Nicholas Wagerik, known to all who knew him as "Nick", passed away
earlier this month in New York City. Nick became known to
hundreds and hundreds of the regulars as well as visitors to Central
Park, in New York City, yet he also was known in a much wider circle,
as a superb naturalist and teacher/mentor to so many who wanted to
learn more in a wide array of subjects in natural history. Nick was a
birder and had found a great many rarities over the years, beginning
in his younger days in the 1960's, and to the more recent years was
perhaps the most trusted of birders in Central Park when a difficult
identification presented itself. That knowledge, skill, patience and
intelligence increasingly manifested in a deep & abiding love and
serious interest in invertebrate life: insects in particular and
perhaps beginning with interest in lepidoptera (moths and
butterflies), then odonata (dragonflies and damselflies), and in more
recent years branching out to study of many "things with wings". These
interests were backed by painstaking study and reading of the
literature, and made known to so many others through Nick's generosity
of spirit, sharing widely what he had learned with such effort and
intensity. For some, who got to know him in that way, the experience
was very nearly life-changing, or at a minimum, career-altering. He
had the respect of many who were and are the experts in their
respective fields in natural history study; he could speak with the
authority of deep learning and experience on many subjects. It was
also ~ all-importantly to many who got to know him ~ a simple joy to
spend a few hours or more in the company of someone so dedicated and
immersed in what he simply loved to do. His interests were all
"amateur" (in the highest sense of that word, the root of which simply
means, "to love") and his "day" job -actually an evening job- was at
the Metropolitan Opera House in New York, where he was among the most
senior of employees, with four decades there. It was during the days
off, or before starting at the opera in the evenings, as well as
during the generous summer break that that institution permits, that
Nick got to "go out and play" as he would sometimes phrase it. In his
younger days, he ventured out away from N.Y. City and would find flora
(he was also a suberb and deeply learned botanist) and fauna of sorts
that often was new to the locality, sometimes new to the county,
perhaps even to the state where he found himself. A day in the field
with Nick was almost always a treasure-trove of discovery, with far
more observation & interpretation of "things in nature" than many very
talented naturalists normally are involved with. Where he went
exploring, new delights and new understanding most often went too. It
is sad to know that he left us, much too soon and early, yet so many
have great memories and experiences as well as some furthering of both
knowledge and enthusiasm in study of nature: he left on us an
indelible imprint. In recent years, his favorite areas within Central
Park were well-known, being the Turtle Pond & the Shakespeare Garden,
although he also wandered through many other areas, and in years past,
was amenable to visiting parks and preserves all around the city and
the greater NYC metropolitan area. He also was such an avid reader
that he would regularly have one of whatever books had recently been
published in the field of nature study, so that it was not unusual
that he might make mention of, say, the diversity of mammals to be
found in China, or what odonates could be seen in some Central
American locality, or what flora was possible to find on some
particular remote ocean island. In all of these and many more areas,
he could speak about such as though he might have been there and
studied in person, yet he had not - the readings he did took him
around the world - and as much or more than most, he was able to speak
on these subjects with an authority that impressed even those who had
been, had studied and also knew a great deal on such subjects. He was
in some ways, a throwback to an idea of a classical nature scholar,
and he had only very recently begun to make use of this pervasive
media and medium (i.e., the internet) for learning and
communications. Family, friends and acquaintances from all over will
dearly miss him.
There is a family remembrance to take place today, in the part of the
city where he grew up in Staten Island. At some time in the future,
perhaps in spring of the year, there will be a larger gathering in
celebration and remembrance of this kind, truly generous, and much-
loved man. His influence on a number of generations of students of
nature is unfathomable - and ongoing.
________________________________________________________________________________________________
A little more on Nick, in what many who knew him will immediately find
so familiar and indicating his irresistible enthusiasm:
From "Season at the Point: The Birds and Birders of Cape May", © by
Jack Connor (1991, Atlantic Monthly Press) The setting is familiar to
many, the hawk-watch platform at Cape May Point, at the southern tip
of New Jersey. This account is from some years ago - as will be
evident with such optics now easily available to focus closely on
insects and anything else at close range. It was also a time when
studying butterflies, dragonflies and other insects was very new to
"birders" in N. America.
