Obituaries

William Belton Ornithologist

William Belton, 95, a Foreign Service officer who in retirement became a major contributor to Cornell University's ornithology library, died of congestive heart failure Oct. 25 at his home in Great Cacapon, W.Va.

Mr. Belton, who lived in Washington on and off throughout his 32-year government career, made his mark by recording 1,021 tropical birdcalls, most of them from the southern Brazilian region of Rio Grande do Sul.

Completely self-taught, he traveled in the 1970s in a Jeep with a small house trailer attached, taking notes that were developed into a two-volume report, "Birds of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil" (1984).

His recordings are at the Macaulay Library at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. (They can be heard at http://macaulaylibrary.org/advancedsearch.do; enter Mr. Belton's name in the "recordist" field.)

Mr. Belton was born in Portland, Ore., and graduated from Stanford University. He entered the Foreign Service in 1938 and served in Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Canada and Brazil until 1952. He moved to Washington to be the officer in charge of Mexican affairs at the State Department, and he later became deputy director of South American affairs.

He was also posted at embassies in Chile, Australia and the Panama Canal Zone and was inspector of embassies in 12 North African, European and Middle Eastern countries. He retired as deputy chief of mission in Rio de Janeiro in 1970.

Mr. Belton, backed by museums in Washington, New York and Brazil, turned his ornithology hobby into a 30-year second career with a tape recorder and a notebook. He ventured into areas not often visited by ornithologists and collected many first recordings of shy or rare species.

In addition to his book, which is a standard text, he prepared a pocket-size Portuguese-language version with 100 color photos, "Aves Silvestres do Rio Grande do Sul," which is in its fourth printing. Mr. Belton translated from Portuguese into English the foundational "Ornitologia Brasileira" by ornithologist Helmut Sick. It was published as "Birds in Brazil" in 1993.

The American Bird Conservancy, which he helped found, named its grants program in his honor.

His first wife, Julia Hyslop Belton, died in 2003.

Survivors include his wife, Cornelia Brouwer Belton of Great Cacapon; three children from his first marriage, Barbara Yngvesson of Amherst, Mass., Hugh Belton of McLean and Timothy Belton of Sheridan, Wyo.; eight grandchildren; and a great-grandson.