BBC Snippets

Link: http://www.freelists.org/archives/bristol-birds/03-2008/msg00117.html

Almost 18 years ago, on Saturday, June 15, 1990, the Bristol Bird Club met for its annual summer picnic. There was, however, some important business to consider.

About eight years prior, the club had designated Dr. Stephen M. Russell as an Honorary Life Member. He joined the likes of F. Rockwell Bingham and Ernest Dickey Sr. to be so celebrated. The club felt it was now time to do more.

Brought before the membership was the name of Stephen Russell, of the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, at The University of Arizona at Tucson. Members swiftly and unanimously voted to name the club, the Bristol Bird Club -- Stephen M. Russell Chapter. He was the present secretary of the American Ornithologists' Union. Wallace Coffey was asked to notify him of the recognition.

A letter to Dr. Russell also asked that the club be provided more background on his professional career to distribute to the members.

"I am overwhelmed. I've never had anything named after me. I don't even know what one is supposed to do when so honored! But I deeply appreciate the actions of the Bristol Bird Club and I send my thanks with much humility," he responded.

The following are his activities as he wrote them in a letter to BBC:

Resumes are dry and boring; I'll give you a brief sketch of my activities over the years. It seems a very long time since I finished a biology degree at VPI and went off to LSU for doctoral work in 1953. I made rather regular trips back to Abingdon until the early 1970?s to visit my mother and other relatives. More recently, I have not been back to southwestern Virginia very often. I did return recently for the 40th anniversary of my William King High School graduating class (the first reunion of the class and the only reunion of any sort I?ve ever attended).

My doctoral research was done in Belize; I remember talking about it before the Bristol Bird Club many years ago! The study was ultimate published as an Ornithological Monograph, The Birds of British Honduras. My first teaching position was at what is now known as the University of New Orleans. I went there in its initial year as their first biologist. That was 1958 and the teaching aspects were made more challenging by being on a campus that was one of the first to be integrated in the South.

I enjoyed six years in New Orleans. My studies took me into the marshes and I adapted by growing webs between my toes. That all changed when I accepted a position at the University of Arizona. My research shifted to studies of the adaptations of desert birds. I tried to find out what behavioral traits were exhibited by birds when the temperature exceeded 120° (they do very little - birds are sensible) . Sonora, the adjacent state in Mexico, was only an hour away and its birds poorly known. Thanks to the flexibility of an academic schedules, I've made nearly 200 trips into Mexico over the years. A book on the birds of Sonora should be published in about a year (a classic example of a "long term study" )

Currently, my major studies are on hummingbirds. This I do jointly with my wife Ruth. This is the third of a projected five year study we conduct about sixty miles southeast of Tucson. We use banding as the major technique; last year we banded over 2000 hummingbirds of 11 species (only four species are really abundant). It is not unusual for us to catch 100 hummingbirds during migration in a single trap in less than an hour. Little banding of hummingbirds has ever been done and we are learning much. If Ruth and I are in Bristol at a time you need a speaker, we'd be delighted to talk about hurnmers!

As a professor, I've done the usual sorts of things. I started with large classes of students in beginning biology; now my courses are ornithology and graduate seminars. Some 25 or so Ph.D.'s have gone off into the world as the next generation of ornithologists, plus probably 750 students who worked my basic ornithology course into their curriculum. I get saddled with miscellaneous titles, such as "Associate Department Head" and "Curator of Birds."

We have a world renowned institution in Tucson known as the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum. It is a non-profit organization with many educational programs and outstanding exhibits of living plants and animals. Through good fortune, I was able to serve it as a board member and President; it is still a major interest of mine.

I have been active in several ornithological organizations. In Louisiana, it was the Louisiana Ornithological Society. Then the Cooper Ornithological Society in various capacities, including President, and more recently The American Ornithologists? Union. That has been intriguing and I am now going into my seventh (and final) year as Secretary. The best part of volunteer jobs is that one may stop while ahead.

Ruth is President of the Tucson Audubon Society and I am on its Board. It is a large (2400 members) chapter and there are many issues to be addressed. I also serve on the Board of the Organization f or Tropical Studies, a consortium that (among other things) operates La Selva and other biological stations in Costa Rica. Annual meetings are always in Costa Rica and Ruth and I have become quite familiar with that country. We jump at the opportunity to spend time in interesting places ? mostly in the new world tropics but also Africa. Argentina, and Australia.

