Steve was one of my heroes, and I suffer from his loss.  I met him through my work with Lee Pauser.  Steve and Pauser were both leaders in nest box construction, and I was a newcomer to owl houses with years of experience with small houses.  Lee and I both live in the San Jose area, and for several years the three of us had annual, mutual visits: Lee and I would visit Steve, next year he would visit us. About 10 years ago I invited him to give a talk at the IBM Research Lab in San Jose. CA where I was employed and where Lee had worked. We opened it to the public.  It was during Earth Week, the crowd filled our auditorium, and his talk was a knockout! People thanked me for years for having him speak. He was an incredible friend—always willing to answer a question or help with a project.—and an incredible authority on bird nest boxes and bird nesting habits.  I lost a wonderful friend when he died - the world  is poorer for his absence.

Margaret & Steve’s wedding day, 24 Aug 1963

They’d say I was being too mushy, but I still think my parents’ love story was the best I’ve ever known, in real life or in fiction. When I was a kid, it seemed like an impossible fairy tale-type thing! But watching through the years taught me showing-up for each other every day and always supporting growth in each other is the best way to love for a lifetime. 

My dad LOVED birds, loved teaching,  loved hunting. But  my mom was the true love of his life. 

Dad, we’ll do so many bird events in your name! But I know for me personally, caring for “your lady” is the best way to honor you, and I promise I will. ❤️

For the fortunate among us, we will meet one whose influence changes our life forever. Steve was one of those whose friendship enriched my life and helped to make me to be a better and more effective biologist.

I met Steve in the spring of 2007 when he was introduced to me by a mutual friend.  I was introduced to Steve as an ecologist from U.C. Davis who had recently begun to study tricolored blackbirds and Steve offered to help me to find their breeding colonies on some of the private ranches in Merced County where he had been banding cavity-nesting birds for decades.  On our first survey together he learned that I intended to trap and band tricolors.  Steve asked me how much experience I had banding passerines, and when I told him that most of my banding experience was with peregrine falcons, he offered to teach me all that he could about trapping and banding songbirds.  Thus began an extraordinarily fruitful collaboration and a massive increase in my knowledge of bird-trapping and bird-banding.  Steve and I would go on to band several thousand birds together on private ranches and on Merced National Wildlife Refuge and we published a paper together, his first, on the methods that we'd developed.

Steve was born a teacher: he taught me more in our first field season than I could have learned on my own in decades.  We spent hours in the field together, mostly on private ranches, in some of the most beautiful country in California.  Steve introduced me to several landowners and arranged access for me to monitor breeding birds on their properties.

I owe Steve much and thoroughly enjoyed his company.  He told me that his wife Margaret loved when we worked together for he was always sitting on the ground at a banding table, not perched at the top of a 14' picking ladder.  I miss him, but am eternally grateful for having known him.

In 2004, I was honored to  received the Frank C. Bellose Award for my dedication and work with Wood Ducks and the California Wood Duck Program.  Steve was one of my invited guests.   He was the first recipient of this award and I was so proud to have followed in Steve's footsteps.  

Steve was so knowledgeable about wood ducks and many cavity nesting species and  their management. He was creative and  always thinking  out of the box about how to make things better.  I always said " Steve taught me everything I know". I was proud of that fact,  I was his student and he was the best mentor I ever had.  I will always miss my wood ducking buddy, my mentor and good friend.

I met Steve in 2014 when I became a masters student at UC Merced. I was interested in studying kestrels on the UC Merced Vernal Pools & Grassland Preserve so I was told I had to meet Steve. After we met, we realized there needed to be more kestrel boxes on the Reserve. From there, he helped me put resources together to add 20 more boxes to the Reserve. He gathered all the supplies, taught us how to use his wood working supplies, and let us take over his backyard for the weekend. During breeding season, Steve met me out on the Reserve every week to check kestrel boxes & band the birds. When my collecting permit didn't come in time for me to collect feathers Steve quickly added feather collection to his banding license. Steve was always willing to help any student that wanted to learn. My research was possible because of Steve, without him I would have never got the experience I did while getting my degree. Banding kestrels with Steve will always be one of my fondest memories. He will be greatly missed. 

I met Steve in 1996 when I became a member of the CWDP.  At that time I would get reports from the public about wood ducks in Niles CP Park,  in Fremont.  One of my friends, an avid hunter and wood ducker, said , you ought to put up wood duck nest boxes and you gotta call Steve Simmons in Merced, he knows everything about wood ducks and can help you get your project started.

