Dry Tortugas. The day that stands out most was when we used to conduct the migration counts every mid-May; Paul and I would often bird Loop Road together. On this day, Paul heard a tanager and we stopped and jumped out of the car. As he scanned the trees, I looked down the road and saw something moving towards us...."Paul", I said in shock, "there's a (expletive deleted) panther in the road!" We pulled out a scope and watched a young panther for 5-10 minutes amble up the road until it finally noticed us, and disappeared into the grass. Later that day, we went to the house "of a guy he knew" (Paul seemed to know everyone) and celebrated with cold beer and venison chili. I will always think of Paul when I think about that day. RIP my friend, and good birding.