Charles Lavelle Broley (Dec. 7, 1879 - May 4, 1959)
A short while back, I became aware of Edwin Way Teale who, among many other things, wrote four books about travelling across the U.S. following the seasons. I started reading the first one - North With the Spring - and was not far into the 17,000 mile trip when I took this detour.
Teale (and his wife) were hardly into their trip (c.1950), journeying around Lake Okeechobee in Florida, when he mentioned that he was going to join up with a Canadian for an eagle adventure. The Canadian is Charles Broley and naturally I wanted to find out who he was. In terms of google 'hits' there is not much about him and there is no Wikipedia entry. There should be.
He was originally from Gorrie, Ontario which is near Goderich and he was definitely not your ordinary snowbird. If you are interested in eagles or ornithology, you will be interested in what follows and may not be aware that this "bald-headed eagle-bander" knew more about eagles than just about anyone. He made people aware of migratory patterns and he knew of the potential negative effects of DDT early-on and was cited by Rachel Carson.
He was also fearless. If you are not fascinated by birds, you still may be interested in finding out more about a late-bloomer who started climbing very tall trees at a very late age.
I have detoured long enough so this short introduction will have to do. If I have not convinced you that Broley is an interesting subject, then simply read the brief biography I have linked below. If that changes your mind you will find that I have dutifully typed-out the relevant section from Teale's book. I have also provided a bibliography, which I have partially annotated and from which you will learn a great deal.
A Short Broley Biography
Lower Beverley Lake Association
“Charles Broley/Eagle Platform
Jan. 6, 2012.
Lower Beverley Lake is near Delta, Ontario which is approximately 60 km from Kingston.
This is where the Broley snowbirds migrated from in the winter and returned to in the summer.
A good short biography of Broley is provided when an eagle platform was dedicated to him in 2011. Click on the link above to read it.
Broley as Described by Teale
Among other things you will learn how Broley got to the top of this tree!
North With the Spring: A Naturalist’s Record of a 17,000 Mile Journey With the North American Spring, Edwin Way Teale. Dodd, Mead & Company, 1957
Chapter Six: “Eagle Tree” pp.39-54.
[The action takes place near Lake Okeechobee and the 'prairie' is the Kissimmee Prairie, c.1950]
“At breakfast Dick Pough told us that in a couple of days Charles L. Broley was driving over from Tampa to band eagles on the prairie. Broley, a retired Canadian banker who took up the risky hobby of eagle banding when nearing sixty, is an almost legendary figure in modern ornithology. At sixty-seven he was then nearing his thousandth eagle. We decided to wait and join the expedition. (pp.39-40).
“Outside the Southland Hotel, the next morning, we met the Broleys. They had driven over from Tampa the evening before. Both the eagle bander and his writer-wife were people we liked at once. Five feet, nine and a half inches tall, 150 pounds in weight, with a sense of humor as keen as his blue eyes, with his hair cropped so short that he has been referred to as the “bald-headed eagle bander,” this retired banker was one of the most remarkable men we met on our travels. Although he was nearing seventy, he was ascending cypress trees 150 feet high and climbing trunks so rickety that they swayed with his weight and went down in the next heavy storm.” (p.47)
“Broley spread out coils or rope, three rope ladders, lead sinkers, stout fishline, a broom handle with a teaspoon taped to one end, a slingshot, a pair of rubber-soled shoes, and other odds and ends….”
“Under the eagle tree our eyes ran upward along more than half a hundred feet of trunk to an immense nest of sticks massed against the sky. Bald eagles keep adding sticks to their nests year after year. Sometimes the weight of the accumulated material will exceed a ton. Broley’s largest nest, perhaps the largest in America, is lodged in the top of a Florida pine near St. Petersburg. His measurements show it is 20 feet deep and 91/2 feet wide. Among the sticks of another nest he once found about three-quarters of the handle of a heavy ash oar….”