So I called CWA and got Steve's contact information, and the rest is history!!!  I know we talked for hours.  I can't tell you how many hours in 24 years we have talked about wood ducks, barn owls, kestrels, screech owls, and all things related to birds, nests, management, control, CWA, taxidermy and the wood duck program!  Steve could carry on a conversation,  I learned something new each time we talked or worked together in the field.

I always tell people Steve taught me everything I know about wood ducks and their management.  He was so knowledgeable about so many things.  What I really admired about Steve, he was passionate, driven and a natural for the work he did. He was an outstanding leader, Teacher and mentor, a pioneer.   I affectionally refer to Steve as the Guru of all things, the banding KING!  

Wherever Steve went, he held "court" with other wood duckers and a lot of people, you actually had to stand in line to talk with him , he was well known, respected and admired all over the state.

Steve will always be remembered for his passion and dedication to birds and  conservation.  He leaves quite a legacy. Steve used to say " you gotta be crazy to do what I do."  Steve was a great guy and good friend.  I will miss my friend.



Steve and I shared a bag of jellybeans on the bus on a church youth trip to the snow.  I ate the licorice ones that he didn’t like and he ate the minty green ones that I rejected.  That set the pattern for the way we would function throughout our life together.  He made up for my weaknesses and I made up for his, but we were one unit.  We gave each other confidence that life could be managed.  We were juniors in high school then.  There never was anyone else for me after that.  

I just loved the bigness of him—his personality filled the room.  But I was annoyed that it didn’t always leave space for my personality.  
I loved it that he did things his way, regardless of what anyone thought, but I was annoyed that he did things his way, regardless of what I thought.
I loved it that he had a purpose to his life in teaching and in his “bird stuff” and that he was very committed to both.  But I was annoyed that those things took so much time away from me.
I loved it that he was so proud of our daughter, Deanne, but I was annoyed when he was tougher with her than I would have been.  
I loved it that he never spoke in clichés—because he didn’t know any, or he’d say them all wrong.  But that didn’t annoy me—it just made me laugh.  
I’m sure I annoyed him, too.  

I never stopped feeling a little thrill when I heard his truck pull into the driveway—even when he was late for dinner because he was out doing his “bird stuff” until it just got too dark.  

I guess I learned that God loves us in our weakness and well as in our strength, and we ought to try to love each other in the same way. 


Steve on his commercial fishing boat, The Sea Brant
 (named after a bird, of course!)

Elmo, Ramona, Doug, Edith, James, Steve, Deanne, Margaret

I met Steve approximately three years ago while working as the Campus Biologist for UC Merced. Within 10 minutes of meeting him, he was directing me to reach into a wood box to pull out an adult falcon (kestrel), sharp talons and all!  I immediately loved his teaching style - learn by doing! Over the next three years, I was lucky enough to join Steve on various bird banding outings throughout Merced County. I assisted him in banding barn owls, bluebirds, wood ducks, swallows and blackbirds. I'm so grateful for the time I did have with him and I intend to pass on the knowledge I learned from him to others.  He will be greatly missed!

Dear Margaret and family, 
  I and my family extend our condolences as we remember Steve as a familiar teacher and fisherman. I am sure my husband Jim shared a few “big fish” stories with Steve and we enjoyed reading about the Wood Ducks in the news occasionally. 
 Our thoughts and prayers are with all of you in the coming days.
  I hope we be together in the months ahead. 
Chris

Steve and Margaret have been my neighbors for over 13 years. He was the best neighbor and a wonderful
person, always willing to help
me out with yard work, flat tires, and dead batteries or just take a moment to say Hi when he was out and about.

He’ll be truly missed. My deepest condolences. 

Steve Simmons was the best brother-in-law anyone could ask for! He could design, fix and create anything.  This was sometimes frustrating to Marg who couldn't get anything new if he could repair the old one. 

When I would arrive from Colorado to Merced to celebrate Christmas one of the first things Steve would do was take me to Costco to purchase flowers so I could make floral arrangements for the house.  I have a small florist business and am the sole employee thus when I expressed my difficulty in trying to wrap ribbon around the stems of a bridal bouquet without help, Steve designed and built me a wooden stand with different sized holes to hold any number of stems required.  He even made it collapsible so I could carry it home on the plane.

I have included another example of Steve's ingenuity  with a picture of him building an enormous cornucopia out of paper mache to serve as a Thanksgiving centerpiece for First Christian Church Merced.  He also made a giant pig for Margaret's students to paint and enter in the Merced County Fair. He knew no boundaries. 

