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Buck Edwards:
Sweet Briar’s Bird Man
On September 27, Dr. Ernest P. “Buck” Edwards,
Dorys McConnell Duberg Professor of Ecology,
emeritus died at the age of 92. We know that the
Sweet Briar community, both people and birds, will
miss the beloved Bird Man who never lost a chance
to observe the wonders of the world around him.
IN THE SEPIA-TONE PHOTO, TWO
grinning, barefoot boys sit in a rowboat, side
by side. ey’re wearing knickers and shortsleeved,
collared shirts, and their feet appear
blackened, perhaps from running around
shoeless on a warm summer day.
In the background, Sweet Briar’s Lower
Lake stretches to what is now a hardwood
forest on the other side. In the photo it is a
grassy hill, dotted with young trees.
e two boys are Ernest Preston Edwards
and his brother George Griffith, who is
holding two small-mouthed bass. Ernest
Preston would eventually be known as
"Buck," and, years later, a world-renown
ornithologist and Sweet Briar's Dorys
McConnell Duberg Professor of Ecology.
Buck was one of the College’s oldest
emeritus professors and perhaps one of its best
known, having been Sweet Briar’s
ornithologist, or “bird man,” for decades. He
lived out his final years at Westminster
Canterbury in Lynchburg, but made frequent
visits to campus.
When he visited campus, he brought
with him a black paper photo album of images
taken during childhood. Among the photos
affixed to its fragile pages were snapshots of
the family dog, a white collie called Mohini,
and the cat, a striped tabby named eodore.
ere were photos of Camp Tye Brook in
Lowesville, some from a visit to Monticello
and images of Sweet Briar from the 1930s.
One photo shows Edwards and other campus
children hanging from all sides of the
Williams family monument and another of
him and some kids sitting in a bird bath.
Early Life at Sweet Briar
e Edwards brothers, which also included
eldest brother Howard, moved to Sweet Briar
in 1927. eir father was a physics professor
at the College from 1927 to 1943 and their
mother, a librarian. e couple had met and
married in India while working as teachers
under the auspices of the Presbyterian
Church.
Buck's father, also named Ernest, grew
up a Southern Baptist in Darlington, S.C. He
wanted to “roam around the world,” Edwards
said, an opportunity the Baptists weren’t
offering at the time. So, he hooked up with
the Presbyterians and traveled to India, where
he met and married Mabel Griffith, of Utica,
N.Y.
ree of the couple’s four children were
born in India, including a daughter, Ruth
Cary, who died when she was a year old.
Edwards describes his mother as quiet and
unassuming, and believes she never completely
got over losing her daughter and having to
leave her buried so far away.
Buck has fond memories of growing up
at Sweet Briar, first at Faculty Row No. 4, then
down the street at No. 6. His mother would
cook food with curry powder, perhaps a
carryover from her time in India, and he and
Griffith would play basketball and field
hockey with the Sweet Briar girls. He doesn’t
recall having any crushes on the students but
says he liked them very much.
He went to Amherst Presbyterian Church
with the students, and they took him to
Lynchburg when Ringling Brothers’ circus
came to town. His mother chaperoned them
at dances at the University of Virginia,
Virginia Military Institute and Hampden-
Sydney, and they would visit the house on
Faculty Row.
“Mostly, we’d hang around the
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