“He never knows, in ascending a tree, what will lie at the top of his climb. Moreover, each tree presents a fresh set of problems. The dead pine under which we stood rose for more than twenty feet before the first stub of a limb jutted out. One cypress Broley climbed had its first limb seventy feet from the ground. And, in Canada, he once reached a nest at the top of an 80-foot basswood tree which had lost all its lower limbs. In this case he threw a weighted fishline directly over the nest itself, by means of his slingshot, and with this pulled up his rope ladders. For less lofty throws he use the broom handle with the teaspoon at the end. We watched him place a lead sinker, attached to a stout fishline, in the spoon and flip it over the stub of a limb with a deft sweep of the wooden handle that was a tribute to his years as a lacrosse player. To the fishline he attached a rope, pulling it over the limb and attaching it, in turn, to a 40-foot length of rope ladder with wooden steps. When this was fastened securely in place and he had changed into rubber-soled sneakers he was ready to climb….”
“Standing on the first limb, Broley threw a sinker and fishline over the highest limb and repeated the process of pulling up rope and ladder. This enabled him to reach the edge of the nest. Now came the ticklish job of getting over the side. The last few feet are the most important of his climb….”
“The same tree is used by the same eagles season after season. The highest next Broley has visited is 125 feet above the ground in the top of a giant cypress….”
“As Broley pulled himself up and onto the nest above us -- first his head and shoulders disappearing, then his legs projecting out into space and shortening until they were gone -- patches of loose bark sloughed away from the upper trunk and fell to the ground. For ten minutes he was hidden behind the wall of sticks. But we could visualize events on the nest high overhead. Before making the ascent he had demonstrated the steps required in banding an eagle….”
“When his legs appeared over the edge of the mass of sticks and he came down the tree, loosening ropes and letting down ladders in his wake, he had banded his 932nd eagle. Since then he has passed the 1,200 mark. He has banded more eagles -- a dozen times more -- than all other birdmen put together.” (pp.48-53)
A Broley Bibliography
For more photographs of Broley see The Florida Photographic Collection
which is part of the Florida Memory Project and where you will find much else to see.
Anon. “Eagles to be Like Dodos in a Hundred Years, Conservationist Says,” Daytona Beach Morning Journal, July 5, 1954.
Broley is quoted and notes that development and land clearing are problems: “I can’t see anything else than a gradual decrease in population.” He had also issued an earlier warning. See:“Timber Cutting in Florida Threatens the Life of Eagles,” Sarasota Herald-Tribune, Dec. 27, 1946.
Anon. “Dunnellon Garden Club Hears Russell Mason,” Ocala Star-Banner, Jan 23, 1963.
Mason was the executive director of the Florida Audubon Society. After providing background about the AS “...he showed colored films of wading and song birds of Florida. Of special interest was the film of the bald eagle in his natural habitat, filmed by the late Charles Broley, a Canadian, whose pictures and writing sparked the effort for the preservation of this bird.” See the obituary by Mason that is provided below.
Beans, Bruce E. Eagle's Plume: The Struggle to Preserve the Life and Haunts of America's Bald Eagle, Scribner, 1996.
Broley gets a thorough treatment - see especially Chapter 5: "In at the Death", pp.72-84.
Bergstrom, E. Alexander, (Reviewed Work:) Eagle Man by Myrtle, Jeanne Broley
In Bird-Banding, Vol. 25, No. 2 (Apr., 1954), p. 82
Eagle Man: Charles L. Broley's Field Adventures With American Eagles was written by Broley’s wife Myrtle. This short review of it is available via JSTOR. Those interested in banding should see other issues of Bird-Banding where Brody is often mentioned in relation to the subject. For example in this article one will find a list of eight banded eagles which had been found after banding by Broley. Most of them had been shot! See: May Thacher Cooke, Bird-Banding, Vol. 21, No. 1 (Jan., 1950), pp. 11-17.
Bodsworth, F., “How to Catch an Eagle,” Maclean’s, Vol. 65, No.3, Feb.1,1952.
“Broley has taught U.S. scientists more about their national bird than any man alive.”
“Retired, he has earned a spot in a couple of U.S. biographies as the world’s leading authority on eagles, has been elected one of the few Canadian fellow members of the traditionally hard-to-crash American Ornithologists’ Union, and is in such a demand as a lecturer that if he wished he could earn more than he ever did in a bank office. He’s also, without doubt, the most actively retired businessman on the continent.” p.23.
“Roger Tory Peterson, a leading U.S. ornithologist said: “To Broley goes the distinction of adding more to the knowledge of our national bird than any man living.” p.33.
[Peterson also wrote about Broley in his book All Things Reconsidered... see the Peterson entry below.]
