The Margaret Morse Nice Medal is the premiere ornithological award bestowed by the Wilson Ornithological Society. The medal, established in 1997, honors a lifetime of contributions to ornithology.
As this year’s recipient, Dr. David King provided the opening Plenary lecture at the Wilson Ornithological Society Annual Meeting, which will be published in the Wilson Journal of Ornithology.
Dr. King is an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Environmental Conservation at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and recently retired as a Research Wildlife Biologist with the US Forest Service Northern Research Station.
“I have received awards before for the research I’ve done with the Mesoamerican Development Institute, but this award was especially significant. This is because Margaret Nice was a field biologist and was a big fan and practitioner of the same sort of detailed work we do in Honduras with MDI and their partners.” —Dr. David King
Dr. King’s presentation, “Three decades of applied ornithological research on non-breeding migrants” included the following highlights:
- Shade coffee supports fewer forest birds than Integrated Open Canopy, which supports as many as primary forest.
- Although some avian migrants prefer shade coffee to native forest, the survival of at least one species, the wood thrush, is lower in coffee than in native forest.
- The birds that occupy the forest buffers conserved on Integrated Open Canopy coffee farms confer benefits to the farmers in the form of the control of pest insects, which the birds eat.
MDI has had the pleasure of working with Dr. Dave King for 30 years in community driven conservation projects in Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Honduras. Dr. King’s knowledge and capabilities have built the scientific rigor needed to forge ahead with our funders and partners. With his way of engaging with the local communities, he consistently inspires genuine pride and joy for the birds and their local habitat, leaving behind highly energized advocates for conservation, and an amazing amount local expertise (point counts, mist netting, banding, and identification) and young people committed to completing higher education—going on to become among most recognized experts in conservation biology in their county.
“I am very grateful to the Wilson Ornithological Society for honoring me with the Margaret Morse Medal, and to MDI for their willing collaboration on projects that advance conservation efforts in the coffee lands of the world.” —Dr. David King