I've been very lucky. I started out with an interest in the environment through the influence of my father, a forester. Two older brothers went the medicine and law route, which to me as a college undergraduate seemed absolutely boring things to do. The bird interest began in my first year of high school. I still remember the occasion when I learned there were other people who watched birds; I?d thought I was alone. Carl Fleenor was that first "birder" I met. I made trips to Saltville with Dr. Herndon, and Fred Behrend started taking me to mountain tops.

The trips with Fred must have provided the major direction of my developing career. I still have my field notes; I learned from Fred to not just take notes but to record the location (including elevation) of every bird encountered. Highlights of trips with Fred included one Christmas count to Mt. Rogers ? an account that was never submitted. We did it on an absolutely miserable day, with temperature near zero, terrible wind, snow and clouds limiting visibility to only a few feet. We spent the day on the mountain, saw one bird and couldn?t identify it. On another occasion, after a fine day on Grandfather Mountain, we crossed a wide pasture. The resident aggressive bull was not inclined to share his space with us and we just barely made it over the fence.

I still don't feel deserving of the honor the Bristol Bird Club has given me, but I very much appreciate it. At the first opportunity to visit Bristol, I'll get in touch with you. Perhaps we could plan a birding trip. I'd enjoy that. In the interim, if any Bristol Bird Club members get to Tucson, I'll try to help out in finding birds here. As a starter, the Tucson Audubon Society is about to publish the third edition of "Birds in Southeastern Arizona" that I have been revising. I'll send you a copy for the BBC. My home telephone is (602) 743?9707 and it has a machine operating when Ruth or I cannot answer.

Sincerely,



Stephen M. Russell

Link: http://www.freelists.org/archives/bristol-birds/03-2008/msg00108.html

BBC President Larry McDaniel was walking on clouds Saturday, Sept. 13, 1997. It was the night of the Bristol Bird Club's 47th Annual Banquet and he was so worried about going in the red financially on the night that he could hardly enjoy his dinner.

In a nervous back room meeting, after everyone had left, BBC Treasurer Lorrie Shumate put her calculator in her purse and told Larry he had almost paid the bills.

Larry McDaniel

The largest crowd of birders known to attend a bird program in the region had just left the building -- 167 people turned out for the BBC event. It was a moment to remember.

Bob & Martha Sargent from the Hummer/Bird Study Group (HBSG), a non-profit organization from Alabama, had come to Bristol to spend a couple of days with BBC members and to be the club's after-dinner speaker. It was a real stretch to pull it off. The club would have to come up with all  kinds of expenses and meet the demands of many logistics. It would be more than the usual everyone-pay-for-your-dinner event.

Many people have a hummingbird feeder. The public is nuts about their hummers. Ruby-throats come as close as any species to being the darlings of our region bird world.

So here is how it was going to come down. BBC would fork up the risk of inviting the Sargents and making sure the club had a place big enough to hold the crowd the club expected. McDaniel searched far and wide.

Finally, it was decided that the fellowship hall of the Central Presbyterian Church on Euclid Avenue would do the job. An added benefit was that the church had another meeting room off that where BBC could seat its members for an annual banquet before the talk. A kitchen was just across the hallway.

Ken Hale, a prominent member of the church and former president of BBC, went to bat for the club to schedule the facility and be the church member to sign off on the building use. BBC had to pay for the facilities.

The Sargents wanted meal money for their travel, gas money, and a hotel lodging for two nights.

So the annual BBC event that night would be underway with a prime rib dinner, salad, baked potato, green beans, rolls, cheese cake, coffee or iced tea. If you wanted chicken, fine.

Everyone was excited. There had been much publicity in the region's media and magazines. Flyers were printed and stacked in key places around town.

The 47th Annual Banquet was beautiful. The Burkey family and their young daughters gathered weeds from the roadsides and placed them on the tables in Ball jars. The birders dressed up.

The public started coming early. The club had a nice crowd on hand and things were looking up. The only uncertainty was a guaranteed way to pay the bills. It wasn't going to be cheap. Members paid for their own dinners.

During the introductory remarks, the legendary Jack Kestner, the mountain man from Hayter's Gap walked in the back of the big room. He wrote his views from the top of Clinch Mountain each week for the Bristol Herald Courier. He always wrote much about the coming and goings of hummingbirds. Jack was dearly loved by thousands. Most had never seen him.

