BBC Snippets

Link: http://www.freelists.org/archives/bristol-birds/03-2008/msg00034.html

Restoring a Bald Eagle population to our region became a project of passion throughout Northeast Tennessee and Southwest Virginia as the decade of the 90's took flight.  No other bird conservation endeavor has been so embraced or so rewarded by the citizens of the Mountain Empire.
 
The Bristol Bird Club and its members played a major role in making that happen.  It is one of the club's brightest success stories.  The project and our members attracted national recognition and national awards.
 
It took wings and flew on Aug 16, 1990 when TWRA Region IV Non-game biologist Bill Yambert was conferring on the phone with Wallace Coffey about possible respiratory infection a Red-tailed Hawk might be suffering.  It was in the care of a Bristol vet.

In conclusion of that conversation,  Yambert asked if Coffey knew anyone that could contribute to a needed $9,000 to get the first year of a Bald Eagle hacking project underway.  It would be conducted over several years at nearby South Holston Lake.  They were searching everywhere for private funds. Such monies could attract a federal cost-sharing match and raise the amount to nearly $20,000.  Eventually, the entire cost of the project might reach some $70,000.
 
Coffey response was that he would personally find the $9,000 in donations. He felt it would not be a problem.
 
He went to see the publisher of the Bristol Herald Courier and proposed that the newspaper take this on as a public project and let readers from all over the region share in the restoration of eagles to their area.
 
A proposal package was sent from TWRA and the U.S. Forest Service.  It all looked doable.  Less than two weeks later, Sam Bricado of the Cherokee National Forest and local ranger Sheryl Maddox were in Bristol to sign off on the project.  The goal was then set at $10,000.
 
The hacking project would be carried out on Cherokee National Forest lands near Little Oak Campground at South Holston.  It called for relocating 30 young eagles from nests in breeding areas from the north to South Holston.
 
The  Bristol Herald Courier would publish articles seeking donations and sponsorship of eaglets to be hacked at the site.  It would be a big project.
 
When one eaglet was hatched near Dover, TN in 1983, it was the first known successful Bald Eagle nest in Tennessee in 22 years.  The number of nests has increased steadily since then with more than a 100 nests each year and an estimated 120 young eagles successfully fledged each year from those nests.
 
In the long run 29 birds were hacked over a three year period from the huge hacking towers at South Holston.  Eaglets were brought from Alaska and Wisconsin during the period 1991-1994.
 
In Dec 1990, the Bristol Bird Club had decided to make the Bald Eagle its emblem.  The club's new newsletter was named "The Eagle."  At the March 1991 BBC meeting the club donated $525 which was raised by gifts made that night by members.  The club adopted one of 30 young eagles to be hacked.  A few weeks later,  Carolyn and Wallace Coffey adopted another bird in their own name and called it "Big Creek" for the area near where the eagles were being hacked.
 
BBC named its bird "Osceola" for the birding area below South Holston Dam.  The weir was new in 1991 and the island had been the site of a Boy Scout camp by that name.  It seemed very appropriate.
 
The delivery of six birds captured from nests in Wisconsin arrived by airplane at Tri-City Airport on Wednesday, June 10, 1992.  "Osceola" was on board.  Wow!  What a rush.
 
Everything seemed to be a blur.  Money was raining in like a waterfall as the funding drive began.  It was kicked off at Little Oak with wildlife and forestry officials and local civic leaders and birders attending a press conference.  A live Bald Eagle had been sent to the site by Dolly Parton's Bald Eagle project at Dollywood.  The media was feeding in a frenzy.
 
It was quickly decided that everyone who wanted to donate pennies or a dollar would be allowed to participate in the contributions.  That opened a flood gate of money.  Even people passing thru the region read about the project in the newspaper and sent donations when they returned home. Memorable was Mr. & Mrs. Roy Trent of Yorba Linda, CA near Santa Ana who sent a check on behalf of their granddaughters.
 
