On the 10th of January 2010 Helmut Sick, the German-Brazilian explorer of neotropical birds would have had his 100th anniversary.
He made his PhD under supervision of Erwin Stresemann in 1937 about the structure of bird feathers. 1939 he
joined a three months expedition to Brazil but was so fascinated about the bird life that he stayed much longer and in 1952 he
became citizen of Brazil. Helmut Sick was director at the National Museum Boa Vista and was professor for zoology an the
State University in Rio. He became member of the Academia Brasileira de Ciências und honorary citizen of Rio de Janeiro.
His probably most important book were the two volumes of „Ornitologia brasiliera, uma introduÇão“, which has been revised
in 1993 in an English version “Birds in Brazil. A natural history“. Over 68 years Helmut Sick conducted an ornithological diary
with very detailed, sometimes even artistic descriptions of his observations. His notes between 1923 and 1938 comprise
12 diary books with 80 pages each. The authors secured the material and looked through it. Here a short description of the
contents is given. A publication list and more material are available online (see bottom of the text).
Helmut Sick died in a traffic accident on 5th March 1991 in Rio de Janeiro.