Jack Kestner

When it was announced that Kestner had just walked in, more than a hundred people came to their feet trying to get a glimpse. Some of the young folks stood on their chairs. It was an exciting moment birders did not want to forget.

Bob and Martha Sargent, then living at Trussville, AL, put on a dazzling color slide show about hummers. He is author of many significant publications on the subject. He is one of America's best known hummingbird banders -- an absolute expert on all that.

The crowd loved it. This was a free talk. Everyone was welcome to just come in an enjoy themselves. Bob Sargent took questions from the floor.

It was a great educational opportunity for hummer lovers and birders.

Finally it was over and the applause was heart warming.

The visitors were told that BBC had a lot of expenses for the event and if they enjoyed the talk and thought it was worth a donation, they could drop money in a glass bowl by the door as they left.

Bob Sargent

They dropped $314 in the bowl as a token of their appreciation. Mercy. What a relief.

Expenses $738.00. Income $726.50 = BBC was in the red $11.50. How much better could the club have done on such a roll of the dice for such a great evening ?

Many meetings and dinners are expected to cut it close. BBC didn't know if it could cut it at all. :-)

Larry McDaniel walked away tired, happy and got a good night's sleep.

In addition, the Sargent's held an invitational field trip for club members and took them birding to Musick's Campground at South Holston Lake. The club likes to have rewards for the good BBC members who work hard to make good things happen.

from the archives of the Bristol Bird Club

Link: http://www.freelists.org/archives/bristol-birds/03-2008/msg00071.html

Twenty- one members of the BBC were on hand for the club’s April 8, 1995 field trip to the Holston Army Ammunition Plant in Hawkins County at Kingsport and it was a "five-star" day for great birding.

Bill Little and Greg Lee were the "insiders" at the plant who made the arrangements.

It was the first time birders had been allowed in the facility on an outing to see the Double-crested Cormorant and Great Blue Heron rookery which was discovered in 1991-1992 by Ron Caldwell and John Copeland,biologists at Lincoln Memorial University's Cumberland Mountain Research Center.

Little, who worked at the plant and was a BBC member, had been keeping records in the spring of 1995 and had permission from the commander of the facility to photograph the nests. He made arrangements for BBC to tour the site. But we had to submit our Social Security numbers for what we were told was security purposes.

Birders were met at the gate and loaded into two vans and driven to the area where we were allowed to spend almost four hours birding and photographing the nests. We tallied 48 species during our visit

The area contained an estimated 57 Great Blue Heron nests and we found five Double-crested Cormorants sitting on nests.

Only four Tennessee counties had historical breeding cormorants and the rookery, at Kingsport in 1992 represented the first documented observation of nesting Double-crested Cormorants in Tennessee since 1955.

We estimated 30 cormorants about the rookery while we were there. It was believed to be the first such rookery known in the Holston River watershed.

The rookery stood on Clay Island in the Holston River. It was completely within the 4,000+ acre plant area and there was no access by boat or foot.

The Double-crested Cormorant was found there by Caldwell and Copeland, April 17, 1992, when five individuals were on the river during breeding season.

On May 14, 1992, the biologists observed an individual carrying nest material in its beak. Two cormorant nests, each with two nestlings, were observed June 22, 1992 on Clay Islands. These nests were found within a nesting colony of Great Blue Herons.

The Great Blue Herons, were sighted on every field trip the researchers made. A rookery consisting of several nests was found on Clay Islands. The colony had nested on the islands in previous years as old nests were observed in January 1991, according to Caldwell and Copeland in an article they published in the state journal of ornithology.

They also wrote that on June 23, 1992, an Osprey nest was found just off the ammunition plant property on Long Island. The nest was situated atop a powerline pylon. No nesting activity was observed but they did see Osprey present several times.

The rookery has moved slightly up the river in recent years since a pair of Bald Eagles started nesting there a few years ago.

PARTICIPANTS FOR THIS HISTORIC BBC FIELD TRIP WERE: Lloyd Jones, John Shumate, Jr., Lorrie Shumate, Carolyn Coffey, Suzanne Clark, Allen Clark, Judy Roach, Bill Little, Priscilla Little, Judy Musick, Louise Tilson, Greg Lee, Karen Quesenberry, Wallace Coffey, Mary Spivey, Rick Knight, Richard Lewis, Phillip Lewis, Judy Tomlinson, Carol Lynn and Karen Musick.

from the archives of the Bristol Bird Club