Broley, Charles L. “Migration and Nesting of Florida Bald Eagles,”The Wilson Bulletin,Vol. 59, No. 1 (Mar., 1947), pp. 3-20
This article by Broley from The Wilson Bulletin is available via SORA, the Searchable Ornithological Archive, and JSTOR. This is the first paragraph:
“Previous to January 1939 few Bald Eagles (Haliaeetus l.Leucocephalus)
had been banded in Florida. The Florida Bald Eagle was considered non-migratory and was regularly recorded as a permanent resident of the State. In 1938, Richard H. Pough, of the National Audubon Society, suggested that I band a few eagles as an experiment, and during the eight years, 1939 to April 1946, I banded 814 Bald Eagles along the Gulf Coast of Florida-practically all in January and February, a few in March. Meanwhile, I kept a year-by-year record of most of the nests in the banding area, which extended from Hernando
County south to Lee County.”
Broley, Charles L. "Plight of the Florida Bald Eagle," Audubon, Jan.-Feb., 1950,p. 45.
Broley, Charles L. "Plight of the Florida Bald Eagle Worsens," Audubon, Mar.-April, 1951. p.72
Broley, C.L., “The Eagle and Me,” Canadian Banker, Vol.60, No. 1, Winter, 1953. pp.99-106.
This article has as a subtitle: "A Retired Banker's Hobby". He describes how he got started and provides a thorough description of how he climbs trees and devised his climbing gear.
"At the age of 73, I find that I can climb perhaps more easily than I did 13 years ago. I enjoy a difficult tree more than an easy one, and I hope to carry on for a few years more." p.106.
Broley, M.J., Eagle Man: Charles L. Broley's Field Adventures With American Eagles.
The author of this book is Myrtle Jeanne, Broley's wife. There is an introduction by Teale.
Cook, Hugh A., “Charles Broley: An Extraordinary Naturalist” , CM: A Reviewing Journal of Canadian Materials for Young People, Vol.14, No.4, July 1986. (CM was also known as Canadian Material and was published from 1971 to 1994 by the Canadian Library Association.)
This review of Gerrad’s book about Broley is presented here in its entirety:
“Jon Gerrard, a medical doctor in Manitoba, developed an interest in bald eagles. As a result of this interest, he became interested in the life of Charles Broley and had the opportunity to meet Jeanne, Charles's daughter, and visit the site of the family cottage at Delta, Ontario. This, along with the writings he had perused of Charles Broley's pioneer work in bird watching and the banding of bald eagles, lead Gerrard to write a paper for a conference on bald eagles that was being held in Winnipeg.
Unfortunately, there are several gaps in the life of Charles Broley that Gerrard could only surmise about, and these he has acknowledged. Charles Broley was raised in Elora, Ontario. He became a banker, moved to Delta, where he met and married his first wife, Ruby, and built the family cottage on an island. Unfortunately, he lost Ruby to tuberculosis. He moved to Manitoba, where he met his second wife, Myrtle. At this time in his life he became an avid bird watcher, as did Myrtle. He became highly respected for his knowledge of birds and upon his retirement, at the age of sixty, began climbing one hundred foot high trees to band eagles. After several years of banding, Charles began to notice a decline in successful nestings of the eagles and was responsible for raising enough concern that political action brought about a ban on DDT.
Shortly after Myrtle's death Charles died trying to extinguish a grass fire that burnt his cottage. By his personal efforts Charles had greatly encouraged an interest in bird sanctuaries and bird conservation in general. Avid hunters became avid bird watchers and photographers. This is a story that needed telling and it would be a worthwhile addition to the bird section of all libraries.”
Curtin, Dave, “The Eagle Has Landed: National Symbol Flies in the Face of Near-imminent Species Extinction,” Colorado Springs Gazette Telegraph, Jan. 8, 1995.
“Retired banker and amateur biologist Charles Broley theorized in 1958 that fish eaten by eagles were contaminated by the pesticide DDT, according to Greg Breining in the 1994 book "Return of the Eagle" (Falcon Press).” [This book is not available locally. A copy is searchable via the Internet and it is clear that Broley is discussed in the book which has its full title: Return of the Eagle: How America Saved Its National Symbol.]
Evanoff, Vlad, “Seen Any Pink Geese Lately?”, The American Mercury, May 1959, pp. 46-49
This is an article about how scientists are marking birds and animals so that they can obtain information about their movements and habits. Broley is mentioned in this context on p.47.
