HomeMy WebLinkAbout405"Compiled by PPL library staff for ""PICKERING PEOPLE"" display c. 2000
J Murray Speirs
Ottawa Orders up honour for 'quiet giant'
Dr. J. Murray Speirs named Order of Canada member
BY MIKE RUTA [Pickering News Advertiser]
Staff Writer
Illustration: Dr. J. Murray Speirs, 91, who was named to the Order of Canada recently,
still manages to get out birding.
A Pickering man recently dubbed ""a quiet giant of Ontario ornithology""
has been named a member of the Order of Canada.
Dr. J. Murray Speirs, who has lived on Altona Road for over 50 years, is one of 103 Canadians
appointed to or promoted within the Order, the highest honour a Canadian can receive.
""We thought that was pretty accurate,"" Margaret Wilson says of the Ontario Field Ornithologists'
description of her grandfather. ""He's pretty quiet. When he says something he means it.""
The 91-year-old Dr. Speirs was unable to give an interview due to health reasons.
Mrs. Wilson said in addition to the national honour, in September he will formally receive the
Distinguished Ornithologist Award from the OFO.
Dr. Speirs has worn many hats in a long career, including those of author, teacher, researcher,
naturalist and bird watcher. He co-founded the Pickering Naturalists in 1977, published what
Mrs. Wilson described as his life's work, the two-volume 'Birds of Ontario' in 1985, and in 1995
donated a 12-hectare piece of his property in the Altona Forest, the Dr. J. Murray Speirs
Ecological Reserve, which continues to be a site for scientific monitoring and study.
Linking most of his pursuits has been a love of birds. Dr. Speirs has said ""there's nothing
more alive than a bird,"" and the creatures have held his fascination since he was a
six-year-old boy in Toronto, watching a ruby-crowned kinglet in his parents' backyard.
In 1931, at the age of 22, he joined the Wilson Ornithological Society, the first of many such
groups with which he would become involved. Dr. Speirs received his doctorate at the
University of Illinois in 1946 with a thesis titled, 'Local and migratory movements of the
American robin in eastern Northern America'.
He was a University of Toronto faculty member for almost 30 years.
Dr. Speirs is well-known and respected for powers of observation and his keen sense of
hearing which made him a gifted researcher, with a focus on population counting, migration,
and the life histories of many songbirds.
Mrs. Wilson said her grandfather's health is ""not good at the moment,""
but noted she still takes him out for drives to go birding.
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