OFFICERS - 2014-2016 Joyce Bryk, Co-President 516-621-6678 Jennifer Wilson-Pines, Co-President 516-767-3454 Peggy Maslow, Vice President 516-883-2130 Belinda Nielsen, Secretary 516-628-1315 Micheal Henahan, Treasurer 516-627-7018

WHAT'S NEW?

Long time member, Mary Eschwei, passed away in December. She was an active part of the chapter for many years, serving on the board, lending her home for meetings, and giving slide shows on her extensive travels. Two friends recall her generous, thoughtful qualities.

Ralph Cioffi On Dec 10 I was leafing through the pages of Newsday when I saw a familiar face smiling up at me. It was the friendly face of Mary Eschwei and it headed the obituary notice of her passing on Dec 7. After my initial sadness, I began to think of the first time I saw that smile. It was at a Audubon function. It was the first of several meetings in which we realized we shared some common bonds. There was our love of birds, of course, but it turns out we were neighbors. She lived in Sea Cliff and I lived a robin’s flight away in Glen Cove. Furthermore, we both had attended Sea Cliff Public Schools and Mary was a chemist employed in a lab run by Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute, the very same university where I had spent a year studying Chemistry. I got to appreciate Mary even more when she served on the Audubon board. She was always supportive and helpful in promoting all our birding and conservation proposals; as such she worked hard to help make our 25th anniversary dinner a big success.

Every Christmas Mary would bring me a small ornament made of colorful plastic for my holiday tree, one of many ornaments that she personally crafted at home as gifts for friends. This led to her inviting me to her basement to see her workshop where she produced these gifts. There I saw a marvelously amazing collection of miniature lathes and machinery that could have come from some Lilliputian factory.

Mary loved to travel and explore. On a bicycling trip through the Catskills, she and her friend Zu Proly came upon a quaint inn which they loved so much that they made it the goal of an annual visit. Each time they invited enough birding friends to fill its rooms so that for a few days it became a private birders’ lodge. In time Mary invited me to be one of those lucky guests. While there we two birded together, spending our mornings and afternoons looking out from the back seat of Helen and Bob McClure’s car happily spotting birds and smiling all the while.

Mary was a true giver. She volunteered wherever she could to help the needy. One evening, a few years ago, a group of us, including Mary, were driving to an Audubon meeting. We had to stop twice along the way, once for Mary to buy food and then again for her to deliver it to an elderly Sea Cliff lady. As we continued on our way, Mary sat quietly, not boasting of her good deed and the rest of us sat quietly in awe of her great generosity.

I have many memories of Mary and they are all beautiful.

Helen McClure Mary was an early member of our Audubon Chapter and contributed in every way she could. She was on the board for many years as our program and publicity chairwoman but she also did the little jobs that no one else wanted to do.

Mary presented detailed and humorous slide programs about her nature trips. I still recall her program about hiking part of the Adirondack Trail with with Zu Proly. She mentioned that she cut the strings and tags off her tea bags in order to save a sliver of backpack weight.

Mary knew how to construct things. She had a workshop in her basement where she pursued her interests, and made many little intricate Christmas ornaments for her friends.

She worked at Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute and helped many graduate students with their lab work and thus their degrees. I remember that she would leave Sea Cliff at 5:30 AM to beat the traffic. Then she would read in her car till the college opened.

She had her father’s love of baseball and was on a team that played on weekends in Central Park. She and a friend also owned a ski lodge upstate. Probably best of all, she was an ardent traveler and explored many different habitats in our curious world.

After she retired, she flung herself into volunteer work: Catholic charities, projects at the Sea Cliff Museum, Audubon activities, and leading children’s programs at Garvies Preserve. Kathryne Natale will attest that she was available whenever she was needed for programs. For the woodland walks, she carried a packet. When the hickory nuts under the trees had disintegrated, she would produce her sample nut. Then the
students could scour the ground for the pieces
of the remnants of a nut.

Mary was a remarkable person. It was my privilege
to know her for many years.

FALL 2015 - BIRD WALK SCHEDULE

Walks are for beginners and experienced birders alike.
Weather permitting, walks start at 9:30 AM unless indicated by ***, in which case,
the walk will start at 6:30 am on BIG Day.
If in doubt, please call the trip leader.
Please note: all phone numbers are area code 516 unless otherwise indicated.
In most cases, the contacts are also leaders for the respective walks.
Go to our website at http://northshoreaudubon.org/for directions.
We would like to encourage carpooling, where possible.