Cyrus Allen Black

Cyrus "Cy" Allen Black is best known for his work as a taxidermist and amateur ornithologist around his home in Kearney, Nebraska. After his death, many of his significant ornithological records have been considered suspect, with some of his contemporaries accusing him of fraud.

Personal life

Black was born in Woodstock, Illinois, but moved to Kearney, Nebraska, with his family at a young age. Black advertised his taxidermy skills locally as early as 1917. Over time, he improved his craft until his decoys were of such high quality that they received nationwide demand, with some selling for as much $36 in 1957 ($ today). and many of his specimens still exist today in university and museum bird collections. For many years, he owned a plot of land near Oshkosh, Nebraska, where he operated a hunting lodge before selling it in 1956. Many of his reports are of whooping cranes during a time when this species was near its lowest recorded population, those of nesting western grebes in Garden County in 1916, and the alleged first state record of Bewick's wren also from Garden County, its identity was verified by Harry C. Oberholser, but the specimen cannot now be located and the veracity of this record is considered dubious. One such specimen is of a Swainson's warbler (erroneously referred to in the Kearney Hub as "Swanson's Warbler"), which Black allegedly shot in a tree in his yard on April 9, 1905. This particular specimen is from a much earlier date than other vagrants of this species in the Great Plains, and is part of the Albert Brookings's bird collection, now at the Hastings Museum, in which other questionable specimens have been found. Black reportedly sent a Swainson's warbler to C. K. Wothen of Warsaw, Illinois, for confirmation of its identification, but Wothen died shortly after receiving the specimen and his collection was sold. The specimen was eventually located after two years of searching with a "Mr. Brewster of Worcester, Mass." and now resides with the rest of Brooking's collection.