In the Dispatch this morning appeared the following obituary: "Nelson P. Thomson, 'Tom,' born January 23, 1924. Passed away December 5t, 2015. Graduate of North High School, 1942. Navigator of U.S. Navy WWII. Graduate of OSU School of Journalism in 1949. Was the Founder of the Short North Gazette. Author of Birding in Ohio. Past feature writer and nature columnist for the Columbus CJ. Passions were writing, birding, poetry, photography, nature, and family. He is preceded in death by former wife and best friend Jeanne and brother David. Survived by Janet (Gary) Campbell, Jeff (Kim) Thomson, James Thomson; and many grandchildren and great grandchildren. Thank you to Mt. Carmel West Hospital and grand-daughter Carrie Bailey for the tremendous amount of support and care. A private memorial will be held for the family. Please send memorial contributions donations to Mt. Carmel Hospice or the Audubon Society. Arrangements entrusted to Edwards Funeral Service, 1166 Parsons Ave., Columbus OH 43206." Ohio birders will remember, or at least have heard of, his two books entitled "Birding in Ohio" One edition came in 1983 and the other in 1994, and both are out of print but widely available in used-book stores. Both provide checklists of the state's birds, but the earlier edition is more valuable by virtue of far more checklist detail. The later edition improves on a much larger section devoted to birding locations in the state. Both met with some grumbling from reviewers, but no one has published anything to replace them. Tom also conducted America's earliest "bird alert" service, based on telephone recordings, started back in the '60s, and continued for many years thereafter. If he felt announcements were not numerous enough, he'd call some of us birders for news for more. He shared personal information and treated some of his famous birding acquaintances on his website http://www.sailorthomson.com/index.html . Some samples of his Short North Gazette material, often about birds, are at http://www.shortnorth.com/LegendaryTales.html . He was working on a book about his effort to see all the birds of the nation in one year back in the '70s, also conducted that same year, as it happened, by a young fellow named Kenn Kaufmann who he met along the way; last I heard he was deciding between a straighforward tale of his adventures versus an imaginary version, but the book was not finished, and we have not heard much from him over the past fifteen years. Tom was a fine birder and a sweet and complicated man, who never ceased efforts to encourage birders to the cause. Bill Whan Columbus ______________________________________________________________________ Ohio-birds mailing list, a service of the Ohio Ornithological Society. Please consider joining our Society, at www.ohiobirds.org/site/membership.php. Our thanks to Miami University for hosting this mailing list. You can join or leave the list, or change your options, at: listserv.miamioh.edu/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=OHIO-BIRDS Send questions or comments about the list to: [log in to unmask]