It all began with a Blackburnian Warbler in the spring of 1965. Phoebe Snetsinger was living in Minnesota with her husband and four children. She was 34 years old. A neighbor invited Phoebe to go birding with her. Phoebe’s glimpse of the brilliant orange throat of the Blackburnian Warbler marked the beginning of a burning interest, even an obsession, with birds.

To cut to the chase, Phoebe became the first person to see 8,000 species of birds. With roughly 10,000 species of birds in the world, that achievement is truly remarkable.

The story of the successful quest to see 8,000 species is chronicled in Olivia Gentile’s excellent biography, Life List. Gentile weaves two threads throughout the biography: a description of many of the adventure-filled trips Phoebe took over the years to add to her life list and an examination of Phoebe’s personality, motivations and family relationships. Phoebe largely lived her life on her own terms.

In 1967, the Snetsingers moved to the St. Louis area. Phoebe joined a nature club in Webster Groves. She was a regular on the club’s Thursday’s birding trips. Her skills grew. Her competitive spirit pushed her to surpass the record of 275 species seen in one year in the St. Louis area.

In 1969, the American Birding Association was born. The goals of this organization were to promote the competitive aspects of birding, to promote birding as a sport. Each year, the ABA publishes life list totals for various regions (state lists, North American lists, world lists). A member of the Webster Groves club, Bertha Massie, inspired Phoebe. Bertha had seen over 3000 species of birds in the world and she had the highest world life list of any woman at the time.

Phoebe’s father died in 1971. He had established a hugely successful advertising firm. Phoebe inherited a portion of her father’s wealth that gave her the means for all the international travel to come.

She took a birding trip to the Galapagos Islands in 1976 with her son and another to Kenya in 1977. On the latter trip, she saw 600 species of birds, nearly doubling her life list. She was hooked!

In 1981, Phoebe found a lump in her armpit that turned out to be a malignant tumor. Although tests showed the cancer had not spread, doctors gave Phoebe a devastating prognosis: three more months of good health and death within a year.

Phoebe decided to go on an Alaskan birding trip that she had signed up for before her cancer diagnosis. The trip went well and set the tone for much of the rest of her life. In her words, she was birding on borrowed time.

A year later, Phoebe was feeling fine and the cancer had not spread to other parts of her body. The cancer would appear two more times in her lymph nodes over the rest of her life but never metastasized.

Phoebe began traveling widely on birding expeditions. The attainment of one threshold, like 5000 species on her world life list, led her to want more. She ultimately decided to shoot for the goal of 8000 species. Gentile chronicles Phoebe’s successful quest in an engaging style.

Phoebe was a meticulous note keeper. She maintained an extensive collection of notecards on every bird she saw. During the last 15 years of her life, she was usually birding in far-flung places for at least half of the year and writing up her notes the rest of the time.

Phoebe was a headstrong woman. She broke some bones in her right wrist on one trip but soldiered on lest she miss a life bird or two. Her wrist never fully recovered. She noted the recurrence of her cancer before one trip but decided to wait for treatment until after the expedition! She suffered a brutal assault in Papua New Guinea.

Phoebe’s accomplishments came at the expense of her family. She missed one daughter’s wedding and forced the rescheduling of another. She was with her mother when she died but left for a birding trip before the funeral. Her husband had to seal with her extended absences and preoccupation with her notecards when she was at home.

Ironically, Phoebe died in a car crash in Madagascar in 1999 on a birding trip. Cancer never beat her.

[Originally published on May 31, 2009]