ABOUT THE AUTHORS

I have been interested in ornithology for over 35 years and I have a passion for bird nests. While I was preparing a website on nests, I had an idea to create a page on the author of the book “North American Birds Eggs,” written in 1904. I bought the book in 1976.

For an enthusiast of birds’ nests, the book was still actual. It was well documented with photos of eggs to scale. Few books on the market are as informative.

However, no information about his life and his work was available on the Web, which is extremely rare nowadays. I even found a Wikipedia group who had started a project on the author, but had to end it because of the lack of information.

My curiosity doubled. That’s how I started my research in May 2009. I started contacting individuals, organizations and ornithology clubs to try and obtain information. Then, hopelessly, I turned to genealogy.

At that moment, I met Mrs. Jean Mayo (New Hampshire) on the Web. She is a specialist in genealogy. The meeting was a turning point in my research. Mrs. Mayo gave me the first glimpse of Chester A. Reed’s life.

Using her expertise and willpower, she was able to go back in the Reed family tree as far as 1502. Most importantly, she found the Reed family’s first descendant. From that point, the adventure became very interesting.

In the beginning, I didn’t really know Chester A. Reed. While analyzing the documents that I discovered, it became clear that he had played a role in the history of the ornithology hobby that most people ignored. I had to share that information with other ornithology enthusiasts.

I don’t think of myself as a good writer, so I prepared a short slideshow to make the content more interesting to my readers. That way, I can show you archive documents and better share the fun of the discovery.

I hope you will appreciate this website.

Michel Chevalier

1: Consult the “Acknowledgments” section, listing the different people who helped me with the project.