A high school student by the name of Kevin Hamed, club president of the Sullivan East High School Key Club, came to see Coffey April 5, 1991 and delivered a $500 check from the club to sponsor an eagle named "Patriot."  Coffey had never met Hamed.  Kevin would eventually become naturalist at Steele Creek Park Nature Center.  With his new wife, they became BBC members and attended one of the club's first Christmas parties.
 
Tennessee Tech, where Hamed got his undergraduate degree, managed the hacking project and used graduate students to take care of the birds and release them.   The university set up a fund and every penny raised was passed along to the fund.  Every check donated was made payable to that account.
 
On April 8, following the kickoff, Coffey wrote Yambert at TWRA and told him $9,168 had been pledged and $6,665 had been received and sent to the fund.  With the drive just two weeks underway,  he wrote that an effort to now raise $15,000 was not a question of "as little" but of "how much."
 
When the drive was finished,  the Bald Eagle project at South Holston Lake had received $17,700 before matching monies were applied.  Eventually the amount raised was $23,000.   It was important that hundreds and hundreds of people, clubs, agencies and companies had participate.
 
Some of the least expected were the Virginia Department of Transportation which raised $500 from their employees and named their bird "Windmaker". Not to be out done,  BBC member Bob Quillen led his division of the Bristol District Office of VDOT and his Right-of-Way Division raised another $500 to name their bird "Zeus."  Quillen is now retired from VDOT.  A public relations officer and cameraman from VDOT in Richmond came to South Holston Lake to interviewed Quillen and another local employee.  The story with photo appeared on the front page of VDOT's statewide employee newspaper.  No one was concerned that this was a Tennessee project and would be conducted in Tennessee.  The Bald Eagle is our national symbol.
 
A fun aspect was a coloring contest which allowed children everywhere to send in an entry and donate $5.00.  They colored a Bald Eagle at a nest.  Three winners in three age groups would be selected and taken by the BBC members to visit the giant eagle hacking tower which was looming over South Holston Lake.  That would be the grand prize.  But the entries came in by the mailbags.  Finally, and additional 10 runner-up "Young Eagle Winners" were selected in each of the three age groups.  Then 119 honorable mentions were selected.  Every winner and their hometowns were listed in the newspapers.  Entries came from across the country.

The coloring contest was judged by birders.   BBC members Alice Nair of the Smyth-Bland Regional Library, Suzanne Larkins a nursing student from Kingsport and BBC member Chris Brown from the Art Department faculty at VI College in Bristol judging the event. 

How amazing is it that the Bald Eagle nest found last year on the Clinch River in Hancock County is just across the river from Suzanne Larkins' family place and she is probably the first birder to have seen that nest ?  How amazing is it that she is a relative of Andy Jones' ?  She has been a longtime hawk watcher at Mendota.  Alice Nair eventually earned a masters degree at VA Tech studying White-eyed Vireo songs. A rental boat company provided a free float boat to take the winning coloring contest children with BBC hosts to see the big tower in early May 1991.
 
Norman Bass of Lebanon, VA, a member of Wildlife Forever out of Minnetonka, MN, had the national organization send a check.  That group also sponsors Grizzly Bear research and restoration for Peregrine Falcons, Trumpeter Swan, Ruffed Grouse and pronghorn.  The family of John I. Cox, an uncle of BBC members Lois Cox and Wilma Boy, adopted the next eagle after the Bristol Bird Club adopted theirs and the Cox family named it "Cherokee."
 
Eagles were adopted by all kinds of interesting companies and persons, including Pittston Coal Group, Bristol Nursing Home, Walling Distributors DeFriece Foundation, H.S. Williams Construction Company, Johnson City Press and Laurel Marina to name a few.
 
Throughout the life of the project,  other contributions came from the Watauga Audubon Society, Bays Mountain Park Commission, Tennessee Eastman Hiking Club, Mountain City Lumber Co., Tennessee Conservation League and Tennessee Valley Authority.
 
When the TWRA wanted to create more possible nesting sites for whatever eagles might return to the area,  they proposed cutting a notch in the crowns of tall evergreen trees at various locations around the lake.  Coffey approached Mike Browder of the Bristol TN electric system and asked for help.  Browder asked Asplund Tree Service out of Willow Grove, PA to help.  They had local climbers volunteer to show up with their chainsaws on a Saturday and the Forest Service directed them to several selected trees around the lake.  They climbed into the tops and cut away the limbs to make a place for nests to be built.  Those location did not turnout to be used.
 
