In 1974, a biologist moved to a Washington island because one marsh supported 80 bird species; he devoted the rest of his life to it, and neighbours later created a wildlife preserve

When Dr. Frank Richardson retired from the University of Washington in 1972, he did not slow down. He shifted his fieldwork from museum collections to a wetland near his home, trading decades of specimen cataloguing for hours spent watching live birds in the marsh. Two years later, he made the shift permanent, settling on Orcas Island in the San Juan Islands and turning that single wetland into the last great subject of his working life. The marsh he studied now bears his name as a protected wildlife preserve, a legacy his neighbours created after his death.

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