{"id":33332,"date":"2017-04-09T13:37:14","date_gmt":"2017-04-09T19:37:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ibo.boisestate.edu\/?p=33332"},"modified":"2026-09-20T14:32:41","modified_gmt":"2026-09-20T20:32:41","slug":"gary-robinson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.boisestate.edu\/ibo\/2017\/04\/09\/gary-robinson\/","title":{"rendered":"Tribute to Gary Robinson \u2013 IBO Super-volunteer"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h2 id=\"h-by-jay-carlisle\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">By Jay Carlisle<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.legacy.com\/obituaries\/idahostatesman\/obituary.aspx?n=gary-g-robinson&amp;pid=185004929&amp;fhid=6401\">Read the tribute to Gary written by his family<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">On March 30<sup>th<\/sup>, the IBO family lost one of our greats \u2013 Gary Robinson, who has been one of the most valuable and dedicated volunteers in our history.&nbsp; Gary passed after a battle with pancreatic cancer and we, along with his family and many friends, will miss him greatly.&nbsp; It\u2019s important to point out that he didn\u2019t \u201close\u201d the battle to cancer \u2013 he was active, happy, and at his creative\/mischievous best until his last few days!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-large wp-image-33342\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" src=\"https:\/\/www.boisestate.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/141\/2017\/04\/20081005-5069-Gary-by-Marissa-Buschow-1024x683.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-33342\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Gary at Lucky Peak. Photo by Marissa Buschow<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Gary showed up on Lucky Peak unannounced one day in August 2004 and told us he had banding experience and wanted to get involved if we\u2019d have him.&nbsp; At first glance, I wasn\u2019t sure if this \u201cold-timer\u201d would be up for it but he quickly proved himself!&nbsp; We went on a few net runs together and he demonstrated his ability to quickly extract birds from mist-nets and, though he huffed and puffed at times, he was always able to hike the trails to the nets.&nbsp; It wasn\u2019t long before he joined Carol and Dave Wike to form the \u201cThree Amigos\u201d \u2013 our team of ever-reliable volunteers that have been invaluable to IBO\u2019s long-term banding studies for most of our 20+ year history.&nbsp; They\u2019ve been around for almost every MAPS (Monitoring Avian Productivity and Survivorship \u2013 a continent-wide breeding season protocol) banding day, lots of early-season days during our Lucky Peak fall migration project, and \u2013 more recently \u2013 became stalwarts of our hummingbird monitoring project.&nbsp; Through all this effort, they\u2019ve all been instrumental in helping us train scores of seasonal field assistants and the next generation of IBO volunteers while being invaluable members of the team themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-full wp-image-33352\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"640\" height=\"478\" src=\"https:\/\/www.boisestate.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/141\/2017\/04\/volunteers-three-amigos.jpg\" alt=\"Three people wearing caps and green vest, red shirt outfits smile before green trees\" class=\"wp-image-33352\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">The Three Amigos! Dave and Carol Wike with Gary<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Gary, in particular, was well-known for his \u201cmagic fingers\u201d at the mist-nets.&nbsp; Field assistants would often exclaim, \u201c<em>How did he just do that?!<\/em>\u201d after he\u2019d removed a tangled-looking bird from the net in 10 seconds or less, sometimes with one hand!&nbsp; Many field assistants fondly remember net runs with Gary as he effortlessly removed 75% or more of the birds in a given net in the same amount of time as they got the rest and, if they were lucky, he shared some of his secrets too!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter wp-image-33362\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"579\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/www.boisestate.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/141\/2017\/04\/Gary-at-the-river-site-579x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-33362\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Gary with a &#8220;small&#8221; load of birds he extracted at the Boise River site<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Just as much, we\u2019ve all enjoyed the many stories from Gary\u2019s younger days \u2013 a sip of Lord Calvert in the evening often unlocked a story or 3 for the Lucky Peak crew :) &nbsp;He was a veritable Swiss Army Knife of a man who tried and excelled at many professions during his career, starting as a Marine out of high school and, among other roles, enjoying spells as a biologist, police officer, zoo keeper, game warden, school teacher, and animal caretaker at a retirement home.&nbsp; Similarly, he also carried everything you could think of, and more, in his jeep\u2013 so much so that if we ran out of something at Lucky Peak, we asked Gary as the first option.&nbsp; He had a mischievous side as well, pulling pranks such as placing small sticks, pine cones, or even a lizard into bird bags and delivering them as if they were birds, usually with a straight face \u2013 and maybe a wink later.&nbsp; We also heard several humorous stories about how he and the love of his life, Sandy, re-found each other after several decades \u2013 I\u2019m so glad they did and, Sandy, thanks for sharing him with us!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter wp-image-33402\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"960\" height=\"640\" src=\"https:\/\/www.boisestate.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/141\/2017\/04\/2012-songbird-crew.jpg\" alt=\"A group of Lucky Peak songbird banders pose together on top of a hill with trees and a dry landscape\" class=\"wp-image-33402\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Gary with just a few of the many Lucky Peak songbird banders he mentored over the years<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Most of all, Gary was a loving friend to all of us and we will miss his big heart as much as his deft skills with the tiny birds we study.&nbsp; As Sandy said to us as we gathered with her and Gary on his last day, \u201c<em>he\u2019ll be with you when you go up to Lucky Peak<\/em>\u201d (certainly for hummingbirds and the river site too!) and I\u2019m sure I\u2019ll ask him for help the next time I\u2019m struggling with a tangled bird.&nbsp; We love you Gary and thanks for EVERYTHING!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>At the request of his family, memorials, in lieu of flowers, may be directed to the Intermountain Bird Observatory. We&#8217;ve started a Gary Robinson memorial fund.&nbsp;Our mailing address is 1910 University Drive, Boise, ID 83725-1515. Please include a note letting us know if you are donating in Gary&#8217;s name.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Jay Carlisle Read the tribute to Gary written by his family. On March 30th,&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":33342,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[263,273,264,265,271],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33332","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-banding","category-boise-river","category-hummingbirds","category-lucky-peak","category-songbirds"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v28.2 (Yoast SEO v28.2) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Tribute to Gary Robinson \u2013 IBO Super-volunteer - Intermountain Bird Observatory<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.boisestate.edu\/ibo\/2017\/04\/09\/gary-robinson\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Tribute to Gary Robinson \u2013 IBO Super-volunteer\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By Jay Carlisle Read the tribute to Gary written by his family. 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