What a gem from the past, Todd. James and Neal say the following about Albert Lano in Arkansas Birds.
Albert Lano, a pharmacist from Minnesota, moved to Arkansas in 1912.....Though blind in later life, Lano nevertheless continued his lifelong interest in birds, prepared a modest collection of bird skins, and published six short papers between 1913 and 1927 about birds found in the state.
One of Lano's papers was on the Prairie Chicken in Arkansas. It reported that on 15 November 1919, a bird was shot by a farmer 8 miles west of Fayetteville. Another of Lano's papers described the electrocution of a Great Blue Heron. On Friday 14 November, 2025 at 02:22:41 pm GMT-6, Todd Ballinger <todd.ballinger...> wrote:
I've been doing some research on the history of birding in Washington County and stumbled on this gem in Bird-Lore, one of the first birding journals. Albert Lano, by the way, was blind and a professor at the university. Here's the title page and the paragraph on the 1920 Fayetteville census:
We were the only submission from Arkansas that year. Looking at earlier issues, it looks like Dewitt leads the state as the first to hold a Christmas bird count. Here's the description of their 1917 "Christmas census." (in the 1918 edition of Bird-Lore)
--Todd Ballinger, Fayetteville
