author

Robert Morrow Mengel

b. 1921

Drawn early to birds and natural history, this Kentucky-born ornithologist turned a lifelong fascination with the living world into respected scholarship, illustration, and museum work. His career joined careful science with an artist’s eye for detail.

1 Audiobook

Studies of Birds Killed in Nocturnal Migration

Studies of Birds Killed in Nocturnal Migration

by Robert Morrow Mengel, Harrison Bruce Tordoff

About the author

Born in Kentucky in 1921, Robert Morrow Mengel developed an interest in studying, drawing, and painting natural history subjects from an early age. After military service during World War II, he earned both master’s and doctoral degrees in zoology at the University of Michigan.

In 1953, while still working on Birds of Kentucky, he took a half-time position at the University of Kansas. He later became a professor of zoology there and also served as a curator in the university’s Museum of Natural History.

Archival records at the University of Kansas also show that Mengel created watercolor bird paintings, reflecting how closely his scientific work was tied to visual observation. He died in 1990.