Gerrard, Jon. Charles Broley: An Extraordinary Naturalist 1983
This short biography was published by White Horse Plains Publisher in 1983. See the review above in the entry for Cook.
Haddock, Dudley, “Eagle Scout:The Little-known Story of our National Bird: The Eagle,"
Collier's Weekly, May 9, 1942, pp. 14-15.
This article has a few good photographs.
“Because he tackles buzz saws with his bare hands as a hobby, Charles L. Broley, a 63-year-old retired Canadian banker, has supplied Uncle Sam with more information about his trade mark during the last four years than had been learned since its adoption by the Continental Congress in 1782. In lieu of golf and fishing he bands bald eagles during his winter visits to Florida.
Until Broley became interested, in 1938, only 58 of the birds had been banded in North America. Knowledge of its habits was limited. It was believed, for one thing, the Florida species was non-migratory. Now it is known to be a long-distance traveler, for two with Broley bands have been found in Canada, one on Prince Edward Island, 1,650 miles north of the nest it left only three weeks previously….”
Until recently much of the life story of the species was a closed book. Observation of the nests and banding of the eaglets is so strenuous and hazardous few attempt it. One must be an engineer, acrobat and strong man to do so, for these nests are in the tops of the tallest pines and cypresses. Open a great umbrella, turn it upside down and attempt to climb into it from the tip, without wings, and it may be realized what one is up against in gaining the top of a nest, even after the tree has been scaled….”
Broley became addicted to his hobby by request. Prior to his retirement in 1938 after twenty years as manager of the Winnipeg branch of the Bank of Montreal, he had attained recognition as one of the continent's foremost authorities on ducks, geese and swans.
Upon learning he intended to spend that winter in Florida, officials of the National Audubon Society and the Fish and Wildlife Service of the Department of the Interior requested that he band a few bald eagles. That was the beginning. His work from the outset proved to be of such scientific value Washington since has annually requested the Canadian government, which restricts the movement of its nationals during wartime, to permit him to return and continue it.”
Hickey, Joseph J. A Guide to Bird Watching, 1943.
See the section “Florida Odyssey” on pp.143-145.
Mager, D. “Charles Broley in Florida,” in J.M Gerrard and T.M Ingram, The Bald Eagle in Canada, 1985. This book was not available to me.
MacMaster, A. “Charles Broley in Manitoba,” in J.M Gerrard and T.M Ingram, The Bald Eagle in Canada, 1985.
Mason, C.R., Obit. The Auk, Vol.77, No. 3, July 1960, p.378.
The Auk is available on SORA, the Searchable Ornithological Archive, and via JSTOR. Presented below is Mr. Mason’s obituary for Broley:
“Charles L. Broley of Delta, Ontario, an Elective Member of the American Ornithologists' Union, and a member since 1926, died suddenly in the early summer of 1959 as a result of fighting a brush fire near his home. He had shortly before returned from Tampa, Florida, where he had continued his long fight for protection and restoration of the Bald Eagle. He had just agreed to serve on the Wildlife Committee of the Florida Audubon Society, with special emphasis on his favorite bird. His presentation of the plight of America's National Bird at the Annual Meeting of the Society in March 1958 had inspired its officers to initiate a program of census and research leading to greater knowledge of the needs for survival of the Bald Eagle in Florida.
Mr. Broley was a banker by profession but retired at 58 to spend most of the following two decades in studying, banding, photographing, and lecturing about the Bald Eagle. He became adept in the use of rope ladders in climbing eagle trees and developed a national and international reputation as an authority on the species. Mrs. Broley, who preceded her husband in death by a year, wrote the "Eagle Man," which described his experiences with this great bird during his retirement years. The Broleys' daughter has deposited her father's records and eagle films with the Laboratory of Ornithology at Cornell University so that they may have further use. Many of us here in Florida, and throughout the country, considered Charlie Broley a fine personal friend, and the warmth of his association will be greatly missed as will his work in ornithology and conservation.”
C. Russell Mason, Altamonte Springs, Florida.
McNicholl, Martin K., “Charles Lavelle Broley,” The Canadian Encyclopedia.
This is the complete entry:
“Charles Lavelle Broley, banker, ornithologist (born at Gorrie, Ontario, 7 Dec 1879; d at Delta, Ont 4 May 1959). A banker in Winnipeg, he was also active in ornithology and conservation. In 1939 he "retired" to winters in Florida and summers in Ontario.