At one point Mitchell D. Tolle, a prominent artist from Kentucky, sold patriotic eagle prints with gold embossed lettering which commemorated the eagle project. He came to Bristol and signed each one for those who bought prints to help fund the project.
 
In late Nov 1990, construction was underway on the massive hacking tower.  A bulldozer was used to help set six large telephone poles that the hack tower would rest upon. Ken Hale used his float boat to take BBC members Lori Shumate, John Shumate, Rick Knight and Coffey to the hack tower on Feb 3, 1991.
 
On Aug 21, 1993, BBC had a field trip to the lake and took other birders to see the tower.  That group included Geoff Larsen, Mike Evans, Mary Evans, Lloyd Jones, Jay Jones, Marge Olson, Jane Fleenor, Mary Erwin, Judy Roach, Karen Musick, Wallace Coffey and Carolyn Coffey.
 
Each bird was marked with a green  wing "badge" with orange numerals.  They wore U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service bird bands.  Each eaglet left the hacking tower with a radio transmitter attached so its progress in getting adjusted to the wild could be monitored.
 
On one late summer afternoon Larry McDaniel and Coffey were on board an eagle hacking project float boat with a Tennessee Tech student at South Holston, monitoring radio signals coming from hacked eagles still at the lake which had not yet begun their late summer dispersal.  They were shocked to come upon a Black Bear swimming out in the middle of the lake near the dam. They made the mistake of pulling the boat directly into the path of the bear to get photos.  Little did they know a bear will climb over anything in its path while swimming.  Bears do not swim around.  Lucky for this birding group,  the big creature didn't get that close.  They followed it to shore and got nice photos.  What saved them was seeing a boat coming in the distant and being worried it might be a wildlife officer who would think the were harassing the bear.  They backed away.
 
In the aftermath of it all, the Daughters of the America Revolution presented Coffey with a national conservation medal for his work with the project.
 
The National Wildlife Federation recognized the Bristol Herald Courier fund-raising effort as one of America's outstanding examples of how "we're coming together" to save the eagle.  The federation selected the fund raising project from among "thousands of stories around the country that dramatically show how people working together stopped the eagle's slide toward extinction and helped it begin its recovery."
 
Coffey was selected as a spokesperson for national news outlets to contact on behalf of the NWF as the eagle was reclassified from endangered to threatened.
 
Eagles soar throughout the region.  They are on eggs at this hour in Kingsport, TN and on the Clinch River in Hancock County.  They are now showing up in rural areas of Southwest Virginia where they have
never before been seen by birders.
 
Eagles have been observed every month of the year at South Holston Lake.
 
That has not always been so.  Members of the BBC can testify to that.
 
from the archives of the Bristol Bird Club

Link: http://www.freelists.org/archives/bristol-birds/02-2008/msg00041.html

Early on, Bristol Bird Club members began to think about wintering Virginia Rails in the region.

They held the pioneer birders of the area with great esteem. That respect added immeasurable to the success and contributions produce for local ornithology. The ability to advance the knowledge of the Virginia Rail began at Abingdon.

Carl Fleenor was well in his senior years when he was first met in his living room. He was beyond his active birding years -- a productive time when he was Steve Russell's mentor. Carefully stored away were years of field notes, log books and diaries from his birding experiences dating well back to the 1940's. He loaned Wallace Coffey all of that and much of the better records were carefully transcribed and secured in files at Bristol.

It goes without saying that winter notes of rails at Abingdon did not go without an asterisk and margin notes for the BBC.



