BBC Snippets

Link: http://www.freelists.org/archives/bristol-birds/03-2008/msg00067.html

Bird lovers In the Washington County, Va. and local area got a shot of adrenalin in their nature-loving spirits May 7-8-9, 1976 when the 700 - member Virginia Society of Ornithology held its annual spring meeting In Abingdon. The net result was the chartering of a new-chapter affiliation for Bristol and increased enthusiasm among area birders.

For more than 25 years the Twin Cities had been the home of an active chapter of the Tennessee Ornithological Society. It was steeped in tradition and their outstanding contributions to the community and the hobby of birding had been many.

On May 8, the two cities probably claimed the distinction of being the only community in the nation in two states with a club affiliated with both states.

BRISTOL TOS would long remain the cornerstone name in the community because of its established leadership.

But there were a number of birders in Washington County and Bristol who wished to have a closer relationship with persons of a kindred nature from their own state. Many wanted to get involved in the Virginia activities as a club and as individuals on an active basis. There was even a number of Tennesseans who would enjoy a close relationship with the Virginia society just as many Virginians had been members of the Tennessee Ornithological Society for 26 years.

BRISTOL promised to be an active group of bird students who would not only take part in the usual seasonal counts but planning bird study workshops, regional forays, sponsoring a lookout for the annual hawk migration, involved in banding and nesting studies as well as area wide population distribution studies of birds.

Today, in another millennium, now 32 years later, all of that has been accomplished and much more. The pace continues.

The chairman of the group, for purposes of chartering the VSO membership, had been Tom Wilson. Other committee members were Joseph W. Jackson (a biology instructor at Sullins College was heading up the research and field studies committee) with John Wright of Abingdon as chairman of field trips and forays. Bristol’s Diane Wilson headed finances and records for the club. Wallace Coffey did the footwork with VSO.

TOM WILSON was an executive at a major pharmaceutical company in Bristol. Jackson would become internationally involved with pharmaceuticals and continue on with Smith Kline Beecham. John Wright eventually moved to North Carolina to teach and later served as one of the cornerstone members of the Carolina Bird Club and served as its president. Diane Wilson eventually moved to Greenville, SC and today owns and manages the city's largest reality broker.

DR. RICHARD H. PEAKE of Clinch Valley College at Wise, received a lot of credit for the outstanding Southwest Virginia VSO meeting which was headquartered at Abingdon's Martha Washington Inn.

As state president of VSO, Peake had much of the responsibility for the event, which hosted 120 birders from the ocean to me mountains.

The smooth-flowing event was sponsored by the Clinch Valley Bird Club of Tazewell, Cumberland Bird Club of Wise and Marion Bird Club. There was also a new club at Nickelsville in Scott County and the group was known as the Clinch Mountain Bird Club.

In addition to the regular business sessions, there were field strips to the higher elevations as well as the lowland river valley areas of the three Holston River forks.

More than a hundred different kinds of birds were found in the area with the most unusual report being two Golden Eagles sighted near the Mouth of Wilson, Va. on Friday afternoon by Floy Burford of Norfolk, Virginia Hank of Norfolk and Gisela Grim of Chesapeake.

Some trips were made both Friday and Saturday nights to the Whitetop Mountain area in hopes of locating the very rare Saw-whet Owl which was in the high Canadian-type forest. The owl could not be located.

FLAT WOODS JOB CORPS provided a key contribution to the meeting. The Coeburn, Va. center used one of its buses to help transport the visitors into the Jefferson National Forest area.

Saturday’s schedule included a technical paper session:

SONG BIRD PREFERENCE AND UTILIZATION OF FOOD , Emily Grey, Department of Fisheries and Wildlife Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.

VERTEBRATE POPULATIONS OF SOUTHWESTERN VIRGINIA STRIP MINES, Richard Davis, Department of Biology, Clinch Valley College of The University of Virginia.

VOCAL ASPECTS OF COURTSHIP BEHAVIOR AND NESTING DEVELOPMENT IN THE COMMON RAVEN, Richard N. Conner, Department of Biology, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.

QUANTITATIVE STUDY OF PROPORTIONS OF BODY WEIGHT, FOOD, AND PELLET WEIGHT; BODY TEMPERATURE, A.MBIENT TEMPERATURE, AND FOOD CONSUMPTION OF A SCREECH OWL, Brent Rowell and Wallace Coffey.

PAST AND PRESENT OSPREY BREEDING POPULATIONS IN VIRGINIA, Christopher H. Stinson and Dr. Mitchell A. Byrd, Department of Biology, College of William & Mary.

VOCAL MIMICRY IN THE WHITE-EYED VIREO, Dr. Curtis S. Adkisson, Department of Biology, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.

OBSERVATIONS OF WOODCOCK TWILIGHT BEHAVIOR DURING SPRING MIGRATION, R.W. Schamerhorn,a junior high student from Lynchburg.

COMPARATIVE ECOLOGY OF THE BLACK AND TURKEY VULTURE, Irvine D. Prather, Department of Biology, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.

DR. RALPH W. SCHREIBER was the main speaker for the meeting and gave an illustrated lecture on his work with behavior and ecology of Brown Pelicans in Florida. He worked three years with the Smithsonian Institution’s Pacific Ocean Biological Survey Program and had a number of publications both popular and technical on Pacific seabirds and on his more recent Florida studies.