We had great fun at our special Ecostravaganza Festivals held in May celebrating All Things Bird! Many pictures of Steve on this site were taken from those events. We called it "banding and bounding" because we gathered friends and family to experience new life emerging from  nesting boxes Steve so lovingly provided, had a rare opportunity to place a little "bling" on a tiny bird's leg and bonded together over food, games, laughter and fellowship.  I will never forget those times.

My favorite picture in this collection is of Steve with his arm around me walking down the corridor of a church in 2007 following a memorial service  for my husband, Richard.  He and Margaret made sure "the little sister" was cared for. I will miss him greatly but he will remain in my heart forever.

My very Sincere Condolences to Mrs Simmons and Family! 💓
It breaks my Heart to hear the news today,  I am so very sorry 😢
Mr. Simmons was a Dear Friend to me!
I enjoyed him when he would come out and check his boxes on my Ranch!
His stories were never ending and we always had a good laugh!
I admired his Work and Love he had put into his Ducks, Kestrals, Owls etc.
He knew I loved Salmon and when he would go fishing....he would bring me one! ❤️  He said, I brought you alittle salmon, heck it was least a 3O pounder... I was thrilled!!!😍
That was the kind of man Mr. Simmons was, so very caring and I will miss him Dearly!!!  I always had a cup of coffee for him and we would sit and visit just for abit before he went out to check his boxes!
Heaven gain a Great Man and I know he is surrounded by 🕊️ Angels 🕊️!
Rest in Peace and may God Bless you...Mr. Simmons 💓
Love, your Friend!
Bell 💗
( Picture is...Mr Simmons holding Mama Owl...so I could peek in box to see Baby owlette's) 

Steve took me under his wing to learn about the joys of bird banding. It was my senior year of undergrad and on the hot Merced weekends I would drive to the Simmons to carpool with Steve to the sites. At that time, Steve had banded over 40,000. I am overjoyed to know he reached 100,000! One of the times we went out we were handing a small songbird nest and somehow one of the babies escaped the nest and decided to stay in Steve’s truck. Which by the way, was the most incredible birding truck I have ever seen! Everything was decked out to make it perfect for banding birds. He cared about them so much! Anyways, we were driving off to go home when we heard the escaped baby bird in the truck. Steve pulled over and we found the little baby nestled into one of Steve’s contraptions. Of course, Steve knew the exact nest it belonged to and we drove it back to join its family. Steve was an incredible person and I feel so lucky to have known him. He will always be an inspiration for how to live a full life.

I met Steve in 2013, shortly after beginning work as director of the UC Merced Vernal Pool Reserve. Steve contacted me to see if I'd be interested in joining him out on the Flying M Ranch next to campus. As a birder and songbird bander, I jumped at the chance. I was amazed at Steve's ingenuity and drive (literally) as we motored across the ranchlands on quads, going to box after box to check and band any barn owl, kestrel or bluebird chicks. His many innovations and his banding gear were a marvel, as was his knowledge about each of the dozens of nest boxes we visited. This was the start of a wonderful and productive relationship that brought Steve to the campus often and into the lives of eager undergrads - most of whom knew little about bird biology. Steve proved to be a great teacher and the students soon realized what a rare jewel he was. He and Margaret even hosted several Saturday work parties in his garage, where Steve patiently showed everyone how to use woodworking tools to make kestrel boxes. The next year Steve and I set up a Kestrel study with 10 boxes scattered across the reserve. Over the next two years, we added 20 more boxes. Initially undergrads Cami Vega and Daniel Toews joined us in the project and in the second year  graduate student Joy McDermott (now Stewart) joined the project and completed her master's degree after two years of field and lab work.  Joy studied kestrel diet using stable isotopes (measured in feathers of adults and chicks) in the lab of professor Marilyn Fogel. Steve really enjoyed the new insight he gained about kestrels and their prey. And Joy gained immeasurably from Steve's expertise and the nest boxes which were crucial to her project. Steve's legacy will live on,  as a new generation of undergrads continue learning about nesting birds thanks to the skill and energy that Steve brought to campus and to the natural reserve.