A Sora Rail at the famous Stonemill Marsh in Abingdon Jan 30, 1951 was intriguing. But so were two records for Virginia Rail: Dec 12, 1950 and Dec 28, 1950. What was going on here ? Birders soon began to realize that the occurrence of the Virginia Rail in winter was probably more frequent across the region. It came down to knowing where to search and how to search. That was accomplished with a little more experience. The Virginia Rail soon showed up on the Bristol Christmas Bird Count in 1993. It was again found on the BBC count in 1995. Birders probably have not searched carefully in the years since. That doesn't mean not searching at all ;-) Coffey was well aware that Clemson University ornithology professor Dr. Sid Gauthreaux--a world authority on tracking migrant birds with radar, had worked with graduate students to inventory rail populations in South Carolina. One of their methods involved shooting bottle rockets over marshes and, when they exploded, the rails would call. For more than a decade, Coffey carried bottle rockets in the trunk of his car. He was several times successful in getting Virginia rails to call back. It became an annual ritual for young people in his CBC parties to request he shoot a rocket at a certain marsh.

The Virginia Rail status remained somewhat unclear. It nested in spring at Meadowview Marsh in Kingsport where Rick Phillips and Fred Alsop reported two nests May 5, 1976. It was reported nesting there again Mar 13 to Apr 20, 1986 when Phillips found a nest with 7 eggs.

A hen with six tiny black chicks was discovered at Quarry Bog in Shady Valley, 20 May 2001, by Judy Musick and Janice Martin. Larry McDaniel, Don Holt and Coffey saw the chicks within a few minutes. The elevation there is 2,800 feet. This may be the highest nesting elevation known in the Southern Appalachians. It is certainly a state record.

As amazing was the Virginia Rail found in Shady Valley in winter when a single bird was recorded Feb 19, 2005 at Orchard Bog by BBC and Elizabethton bird club members during a joint field trip. Someone needs to get up there right away ;-)

Tony Decker of Marion , VA had two adults with three immature at the Saltville Ponds July 24, 1983. The following year the Virginia Society of Ornithology Breaks foray found two breeding season records, June 11, when the rails responded to a tape. The birds apparently were on territory in strip mine marshes on Cow Fork in Buchanan County near Breaks Interstate Park.

The discovery of several Virginia Rails at a small marsh at Saltville, Smyth County, VA in mid-April 1991 led to the finding of the largest population (or number) of the species known in the region.

Fourteen birds were counted at the salt ponds on 14 April 1991. It is the largest number of the species recorded west of' the Coastal Plain in Virginia.

BBC member Carol Boone of Tannersville, VA found Virginia Rails at the ponds on 11 April 1991 when she heard frog/bird-like noises coming from reeds. She returned to the pond area later in the day and, with the help of Steve Hopp, used a tape recording of the bird's voice to identify the species. They had at least five birds to respond and several visually identified.

Another very active BBC member, Alice Nair of Marion, went to the ponds on 12 April and played a tape. She found the birds to be agitated.

The record 14 Virginia Rails were counted by Rick Knight and Wallace Coffey on 14 April 1991 at the same marsh and reed areas near the ponds at Saltville. They used a similar tape recording of the rail's voice and walked around the edges of all areas which had vegetation similar to the location where Boone and Nair found rails. Seven birds were visually identified as they responded to the tape. Birds were found at four locations.

Before you grab a tape and rush out to hunt for Virginia Rails, it is wise to remember this note of caution:

In Shady Valley on May 31, 2005, Chris O'Bryan was trying to develop a new method to lure the species. So he got down on knees in the pond at Quarry Bog and played the tape several times. A rail began to call back. It soon slipped out in the open but dashed for cover. The rail then confidently walked out in the open. Then it walked slowly and deliberately in a circle around Chris. It repeated walking around him, almost always out in plain sight. Coffey moved within 10 feet of Chris and the rail several times walked between the two birders.

Most amazing of all was that the rail walked up right in front of Chris. It was maybe three feet away. Chris felt like he could just pick the bird up.

Then the bird pulled its head back and opened its bill and began to give the Virginia Rail grunting call. It jerked its neck up and down as it grunted. The bird was grunting right in Chris' face. Chris couldn't get over all the details which he carefully studied. The bird was present for about 25 minutes. Chris could see the color of the inside of the mouth every time it opened its bill to grunt.

Chris was looking right down the Virginia Rail's throat !

Be careful if you have a weak heart :-)