Starr Saphir
We were saddened to hear of the passing of Starr Saphir on February 5th, at Calvary Hospice in New York, where she had been receiving palliative care after an eleven-year battle with breast cancer.
Our paths crossed many times in the north end of Central Park. She was one of the few people to offer walks in the north end in the early 2000's and she was always quick to pass on sightings and helpful hints.
Starr Saphir says, in the 2012 HBO documentary Birders: The Central Park Effect, that there wasn't much money in offering bird walks Central Park, as she had at that time for nearly 30 years, but she's doing something she loves. "I don't look forward to retiring," she explains. "I am enormously lucky in that I absolutely love what I do every day that I do it. It doesn't mean that it's not tedious for moments, or for hours, or the day when you have to come up with 38 birds and the birds are not cooperating, and you end up with 37. It's work. But I could keep this up for, I think, for hundreds of years. Nobody gets a chance to find that out."
She will be missed.
Birds of Central Park Web Site
You can post your own Central Park photos at birdsofcentralpark.com. While there take a look at the interactive map I created that shows the popular birding spots in Central Park. You can exchange information with other birders/photographers or just browse the forums.
More Than Just Birds
In addition to my bird photography my site has photos of insect, flowers, animals, people, New York City and other locales and, of course, my cats Sal, Bogey, and Squeaky.