Ron Schara: Don't know much about oology ...

COLO, IOWA -- Ralph Handsaker is his name.

Most of us didn't know him, and we never will. He was born in 1886; he died 1969.

In the years between his birth and death, Ralph Handsaker cut a remarkable trail through life, ranging from hard working farmer to wood carver to cabinet maker to outdoorsman to taxidermist and, in addition, a loving father and husband.

Yet, the real passion in this Iowa farmer's life went beyond milking cows or running a sawmill.

Ralph Handsaker was fascinated by wild bird eggs. There's a name for that, oology, the study of eggs.

It's said he collected his first wild eggs (house wren) in about 1898 and his last eggs (upland sandpiper) in 1963. By the time he died, Ralph had collected roughly 850 sets of eggs representing roughly 500 bird species from around the world. Such a collection never could be assembled today, due to laws protecting migratory birds, endangered species and the like.

However, Ralph left behind more than drawers full of wild egg shells.

His legacy is also an intriguing tale that went untold for decades until the details were ... aah, cracked open by a Minnesota man.

At Department of Natural Resources headquarters in St. Paul, Carrol Henderson has led the state's non-game program since 1977. In that time, Henderson has become one of Minnesota's most learned ornithologists, with an endless curiousity about anything having to do with wild birds of any ilk.

Carrol Henderson also grew up near Zearing, Iowa, on a small farm that, ironically, is only about 10 miles from the big white farm house where Ralph lived and kept his egg collection.

"I can't believe I never heard about him," Henderson recalled the other day.

But, understandably, their lives never crossed although both were bird fanatics.

Decades passed.

When Ralph died in 1969, his family simply decided to close up the farm house.

For more than 30 years, the big white farm house stood like it was the day Ralph died, including a pair of hand-made cabinets that held Ralph's egg collection -- one that still is perfectly preserved along with the data on who, when and where.

Fast forward to the spring of 2003.

Henderson received a call from his brother Don, who told him about a young man named John Handsaker, who was getting married and planned to move into his great-grandfather's century-old farm house.

And, oh by the way, the grandson says, there's quite a collection of wild bird eggs in his great grandfather's house.

Alerted about the collection, Henderson made a point of returning to his Iowa boyhood haunts and met the great grandson, who offered a tour of the place.

"Ralph's coffee cup was still sitting on the kitchen table 35 years later," Henderson said.

Then, Henderson opened one of the egg drawers.

"I knew right away I was looking at a biological treasure," Henderson said. "He had everything from an albatross eggs to puffins to Iowa prairie chickens, which have been gone from the state since 1936."

Ralph's immediate family, two grandsons, Dan and David, agreed to let Henderson photograph the collection to preserve the information.

"Going through the eggs was like going back in a time machine. There were eggs from 1875, 1890."

Bird species from around the world were represented, "although there were no extinct species in the collection," Henderson said.

To bird scientists, Henderson said the egg data would help fill holes in our historical understanding of bird distribution a century ago or more.

"Ralph's eggs document that some species were nesting in places where the birds no longer exist today," Henderson said. "Some of these bird have been gone for more than 100 years."

As an example, he said, the only historical evidence that the northern hawk owl ever nested in North Dakota came from Ralph's egg collection.

The bird eggs also have another potential.

"It could be the Jurassic Park factor," he said. Residual yolk inside the eggs may someday serve as a source of DNA to help scientists answer more questions about the genetic makeup of various species. Who knows? Maybe the egg DNA could be used someday in the future to clone missing species?

If there's a moral to this story, it might be you can never judge an Iowa farm house by how it looks from the outside.

Today, Ralph's eggs are all gathered at Yale University, thanks to the family's decision to donate the collection for the purposes of higher learning.

In the meantime, Henderson was so inspired by Ralph's doings, he has written a book, due off the presses next September, entitled: Oology And Ralph's Talking Eggs.

Yup, you heard it... oology. And that's no yoke.