Kevin J. McGowan Kevin J. McGowan
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Born in Springfield, Ohio, Kevin has had a
lifelong interest in birds and mammals. He received a B.S. in Zoology
from the Ohio 
State University in 1977,
and an M.S. in Zoology from Ohio State in 1980 for a thesis on small
mammals and their use of arthropods on reclaimed strip-mines. He then went to the
University of South Florida where he received a Ph.D. in Biology in 1987
for work on the social development of young Florida Scrub-Jays (Aphelocoma
coerulescens). While in Florida, he taught biology at several community colleges, did
some freelance biological consulting, and worked as a non-game biologist for the Florida
Game and Fresh Water Fish Commission. He went to work at Cornell University in 1988 as a
Curator/Research Associate in the Section of Ecology & Systematics (now the Department
of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology). He was promoted to Senior Research Associate in
1994. He was the principal caretaker of the bird and mammal collections, and conducted his
own research. In addition, he taught classes at Cornell in specimen preparation, field
collecting methods, the relationships of birds, and Neotropical canopy biology and canopy
access. In July 2001, Kevin became a Research Associate at the Cornell Laboratory of
Ornithology in education, developing an informative website All About Birds.
Beginning in January 2005 he became the co-editor of the publication of the second New York State Breeding Bird Atlas
project. He is offically a member of the Department of Natural Resources at Cornell
University, but remains based at the Lab of Ornithology. His research on crows and West
Nile virus continues, in collaboration with Dr. Anne B. Clark
of Binghamton University, and her students..
Kevin's main research concerns behavioral
ecology of birds, especially social behavior. He has been studying reproductive and social behavior of American Crows (Corvus
brachyrhynchos) 
and Fish Crows (Corvus
ossifragus) in the Ithaca area since 1988. The American Crow is a cooperative
breeder, with young crows staying at home with their parents for several years and helping
them raise siblings. As a broadly-trained ornithologist, Kevin also is
interested in a wide range of topics,
including systematics, evolution, biogeography, natural history, and ecology. His interest
in tropical mammals and his tree climbing skills, honed during his crow research, have
taken him to Panama and Costa Rica to participate in research on canopy mammals. In
addition, he has taught about tropical birds in Costa Rica and Peru. Kevin is an Elected
Member of the American Ornithologists' Union,
former Secretary of the Ornithological Societies of North America (OSNA), and is the former editor of the Ornithological Newsletter a
bi-monthly publication of OSNA.
Blurring the line between his professional and
private life, Kevin has been an avocational birder since childhood. He has traveled
throughout North America, as well as to Europe, Central America, South America, and
Africa, watching and studying birds. He has led birding field trips for groups of all
skill levels in Ohio, New York, New Jersey, Florida, and Hawaii. He is the President of
the Cayuga Bird Club, the President and former webmaster for the New York State Ornithological Association
(formerly the Federation of New York State Bird Clubs), and a former member of the New
York State Avian Records Committee (NYSARC).
Kevin has been a member since 1990 of the Cornell
Laboratory of Ornithology's team (The Sapsuckers) that competes in the World Series of Birding in New Jersey each May.
(The Sapsuckers, sponsored by Swarovski Optik, tied for
first place in 2001, and won in 2002. For more on this story, go here.)
More about the crow study and crows in general
News about crows and the West Nile Virus. (This is still the old page, despite the "last updated" date listing. Until I can get it updated, for good WNV links go to http://www.cfe.cornell.edu/erap/wnv/.)
Go here to see the article about Kevin's work published in the Spring 1998 issue of The Living Bird, or here for the one published in the 18 May 1999 issue of The Christian Science Monitor .
Bad Photos of Good Birds - A
few photographs of unusual local birds. Using an
Olympus D-450 digital camera, and my Swarovski HD-80 spotting scope, my son Jay and I
began taking numerous pictures of birds ("digiscoping") in early 2000. We
continue to digiscope, and this section will continue to expand in the future. Included
with some of these images are discussions of identification characters for the trickier
species, illustrated using my photographs of wild birds and specimens from the Cornell University Museum of Vertebrates.
Last updated 08-Apr-05
