Daniel D. Gibson Receives the Harry S. Swarth Award at the 43rd Annual Conference in Ventura, California

From left to right are Jon Dunn, Dan Gibson, Thede Tobish, and Tom Blackman
True field ornithology bears with it the demands of scholarship, for which Dan is an exemplar. His vitae of almost 60 publications is noteworthy for several reasons. Half of them concern the nomenclature, taxonomy, or status and distribution of single species, including two contributions on wagtails for the Birds of North America series (1996, 1998), and first records for North America or Alaska for Common Rose Finch, Intermediate Egret, Sooty Tern, Gray Bunting, Wood Warbler, and Red-breasted Flycatcher, among others.
Dan’s professionalism and leadership have been equally recognized through numerous awards and positions held, including his election in 2009 as a Fellow within the American Ornithologists’ Union, his long service as regional editor of North American Birds from 1967 to the early 1990s, his 19-year-long tenure on the ABA Checklist Committee, and, beginning in 1970, his care and feeding of the Alaska Checklist, which, since 2000 has increased from 353 to 521 species. And let us not forget his various roles serving Western Field Ornithologists, including as a Member of the Board of Directors (2001–2007 & 2011–2016), as Vice-President (2008–2010), and first as an Associate Editor and then since 2013 as Assistant Editor for Western Birds.