Dean Amadon, 90; Ornithologist, Curator, Expert on Birds of Prey

Dean Amadon, 90, an authority on birds of prey and former curator of birds at the American Museum of Natural History, died Sunday at his home in Tenafly, N.J. The cause of death was not disclosed.

A longtime museum staffer, he traveled to exotic places for field work and wrote or co-wrote 400 publications, including several works considered classics by naturalists and bird lovers.

The Milwaukee native graduated from Hobart College and earned his doctorate from Cornell University. While a student at Cornell, he was hired at the museum in 1937 to catalog bird eggs. During World War II, he served with the Army Medical Corps in the Pacific.

He was named the museum’s Lamont curator in 1955, serving until 1973, and was chairman of the museum’s ornithology department during that time.