In Florida he began a raptor-banding study, in his first 8 years banding 814 bald eagles and ultimately banding more than 1200. Recoveries showed that eagles dispersed northwards after nesting prior to southern migration; Broley's was the first study to demonstrate this phenomenon with large numbers. Declining hatching success during his study resulted in one of the first alerts to science of the dangers of insecticides.
Broley was honoured for his work by a life membership in the Natural History Society of Manitoba. He also encouraged the early career of wildlife artist Terence Shortt. Broley was to assume membership in a special conservation committee on bald eagles when he died fighting a brushfire.”
Peterson, R.T., “Eagle Man,” Audubon, 50, 1948.
Apparently Broley is mentioned in this article.
Peterson, Roger Tory, All Things Reconsidered: My Birding Adventures
See the chapter: “Broley, The Eagle Man,” p.124. There is a good picture of Broley on p.130.
Redford, Polly, “Counting Our Eagles, The Atlantic Monthly, July 1965, pp. 64-68
Apparently Broley is mentioned in this article.
Sterling, Keir Brooks, et al. Biographical Dictionary of American and Canadian Naturalists and Environmentalists. Greenwood Press, 1997
A short, but useful biographical sketch of Broley is provided along with a bibliography (see “Broley, Charles Lavelle, on pp.116-117.)
[Broley’s] “ investigations were among the first to implicate DDT in raptor declines and thus pesticides as environmental threats.”
“Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring effectively used Broley’s data in combination with others to sound this warning.”
Tao, Dominick, Soaring Spiritual Bond: The Image and Aura of the Eagle Have a Clutch on Countless Lives,” St.Petersburg Times, June 6, 2010.
“Back in the days when most of Central Florida was pine scrub and farmland, Charles Broley ventured where only eagles dare.Throughout the 1940s, the former bank manager climbed into hundreds of eagle nests across the state, often more than 100 feet up, placing numbered bands on more than 1,000 chicks so their movement patterns could be tracked.
His obsession is legend among present-day Florida eagle stewards, like Barb Walker, the coordinator for Pinellas County's Audubon Society Eagle Watch program.
She feels it's her job to carry on the torch of eagle conservation pioneered by Broley 60 years ago. "I think it's important to our children. The past with eagles is important, even before they were delisted (from the endangered species list)," Walker said.
Teale, Edwin Way, “Bird of Freedom,” The Atlantic Monthly, November 1957, pp. 133-140
Apparently Broley is mentioned in this article.
Wellington County Museum and Archives
This is from the website of the Wellington County Museum and Archives
http://wcma.pastperfectonline.com/
A1997.132 - Eagle Man, by Myrtle Jeanne Broley, 1952.
Eagle Man, by Myrtle Jeanne Broley, 1952; hardcover, 210 pages. Story of the Elora banker-naturalist Charles L. Broley's field adventures with American Eagles; written by his wife, Myrtle Jeanne Broley. Inside front cover, signed "Myrtle Jeanne Broley / Charles Broley". Includes newspaper clippings from Toronto Daily Star, July 28, 1954; Kitchener-Waterloo Record, May 5, 1959 [obituary Charles Broley].
White, E.B. “Talk of the Town,” New Yorker, April 24, 1954.
Broley is mentioned and a couple of months later one finds him profiled by Geoffrey T. Hellman in “Eagle Bander, New Yorker, June 19, 1954.
“The leading eagle bander of the world” is described as “a wiry, sun-burned, single-chinned, bright-blue-eyed man who looks ageless…” Broley says that a few weeks before had just had a very rough eagle outing in Maryland. He is 74 at this time.
Winnipeg Free Press.
A large number of references to Broley are found in the archive of the Winnipeg Free Press, but one has to pay to access them. According to Sterling’s sketch in the Biographical Dictionary.... noted above, Broley often contributed to A.G. Lawrence’s bird column, "Chickadee Notes," which was published in that paper.
Wood, Madelyn, “Our Bird of Freedom,” Coronet Magazine, July 1954, pp. 81-84
Apparently Broley is mentioned in this article.
[I was not able to see the two biographical works about Broley and didn't have time to track down some of the unannotated references. This is a 'detour' after all.]
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