FreeLists / bristol-birds / [Bristol-Birds] RESULTS OF BBC PLANNING MEETING FOR 2004-2005

["Wallace Coffey" <jwcoffey@xxxxxxxxxx>]

The Bristol Bird Club's annual fall leadership dinner held Wednesday, Sept. 3, 
produced a very active upcoming agenda of events, programs and field trip 
planned for this winter through 2005.
Highlights include the addition of established field trips at Winged Deer Park 
in Johnson City,  Steele Creek Park in Bristol,  Whitetop Park Wetlands in 
Bristol, Cedar Creek Wetlands Bristol, Meadowview Marsh in Kingsport and adding 
a third field trip to the annual FunFest and an upcoming waterfowl fieldtrip by 
floatboat at South Holston Lake.

It was announced that the annual Christmas Bird Count planning meeting would be 
held Tuesday, Dec. 21 at 7:30 p.m., at the Steele Creek Park Lodge meeting room 
in Bristol Tennessee.  The customary pre-meeting fellowship dinner will be held 
at the Mad Greek Restaurant on the Volunteer Parkway beginning at 6 p.m.  There 
is no other regular club meeting during December due to our annual Christmas  
party.

Christmas Bird Counts secheduled and sponsored by the Bristol Bird Club will 
again this year be:  Bristol TN-VA CBC Dec. 26 (Compiled by Richard Lewis),  
Shady Valley, TN CBC Jan. 1 (Compiled by Rob Biller) and Glade Spring, VA CBC 
(Compiled by Ron Harrington).

The officers and leaders decided to relocate the BBC Annual Regional Family 
Summer Picnic from the long-used lakeshore shelter at Steele Creek Park.  On 
Saturday, June 11, 2005, the picnic site will move to the Civitan Shelter atop 
the hill where it was originally held for several years during the 1990's.  
This site provides abundant private parking at grade level to the shelter, a 
playground for children,  serving counters,  attached bathrooms, handcap 
facilities and more space.  This will eliminate long walks, steep terrain and 
distant bathroom facilities plus loading in and loading out.  We will still 
have shade trees.  

President Rack Cross hopes to soon have secured a centralized location for our 
Annual Regional Christmas Party.  Larry McDaniel and Janet Brown were unable to 
accomodate us this year, due to a heavy load of Christmas season involvements.  
Another home has been suggested and that opportunity will be explored.  The 
date for this year's party is Saturday, Dec. 11th.

The BBC welcomed new Steele Creek Park Nature Center naturalist and manger, 
Kevin Elam, to our leadership circle.  He is a birder and enthusiastic about 
his involvement in the club.  

The leaders decided to purchase four (4)  50-pound bags of sunflower seeds for 
donation to the feeder program at the Steele Creek Park Nature Center.  
Assistant Treasurer Ron Harrington will purchase the seed and deliver it to the 
nature center in a few days.

Treasurer Janice Martin presented a financial report indicating that our 
expenditures since the spring have been $2,486.39.  Among the larger ticket 
items were expenses as co-sponsor of the Kentucky Ornithological Society Annual 
Fall Meeting at Pine Mountain State Park;  a substantial gift to the Alabama 
Ornithological Society to help pay recovery damages at Dauphin Island caused by 
the hurricane devastation; honorarium to a UT graduate student for our annual 
Stephen M. Russell Graduate Lecturship;  annual picnic expenses and our annual 
banquet at The Centre and membership dues to the Tennessee Ornithological 
Society.  

Janice announced that we are in the process of closing our banking account at 
BB&T and have opened a new checking account at the Highlands Union Bank branch 
near Blountville, TN.   We have left a maintenance balance of $50.00 at BB&T 
during closeout and Assistant Treasurer Ron Harrington will close the account 
within days by transfer of that balance to Highlands Union.

About one-half-dozen members have now paid their 2005 dues.  The 2004 
membership dues expire Dec. 31.

The leadership, after careful discussion, has asked THE EAGLE editor Wallace 
Coffey to study the possibility of online publication of the club's newsletter 
which will be e-mailed to members and placed on the BBC internet webpage.

Mike Poe announced that two members of the BBC have recently ordered a 
half-dozen copies of John C. Robinson's "An Annotated Checklist of the Birds of 
Tennessee."  The 6 copies are being donated to the BBC and will be sold at a 
deeply discounted price at  the November meeting with all proceeds going to the 
BBC treasury.  The book was published by the UT Press in 1990.

