Day 360: Within seconds of receiving last month's Bird Phenology Program newsletter, I was drafting a response to the trivia question in the hopes of winning a prize. Fingers flying, I typed in "Lerner and Loewe!!!" and in the next second was shaking my head and saying, "No, no, no, no, no...you do that every time! It's Leopold and Loeb!" I backspaced my error and rewrote the correction. For once, I hadn't hit "send" prematurely, and I was still in time to be the winner. My prize arrived in yesterday's mail, a coffee cup with the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center's logo and two BPP pens. In honor of the occasion, I made oatmeal cookies.
So what was special about Lerne...excuse me, Leopold and Loeb? The trivia question was this: "What famous ornithologist was sentenced to life imprisonment for murder in 1924?" The pair were convicted of the murder of a 14-year old boy. Nathan Leopold died while serving his sentence, but Richard Loeb was released after 33 years' imprisonment and went back into his chosen field of study, ornithology. He is known primarily for his research into the bird species of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.
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