Excerpt from somebody’s (TBD) PhD thesis about Owen Merriman’s work

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This is an Excerpt from somebody’s PhD thesis citing Owen Merriman’s work. The source is to be completed.

 

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Banding of swifts in Canada was initiated by Owen Merriman at Queen’s University in 1928. During the following six years Merriman and his helpers banded 6679 swifts mostly during spring migration. This effort is noteworthy, particularly because of the man who organized and carried out the banding. Merriman was born in Hamilton in 1895. Though a serious fall in infancy left him permanently disabled and confined to a wheelchair, it did not stop Merriman from receiving an education and engaging in field work. Educated privately in Hamilton, Merriman spent much of his childhood observing nature. He was one of the organizers of the Hamilton Bird Protection Association, and was instrumental in establishing the Dundas Marsh Sanctuary in the mid-1920s. In 1919, Merriman then an economics student at Queen’ s, joined the American Bird Banding Association. Graduating with a B.A. In 1922, he entered graduate school at Queen’s and received an M.A. three years later. He remained at Queens as tutor in economics and administrator in the Commerce and Banking Departments. Merriman had many friends in and out of the university. With the help of these, including many Queen’s students, he began banding swifts in June 1928. Using the large chimneys of Nicol and Fleming halls, the first banding session resulted in 271 banded birds. Because swifts rarely roost in large flocks around Kingston in the fall, only, two attempts were made at fall banding. One of the birds banded in September 1928 was recovered twe1ve days later at Charleston, w. Virginia, and subsequently at Kingston in May 1929.19 After Merriman’s sudden death in 1934, the Biology Department of the university assumed responsibility for the banding scheme and became the third Canadian university to have a banding station as part of its educational program. The others were at the University of Alberta, where Professor William Rowan had banded birds since 1924, and at McGi11 university, where Professor Wynne-Edwards began banding passerine birds on Mount Royal in 1930.19

 

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