Starr Saphir (New York Times)

Starr Saphir, Bird-Watching Guide in Central Park, Dies at 73

Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times

Starr Saphir began bird-watching 67 years ago. For decades, she guided fellow birding enthusiasts through Central Park.

By DOUGLAS MARTIN

Published: February 9, 2013

When Starr Saphir looked up at the star-speckled night sky, she thought of the multitude of moths, mosquitoes and other insects being pursued by swooping nighthawks. 

She shared this observation with the thousands of people who followed her through Central Park on the tours she led four times a week for nearly four decades, starting at 7:30 a.m. and continuing until she thought there were no more species to see that day. A tour might not end until dusk. 

Along the way, people might see wonders like the olive-sided flycatcher, the ruby-crowned kinglet and the black-throated blue warbler. It was not uncommon to see 35 species of birds, and not unusual to see 50. But the most compelling attraction was often Ms. Saphir herself, in her trademark blue scarf, binoculars in hand, translating chirps into the names of species and even specific behaviors.

She was renowned among birders, as bird-watchers prefer to be called, for both her eyes and ears, spying birds in distant treetops and detecting them in the brush through the slightest rustle or the tiniest tweet. Last year, a national audience came to know her through an HBO documentary about the birders of Central Park. 

Ms. Saphir (pronounced sapphire) was still leading birders until several months ago, despite having metastatic breast cancer, cataracts, a bad back, a limp and arthritis. She died of complications of the cancer on Tuesday at a hospice in the Bronx, her daughter Shawna Leigh said. She was 73.

Ms. Saphir identified her first bird 67 years ago and began leading the tours in the 1970s. She became an institution among birders because of her avian acuity and eagerness to share observations and knowledge. But she was the first to acknowledge that the star of the show was not her, despite the nickname Starr, which she acquired as a girl and kept from an earlier career as an actress. (Her given name was Muriel.) The real star, she said, was Central Park.

Major flyways converge over the city, making the 843 acres of the park an oasis for migrating birds eager for a green place to rest and feed. More than 280 bird species have been identified in the park. Birders mention it along with places like the Everglades and Yosemite National Park as a birding mecca. 

The 200 or so hard-core birders of Central Park share information in a big notebook kept in the park’s Boathouse. Unlike fishermen who zealously guard a fishing hole’s location, birders can increase their lifetime sightings — a holy grail for many — by sharing. It is the number of watchful eyes, as much as the number of birds, that have accounted for the impressive list of species recorded in the park.

Ms. Saphir, who left 80 notebooks of her daily sightings, identified 259 species in the park.

Those who took her tours were rewarded by her solicitude: if someone glimpsed a particular warbler, she would spend hours finding it, or another, for the others. She kept her guide’s fee low — most recently $8 — because she wanted more people to appreciate birds, particularly as their populations decrease. 

Her expertise came from experience and research. “The reason she was so good was because she worked very hard at it,” said Jeffrey Kimble, who produced and directed the 2012 HBO documentary “Birders: The Central Park Effect.”
 

In the film, Ms. Saphir, one of the main characters, explained her motivation. “Looking at birds really takes away sadness in a lot of us,” she said, alluding to her illness. “Looking at birds takes you out of yourself into the real world.” 

Muriel Theodora Saphir was born on July 21, 1939, on Long Island. She grew up in Brooklyn. She traced her enthusiasm for birds to the time her grandfather’s car broke down, when she was 6. While waiting for help, she spotted an intriguing bird and later studied copies of old Audubon prints to identify it. It was a black-and-white warbler. She began birding in Prospect Park. 

Ms. Saphir graduated from American University with a theater degree. Her marriage to Michael Henisse ended in divorce. She was legally separated from her second husband, Stephen Gussman.

She acted in Off Broadway and traveling theatrical productions.

In 1975, when no one showed up to conduct a guided walk in Central Park, she volunteered to take over. “I found out I could teach,” she said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal last year. “I had never known that, and I found out what a joy that was.” 

Ms. Saphir, who is also survived by another daughter, Lara Willis, counted 2,582 different species of birds in her lifetime. Her favorite was the cerulean warbler, and she asked that people contribute to the protection of its habitat in Colombia instead of sending flowers to her funeral.