The Backyard Scientist: Margaret Morse Nice’s Legacy
This botanical history post was featured on The Daily Gardener podcast:
June 26, 1974
On this day, we remember the departure of a most remarkable woman from our earthly garden - the ornithologist Margaret Morse Nice, who has taken flight to join her beloved birds in the great beyond.
One cannot help but marvel at the delicious irony that a woman with such an accommodating surname would devote her life to the observation of creatures most would consider too common for scientific inquiry.
Our dear Margaret cultivated an intimate alliance with nature, particularly with the winged residents of her domain. This bond flourished alongside her gardening endeavors and habitual perambulations through the natural world - pursuits that any sensible person of taste would recognize as essential to a life well-lived.
In 1939, Nice penned these words in her masterwork, The Watcher at the Nest - a title that positions her as something of a feathered voyeur:
"The land was defended and won by age-old ceremonies and fierce battle….
Their conflicts with each other and their neighbors, their luck with their wives and devotion to their babies… the fortunes of their sons and daughters, grandchildren and great grandchildren—all these were watched season in and season out until tragedy overtook them."
Would you believe, dear reader, that this dramatic saga of conflict, matrimony, and familial devotion refers to none other than the humble song sparrow?
One imagines the little creatures would be quite astonished to discover they had been unwitting participants in such an operatic narrative!
Margaret Nice was that most intriguing of creatures - the scientific outsider. While men in white coats sequestered themselves in sterile laboratories, she conducted her groundbreaking research in that most unconventional of settings: her own backyard in Ohio. And if that weren't scandal enough, she performed these studies while simultaneously orchestrating the rearing of five children!
How refreshing to discover that one needn't venture to exotic locales or possess elaborate credentials to make meaningful contributions to scientific knowledge.
Nice demonstrated that extraordinary discoveries await the observant gardener who takes time to notice the drama unfolding among the ordinary denizens of their own outdoor sanctuary.
One cannot help but wonder how many other backyard mysteries remain unsolved, how many tiny dramas unfold daily among our roses and hydrangeas while we remain oblivious, preoccupied with our human concerns.
Perhaps we would do well to follow Margaret's example, to slow our pace and sharpen our gaze, to recognize that even the most commonplace garden visitors have tales worth telling.
For the dedicated gardener, Nice offers an invaluable lesson: that true understanding comes not from occasional glances but from patient, persistent observation. What secrets might your garden hold?
What dynasties rise and fall among your flowering shrubs? The answers await those willing to watch and wonder.
