I first met Alan Brady aboard the Miss Barnegat Light on a tilefish trip out to the 100-fathom line at Hudson Canyon, in late May of 1977. Alan was well-known as a pioneer in organizing pelagic trips for the Delaware Valley Ornithological Club (DVOC) and the Urner Ornithological Club—excursions I could never seem to afford—but on this trip he and I were hitching a ride on the cheap with the fishermen.
The weather was fine, the birding phenomenal, and Alan was usually the first to point out new birds, or fire away with his telephoto. It seemed like we saw practically everything then-listed in the guides for the northwestern Atlantic—all three species of jaegers, four shearwaters, two phalaropes, two storm petrels, a skua, and a fulmar. I vividly remember a very close Manx Shearwater that he first shouted out as it sailed by the stern.
Alan was born in 1920, grew up in Mount Airy, Pennsylvania, and started birding in the early 1930s, when he became a member of the DVOC. He attended the University of Pennsylvania, and worked as an aircraft mechanic before joining the navy during World War II. He and his wife, Liz, who died recently, met in New Hampshire and were married for sixty years; Alan refers to her as “the right gal at the right time.” For many years he and his family ran Camera Craft, in Newtown, Pennsylvania.
Late this March I drove down to Alan’s cottage on the corner of Alexander Avenue and Pearl Street in Cape May Point. He’d just opened up the place for the year, and Lulu—a small scarecrow that stands sentinel on his front porch when he’s home—was by the door.
When I spoke with him, he’d just returned from an Armas Hill trip to southern Brazil and the Pantanal, where they’d seen Ocelots, a rare Maned Three-toed Sloth, and three of the last remaining Brazilian Mergansers.
RR: How did you come to own a house in Cape May Point?
AB: I had always loved this area and would sometimes come down looking for a place. About forty-five years ago I came here in February, and there had been a big storm and everything was washing away—the local paper said, “Cape May Point Washing Away!”—and there were places for sale everywhere…There really was a depression here—and houses were nothing!
Alan