Greater Tattooed Dunlap
(Birder Minnesotus). Uncommon, 74-76 inches.
Distinguished at 17 years of age as the youngest to record 313 Minnesota bird species sightings in one year. Nesting grounds in western St. Paul, but most recently sighted in Duluth's Canal Park pursuing an ivory gull (Pagophila eburnea).
Jan Dunlap remembers a stir-crazy January long ago when her kids were 8, 6, 4 and 2. "I said, 'We have got to get out of this house.' "
She bundled everyone into snowsuits and drove to Wabasha to see the eagles wintering over. They were spectacular, soaring low over the kids' heads. The others soon lost interest, but 4-year-old Bob stood staring upward, stunned.
"I will never forget the look on Bob's face," she said.
Little Bobby Dunlap was on his way to becoming Bob the Birdman.
He still thumbs the Golden Field Guide to Birds of North America that his parents gave him at age 5, his careful notations marking first sightings of cardinals, mallards, owls. "I just kind of took to birds more than to footballs or firetrucks."
Today, at 30, Dunlap is among Minnesota's younger birders, but hardly a fledgling, with 732 species on his life list.