Some of you may recognize the name Steve Simmons. I became aware of him when in March 2009 I found an e-mail from him in my website's inbox. I had recently posted a video of a working bottom-opening Barn Owl nest box. This sounds unusual, but at the time I had wanted to install nest boxes on a property where I was told couldn't use a ladder. It seemed reasonable then to have the bottom of the box open for clean out. I later called it the pull-the-latch-and run-upwind" design.
Steve's e-mail never mentioned this bottom-opening design, but this stranger mentioned that at one time he monitored 650 nest boxes in four counties from Merced down to Tulare and that he was also a master bander who had banded his 10,000th Barn Owl in 2006.
He was then a retired teacher, but while teaching his students had built and sold over 10,000 Barn Owl boxes over nine years with most of them being installed in the Central Valley. The monies raised from the sale of the boxes provided over $168,000 in scholarship money for his students over a 9 year period.
I came to know this stranger named Steve Simmons over the years as we regularly exchanged e-mails and less often visits. Needless to say I switched to using his Barn Owl nest box design.
Steve was a gracious man who was always willing to help others. He invited myself and my good friend Chuck Wade to visit him in Merced. At the time one of his trails was on the 12,000 acre Flying M ranch. Steve had an ATV for each of us and we followed him around while he showed us some of his nest boxes. For the first time I saw nesting Barn Owls and kestrels. He also had several underground artificial burrows for Burrowing Owls which we were also able to see. For me it was like a Class A ride at Disneyland. 
Steve credits me with bringing Western Bluebirds to the ranch as that was the first year they nested there. Somehow a pair of bluebirds who had heard of this powerhouse of a man wanted to meet him and slipped themselves into my gear.
In April of 2010 Steve agreed to give a presentation on his activities at the IBM Almaden Research Center (ARC) in San Jose. Steve and his wife Margaret drove to San Jose with plans to spend the night in a local hotel. I met them after their arrival and took them to Santa Teresa County Park to show him Barn Owl and kestrel nest boxes I had installed. I remember Steve pointing to a Barn Owl nest box mounted in a tree high on a hill and asking "why did you put the box way up there?" I asked myself that question many times since, but Steve's mentality was that his nest boxes were often mounted along a fence line which he drove his ATV from box to box. 
On the day of the presentation Steve received help to cart all of his nest boxes, bird carvings, and displays into the auditorium. The slideshow, display materials, his knowledge and recollections of his experiences were impressive. The presentation was huge success. Steve had been warned that some of the audience members may slip out early to resume their research activities, but no one did-they all were enthralled with his 2 hour presentation and Q&A session.

After the presentation I took Steve around the property to show him where I had mounted some Wood Duck boxes. Steve noticed a plastic Wood Duck box mounted high in a tree (IBM installed nest boxes on the property after the center opened.) Pointing to the nest box Steve said "I know the man who designed the box and I had told him that the squirrels will chew the entrance hole larger". I looked closely at the box and, yes, the squirrels had chewed the entrance hole larger. (The box's design was changed to add a metal collar around the entrance hole to prevent this.) I thought to myself "this man knows everything".
Steve monitored nest boxes for over 45 years beginning with Wood Duck nest boxes. In 1974 he initiated the Merced River Wood Duck Research Project and in 1991 he helped found the California Wood Duck Program. 
For all of those years Steve penciled in his nesting data into log books-Steve was a paper and pencil guy. I kidded him that he was keeping the pencil companies in business. I once showed him how I enter nest box visit records into a Palm handheld device. He asked if it ever failed and I said that I had to reset it three times. He said "aha, aha, see" which to him justified the use of paper and pencil. I didn't lose any data--I just had to reset the Palm.
I could ramble on, but it would take many others and volumes to describe the accomplishments of this giant named Steve Simmons who fledged over 100,000 birds. Margaret wrote "I like to think that he climbed the ladder of life and when he got to the top, he just stepped off and flew away with the birds". I truly hope so.  
P.S. You can see Steve in action in the video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9vHwGF6VXw


I first met Steve when I was a young biologist new to California, looking to get more experience banding birds. Boy, did I get it. I spent many hours with Steve in his truck, riding around Merced County banding countless Barn Owls, Wood ducks, Kestrels, cavity nesting songbirds and Tri-Colored Blackbirds. I was with Steve when he banded his 100,000th bird, a barn owl owlet. Steve also brought me into his second passion, waterfowl hunting, and some of my best memories involve sitting with Steve in the duck blind, sipping our “duck oil” and watching the sunrise. Steve loved talking about his experiences with wildlife as well as his years of duck and goose hunting the Sacramento and San Joaquin Valleys, and it was clear he was guy who lived a very full life and lived it on his own terms. I’ve met a lot of people in the conservation and biology fields over the years, and almost none of them have done as much for bird conservation as Steve. His original Barn Owl box design is recommended by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology as well as the USDA, ensuring that his boxes will be boosting owl populations for generations to come.  He inspired countless young people and wildlife enthusiasts, and it’s impossible to talk about Wood Duck boxes in California without mentioning Steve Simmons. Steve was a brilliant guy and I’m thankful to have known him. His legacy will be tied to bird conservation, but I will remember him as a great hunting buddy and better friend. The picture I shared below is Steve holding his 100,000th banded bird. 