We have had preliminary discussions with both Ward Seed Store of Kingsport  and 
St. John Mill of Watauga, TN concerning a proposed annual seed sale by the BBC. 
 This was a major funding project of the former Watauga Audubon Society before 
the club closed down in the late 1990s.  Bill Grigsby and Wallace Coffey will 
follow up with the prospects of a sale.

The speaker for our Tuesday, November 16, meeting at ETSU-Bristol will be BBC 
member Mike Poe showing bird photos.  Our January meeting speaker is Geri Wynn 
of Wynn Wood Wildlife Rehab center located four miles south of Shady Valley on 
Iron Mountain.  The Wynns have become great partners with BBC and helped us 
with a booth at the Abingdon Arbor Day and Earth Day Celebration.  Our February 
meeting speaker will be Kevin Elam of the Steele Creek Nature Center who has 
researched Magnolia Warblers on Unaka Mountain.

The Annual Banquet of the Bristol Bird Club has been tenatively set for Friday, 
Sept. 23, 2005 at The Center, U.S. 421 south of Bristol.  Vice-President Larry 
McDaniel will begin the search and selection process for a banquet speaker 
within weeks.

The next club outing will be a November 13 birdwalk at Whitetop Creek Park on 
TN. Rt. 394 just off U.S. 11E across from the Bristol Motor Speedway.  There 
are good birding areas of fields, brush, large pond and wetlands.  The leaders 
will be Kevin Elam and Rack Cross.  Following the morning trip and a stop for 
lunch at either the Mad Greek or Shelly's Chicken,  birders will move to 
Painter Creek Marina at South Holston Lake for an early afternoon waterfowl 
birding trip by floatboat.  The boat trip will cover most of the lake south to 
the dam and north of Musick's Campground.   Wallace Coffey and Chris O'Bryan 
will lead the trip.  Chris is an experienced and safe boat handler, including 
this floatboat.

On Saturday, November 20,  Bill Grigsby will lead a winter waterfowl and 
birdwalk to the upper stretches of Cheorkee Lake along U.S. 11W southwest of 
Kingsport.  This includes a neat visit and woodland birdwalk at Boy Scout Camp 
Davy Crockett.  Bill has been scouting and planning this event since this past 
spring.  He has secured access and permission of the Sequoya Council of the 
Boys Scouts for us to use the camp property. More details will be posted soon 
by Bill.

Saturday, December 4, 2004, the BBC will have a "Marsh Morning" with sponsored 
birdwalsk at Cedar Creek Marsh Wetlands in Bristol, Tennessee (Rack Cross and 
Wallace Coffey leaders) and then at the Meadowview Marsh Wetlands at Kingsport 
(Bill Grigsby and Larry McDaniel leaders).  Birders will stage at the 
ETSU-Bristol Center at 8:30 a.m. to begin the day.

Janaury 8th Rack Cross will conduct a Bristol Bird Club sponsored morning 
birdwalk for the public and birders at Steele Creek Park Nature Center.  
Birders meet at the Nature Center at 10:30 a.m.

Larry McDaniel will lead an Owl Prowl Field Trip January 8th at 6 p.m. at 
Steele Creek Park, meeting at the Nature Center.  This will be a BBC sponsored 
fieldtrip as part of the Bristol Tennessee Leisure Services Department's winter 
program event schedule.

January 22 a fieldtrip will be held in the Limestone area of western
Washington Co. Tennessee.  The area has been producing Lapland Longspur,
Horned Lark, Savannah Sparrow, American Pipit and Northern Harrier.  This is 
the famous Keebler Road area. Larry McDaniel will lead this trip.

The BBC Annual Golden Eagle Fieldtrip to Burkes Garden, in Tazewell County, Va, 
is scheduled for Saturday, February 12.  Dave Worley is the leader.  Bristol 
area birders will leave from the ETSU Bristol Campus at 7 am, they 
will meet the Russell County area birders at Food City in Lebanon and depart 
there by 8am. They will proceed to the Hardee's in Tazewell to meet the final 
group for breakfast snacks and bathrooms before heading into Burke's Garden.

February 19 is the date for the Shady Valley Orchard Bog breeding season 
American Woodcock fieldtrip head at the Orchard Bog Preserve of The Nature 
Conservancy.  The time and leader will be announced later.