[from pages 107-109]:
About noon an impromptu demo begins, this one conducted by a young
man standing waist-deep in the small plot of goldenrod and asters to
the right of the platform. "I've had eleven species of butterflies
right in this patch since the sun broke through," he tells the birders
standing above him at the railing, then reads from his notebook: "Gray
hairstreak, eastern tailed-blue, white-M hairstreak, buckeye, orange
sulphur, cabbage white, variegated fritillary, pearl crescent,
American painted lady, sachem, and least skipper." He is Nick Wagerik
from New York City. A magnifying glass hangs from a string looped
around his binoculars. He steps slowly from one plant to the next,
touching the stalks below the white and gold flowers as carefully as a
hothouse gardener inspecting orchids.
"What's that small one there?" asks a hawkwatcher from the platform.
"Sort of rust colored."
"That's a least skipper…. There's an American painted lady…. There's
a pair of least skippers mating…. There's a buckeye…. There's an
ailanthus webworm moth."
"Moths fly in daytime?"
"Oh yeah. There are so many moths; lots of them are diurnal. Birders
think identifying fall warblers is hard. Just look at the Peterson
moth book sometime."
"Here's a gray hairstreak," Wagerik says, pointing to a butterfly the
size of a nickel with a dot of orange flame at its rear end the size
of a match head. "See the little tails on the hindwings? They're not
really tails. It's thought they mimic antennae, to draw predators to
the wrong end. See how it's rubbing them back and forth? You find
them sometimes with those little false tails missing. The bird went
for the wrong end, and the butterfly flew away in the other direction."
A dozen birders are now leaning over the railing, several struggling
to aim their binoculars where Wagerik points. "Last June when the
birds were slow," says one woman, "I thought I'd try to learn the
flowers and insects."
"Good for you. You'll never concentrate on birds the same way. Birds
got me started too. But now I'm really into insects, not just
butterflies and moths. Dragonflies, ants, wasps. I love wasps."
"But where do the butterflies go when the sun isn't out?"
Wagerik laughs. "They disappear…. Look! Here's a gray hairstreak with
part of its hindwing eaten off! That's what I was talking about. A
bird probably got him."
At this, four birders hurry down the ramp to join Wagerk in the
weeds. He hands the first his magnifying glass, and she bends close to
look, then passes the lens to the birder behind her.
"There are just about as many butterflies in North America as birds,"
says Wagerik, addressing the birders still on the platform. "Seven
hundred and fifty species or so. Butterflies migrate too, and so do a
lot of other insects - the green darner, the heroic darner. In England
they get Monarch butterflies that have crossed the Atlantic- here's a
white-M hairstreak!"
A middle-aged man in a Phillies cap high-steps over quickly, takes
the magnifying glass Wagerik hands him, turns his cap around backward,
and bends close. The M is a chalk-white pin scratch on the underside
of the insect's tiny gray wing. "Lovely!" he says, "I guess that's a
lifer for me."
Others climb down to lean over. Wagerik loops his magnifying glass
off his binoculars and passes it around. Ten birders have now joined
him in the patch, wading through he weeds, crouching to turn over
leaves, and pointing to butterflies as they swirl into the air,
flashing their colors like flakes of confetti.
"Cape May is just as famous among butterfly watchers as it is among
birders," Wagerik tells them. "Southerly breezes blow southern
butterflies up here just as they bring southern birds after they've
finished nesting. but you need the right winds, and it's like birds:
you can never predict it."
He looks over his shoulder in the direction of Delaware. "I'm still
waiting for the big push."
For far more on Nick Wagerik's activities with insect life and more,
in a place he so often frequented and among many friends, see Marie
Winn's "Central Park in the Dark: More Mysteries of Urban
Wildlife" (2008, Farrar, Strauss & Giroux, and [paper] 2009, Picador).
Marie Winn's 'Central Park Nature News website/blog also has hundreds
of entries archived that include Nick's many years of finding &/or
identifying all manner of things in Central Park. Also, a good friend
and colleague-in-nature of Nick's, Ed Lam, has co-authored checklists
of both butterflies and odonates seen in Central Park, and those
checklists can be read via Ed Lam's website. Nick was most definitely
instrumental in bringing into focus Ed's first interests in odonates,
and his current study and forthcoming field guide to the dragonflies
of North America, as well as his acclaimed field guide to damselflies.
_______________________________________
Dear Nick, rest in peace. You made a difference!
Tom Fiore,
Manhattan
--
NYSbirds-L List Info:
http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsWELCOME
http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsRULES
http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm
ARCHIVES:
1) http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/maillist.html
2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/NYSBirds-L
3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/NYSB.html
Please submit your observations to eBird:
http://ebird.org/content/ebird/
--