I met Steve when he came out to the Vernal Pools & Grassland Reserve at UC Merced. He had such a huge impact on our community - he was one of the guest instructors for the Vernal Pools and Grassland Reserve naturalist training course.  He showed us his nest boxes, taught us about bird banding, and inspired everyone to pay attention to the beauty and biodiversity in our region. We thank him for his service to the Vernal Pools reserve and we extend our sympathies to his colleagues, friends, and family. 

(FYI, we posted a small tribute on our website. You can see it here: http://vernalpools.ucmerced.edu/content/remembering-steve-simmons-naturalist-extraordinaire)

My name is Ralph Baker, I am the field trip coordinator for Stanislaus Audubon Society (SAS). I only met Steve a couple of times but I was still sad to hear of his passing. A few years ago Steve found my phone number on the SAS website and called me out of the blue to ask if I thought our group would want to join him on his bird banding rounds sometime the following spring. Of course I said yes! So on May 12, 2018 I took a group of birders down to meet Steve and we accompanied him as he did his rounds. He shared his love and enthusiasm for the birds and his banding operation, as well as showing us the techniques he developed and the amazing tools he invented to make his job easier. He even let us band some birds, making sure that everyone in the group got to band a few. It was not our usual type of birding trip, but it was still one of the best we’ve ever done and people who were there still tell me what a wonderful trip it was and ask if we will ever do another one. Steve was an amazing guy and he will be missed!

I sent out an announcement of Steve's passing to the SAS field trip email group and one of the participants of the aforementioned trip sent this:

"I happened to be on that trip & could tell he was a kind person dedicated to his craft. I'll never forget those few hours spent being so close to the baby birds.  He was an exceptional person. I hope he found someone to take on his mission."

Dad & I went to check some of his bird boxes one spring day and got caught in a deluge! We had to wear sunglasses to even see to drive the ATVs because the rain was positively pelting us, and the whole situation had us in fits of laughter. I'm so glad I got him to pose for this photo after--it was such a funny, happy day for us. 

Liftoff
 
For Dr. Steve Simmons
 
You have been trying to depart for days,
propped up in a strange bed in the living room
that no longer looks like home, except for
the loved ones, both two- and four-footed,
who wander in and out—
 
as you do, trying to find breath, release,
as images swarm behind your closed eyes
like bees leaving the hive or birds departing
their boxed nests, the ones you tended
for decades, hauling the gangly ladder
through pastures, propping it against tall poles,
climbing up, peering into your handmade artificial
nests, counting, retrieving, banding young ones,
making notes, moving on to the next.
 
And now, on final approach to the great liftoff,
you cannot summon the strength to shake out
damp appendages, flap hard and ascend,
though, like the nestlings, you try.
Haven’t you been growing wings all along?
Hasn’t this lifetime with feathered beings
prepared you for flight?
 
You have no thought when it happens:
In the right moment, your chest bursts open
to a heartbeat of flapping feathers,
a wood duck readying for exodus.
Now all you must do is rise, glide, soar,
wing your way into what comes next,
focusing only on the clear blue of up.
 
—Jan Haag
June 1, 2020

I only met Steve once, in the spring of 2015, to help him band barn owls at the flying m ranch as part of my training as an IPM specialist for the City of San Jose. I was struck by his nuanced understanding and care and handling of the birds. He was quite a jolly character, always making jokes and ready to smile. He clearly was very passionate about his vocation and his excitment was infectious. The tips, tricks and nest box designs that I learned from him were largely responsible for the improvement of the city's program to expand across multiple parks and city-owned properties. Many waterways were protected as a result of not applying rodenticides because the program was so successful. He probably has no idea just how many interns, students and city staff lives as well as the public, that he influenced through his dedication. I will never forget such a character!
 

OBITUARY

Stephen Bryan Simmons

September 14, 1941 – June 1, 2020

Stratford Evans Merced Funeral Home

Show your support

Add a Memory

Share Obituary

Get Reminders

Services