April 23 we begin our first ever BBC sponsored Birdwalk at Winged Deer Park in 
Johnson City.  Larry McDaniel will be the walk leader.  The park is located 
adjacent to DeVault Bridge where U.S. 11E crosses Boone Lake in north Johnson 
City.  This will be warbler watching at its best in the prime month for spring 
migrants.

May 13-14-15  Will be the birding weekend sponsored by the Bristol Bird Club 
and Natura Tunnell State Park in Scott County, Va.  The birdwalks are 
tenatively scheduled to begin in front of the Cove Ridge Center at 8:00am and 
3:45pm Saturday, May 14th and 3:45pm Sunday, May 15th.  The park is making 
available campground sites for our leadership and also we now have an 
opportunity to use the Cove Ridge Center meeting facilities as part of our 
future co-op program with the state park.  Bill Grigsby and Mitch Moore will be 
our leaders and incharge of the event.

May 28 is a repeat of last year's productive and exciting BBC Roan Mountain Owl 
Prowl birdwalk.  Larry McDaniel and Rack Cross will be the leaders once again.  
 Targets include Northern Saw-whet Owl, Barred Owl, Eastern Screech-Owl, and 
Alder Flycatcher. Other owls, birds and critters are possible. Plans are to be 
at the V.A. theater building in Johnson City at 5:30 PM for the first meeting 
oppurtunity and a chance to see Barn Owls. We'll leave there at 6:00 PM and 
meet at the Arby's on Hwy. 19E in Elizabethton at 6:30 PM to grab a bite to eat 
let the excitement build. We'll leave there at 7 PM and stop at the third 
meeting point which is the Visitor Center parking lot at Roan Mt. State Park at 
7:30 PM. From there we'll head up to Carvers gap for a chance at an Alder 
Flycatcher and to start owling. It is there we hope to hear and maybe even see 
saw-whets.

Saturday, June 18, the Bristol Bird Club Yellow-bellied Sapsucker-Appalachian 
Orchid field trip to Smyth and Grayson Counties in Virginia will get underway 
from the ETSU Center Bristol at 7:30 a.m. This is the tremendously popular 
4-wheeling event which had a great turnout in 2004. We will climb the four-mile 
length of the 'Possum Creek jeep trail in SUVs, trucks, whatever up the 
northwest face of Stone Mountain to the "Scales" at 4,400 feet elevation at the 
Appalachian Trail and Pine Mountain in the Mount Rogers National Recreation 
Area.   Here we will see timely-blooming orchids of two fascinating Appalachian 
species.  This year we found six (6) sapsuckers on territories.  Ron Harrington 
and Wallace Coffey will lead this really fun outing.

Our third birdwalk at FunFest 2005 will be held at Meadowview Marsh.  Again the 
Bristol Bird Club will feature public birdwalks at Kingsport as part of the 
enourmous FunFest and we will again be a sponsored scheduled event listed in 
the festival program.  We may have an opportunity to have sponsorship funding 
from the Meadowview hotel and convention center and/or Tennessee Eastman.  Our 
other birdwalks are sponsored by Ward's Feed Store of Kingsport.  The festival 
is a mid-July event and BBC President Rack Cross is our represenative to 
FunFest.  BBC will host guided birdwalks along smooth, paved surfaces of 
the Greenbelt and Bays Mountain Park.

The Bristol Bird Club will be conducting birdwalks aginat Saturday and Sunday 
(Sept. 10, 11) at Natural Tunnel State Park in Scott County, Va.  The birdwalks 
are tentatively scheduled for 8:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. The Owl Prowl is set for 
10:00 p.m.  BBC members leading these hikes are John Hay, Bill Grigsby, and 
Mitch Moore.  The Bird Walks will meet and begin at the Cove Ridge Center.  The 
Saturday evening Owl Prowl will meet at the camp fire ring above the campground.

The BBC will again sponsor and coordinate coverage of the Mendota Hawk 
Migration Lookout on Clinch Mountain above the town of Mendota in Washington 
Co., Va.  Ron Harrington is our pointman there and statistican.  He has been 
reporting online the daily results and sending them to the Hawk Migration 
Association of North America.

We will also have a booth and participate in the annual Hawk Migration Festival 
in the community of Mendota.  The Saturday morning event schedule date has not 
been annoounced by festival officials.  They are wanting to avoid the same 
weekend as this year because in 2005 that is the dates of the fast growing and 
quickly expanding Rythmn & Roots Festival in Bristol.  We will have more 
details later.  Ron Harrington will chair this event.

Let's go birding......

Wallace Coffey
Bristol, TN



























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