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Now there’s a name you don’t hear much nowadays. Henry Maurice Drummond, later Drummond-Hay<\/a>, was born 200 years ago today, and would go on to be a founder and first president of the British Ornithologists’ Union.<\/p>\n Eulogized as “a noble specimen of the true field-naturalists, as well as of the soldier and country gentleman, a keen observer of nature in every department,” Drummond-Hay was an enthusiastic collector. His “almost complete” series of mounted Mediterranean birds is still on display in Megginch Castle<\/a>. The ornithological collections of the Perth Museum<\/a> also owe much of their richness to his efforts; among the cimelia there is the skin of the first British record of the American golden-plover<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n Drummond-Hay’s most lasting claim to birderly fame rests on a sighting made on his return from Nova Scotia<\/a> to Europe in December 1852:<\/p>\n \u00a0On the edge of the Newfoundland banks he watched for some time a Great Auk<\/strong> which was within 30 or 40 yards of the steamer; and as he had his field-glasses, and could distinctly note the bill and white ear-patches, he felt that he could not be mistaken. He heard also from a friend in Newfoundland that in the following year [1853] a dead Great Auk had been washed ashore in Trinity Bay.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n