A SIMILAR statewide meeting of birders was announced by the Bristol Bird Club for May 28-29-30 in Shady Valley, Johnson County, Tn. in cooperation with the Tennessee Ornithological Society and would be the annual summer foray to determine the bird populations and distribution in Tennessee. Birders from Memphis to Bristol would to take part along with a number of the Virginia Society of Ornithology members.

from the archives of the Bristol Bird Club

Link: http://www.freelists.org/archives/bristol-birds/02-2008/msg00110.html

(left to right) Bob Burleson, Mary Fern Behrend, Linda Behrend Akard and children, Dr. Lee R. Herndon and Frank Robinson.

It was especially fitting that the dedication of Bear Wallow Trail in Roan Mountain State Park to the memory of the great mountain naturalist, Fred W. Behrend (1896-1976) took place Saturday, Sept. 10, 1977 at the Roan Mountain Naturalist Rally.

Freddie, as many of his friends knew him, created the rally in Sept 1963. The rally has thrived for 45 years.

This snippet is not about Fred Behrend, it is about the history of how the Bear Wallow Trail dedication and memorial marker came about.

It is important to at least say he was not only recognized as the expert about natural history of Roan Mountain but, along with Stephen M. Russell, he discovered and charted the migration flight lanes of hawks in the Southern Appalachians, including the Mendota hawk watching location.

Along with his wife, Mary Fern, they were charter members of the Elizabethton Bird Study Club, organized in February 1944, which, shortly thereafter became the Elizabethton bird club we know today.

Fred was a hiker beyond compare. If memory does not fail us, he went hiking alone on Lynn Mountain near Elizabethton and suffered a stroke on the afternoon of June 12, 1976. It took awhile to find him and, after being hospitalized for more than two months, died on Wednesday, Aug 18, 1976.

Two weeks later on Wednesday, Sept 6, 1976, Charles R. Smith at Cornell University wrote Dr. Lee R. Herndon at Elizabethton stating that he had an idea he wanted to share with Herndon and the Elizabethton Chapter of TOS. Smith said that Bill Bridgforth (today a Johnson City physician) had suggested that it might be possible to rename one of the mountain tops along the Tennessee-North Carolina line in Fred's honor. Round Bald seemed like a logical choice. He wrote Herndon that he had talked with Wallace Coffey and he agreed this might be possible if several groups worked together. He said Ken Dubke of Chattanooga had similar thoughts.

In addition, Smith suggested that it would be nice to have a granite bolder (or similar stone) put in place with a bronze plaque attached as an additional memorial marker.

On Sept 30, 1976, Dr. Herndon wrote Smith and said it was good to have his proposal for a memorial for Fred Behrend.

He said that at the first Elizabethton TOS Chapter meeting following Behrend's death the club considered a memorial. A committee of Dr. Gary Wallace, Glen Eller and Dr. Herndon had been appointed since they had been in charge of the naturalist rally.

They had talked with Frank Robinson, owner and publisher of the Elizabethton Star newspaper where Behrend had worked for so many years. Robinson discouraged renaming anything with a long standing geographical name due to eventual confusion and the need for legislative approval required from two states. A plaque or marker in such a remote area would be vandalized. They had talked about possibly naming a new nature trail which was being created in Sycamore Shoals State Park.

They thought Bear Wallow trail, which began and ended in Roan Mountain State Park, seemed more suitable. However, it already had a name. They talked with State Representative Bob Burleson who lived at the community of Roan Mountain and asked what he thought about dedicating that trail to the memory of Behrend. Burleson liked the idea very much. He offered to get a bill passed in the Tennessee state legislature.

A Nature Conservancy representative wanted to present a proposal at the Naturalist Rally that year which would entail the purchase of 12,000 acres of land along the Appalachia Trail and running from Carver's Gap to Elk Park, costing $6 million. Ten thousand acres would be dedicated in Behrend's name. The advisory board declined to allow such a proposal to be presented at the Roan Mountain Naturalist Rally because they were unsure about their capabilities with such a large project and Behrend had always frowned on big money raising ventures.

The group had decided they wanted a stone moved from somewhere in the Roan Mountain area to the Bear Wallow trailhead in the park. A suitable bonze plaque would cost $100. The stone could be moved for about the same amount of money. All of this would be more secure in the park and less exposed to vandalism.

A year later, on Aug 3, 1977, Dr. Herndon reported that the legislature had passed a resolution permitting the dedication of Bear Wallow Trail to the memory of Behrend. This was required because it was in a state park.

A 12 inch by 24 inch bronze plaque had been ordered and delivered. Jim Potter, a local community leader who took over working with the rally, joined Gary Wallace and Herndon and took a tour of the area to find a suitable stone, an oval river rock, which weighed about 5,000 pounds.

Dr. Gary Wallace agreed to be the treasurer for donations.

Dedication was set for Saturday, Sept 10, 1977, at the Roan Mountain Naturalist Rally. A nice gathering was on hand.

On Aug 24, 1977, just two weeks before the dedication, Charlie Smith accepted the position of Assistant Director of the prestigious Laboratory of Ornithology at Cornell University. One week later he had his doctorate degree conferred upon him from Cornell.

Behrend had been a mentor to Dr. Smith and Wallace Coffey since they were teenagers. They certainly hoped Freddie Behrend approved.

Maybe he was looking down on Bear Wallow Trail that Saturday in September.

Maybe he reads BBC Snippets :-)

from the archives of the Bristol Bird Club