FreeLists / bristol-birds / [Bristol-Birds] Historical Snippet - May 8, 1976

["Wallace Coffey" <jwcoffey@xxxxxxxxxx>]

 BBC Snippet  
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, AMBIENT 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