[Bristol-Birds] BBC's Chris O'Bryan has gone to the Amazon !

With cheers, hugs, and applause, friends and family of Chris O'Bryan waved 
goodbye to a steep-climbing Delta flight soaring into the clear cold sky at 
Tri-City Airport this morning. The temperature had just warmed out of overnight 
teens.

On board was Bristol Bird Club's 16-year-old herpetologist and aspiring field 
biologist, on another leg of his amazing journey to a promising future.

Six hours later Chris had negotiated a flight change at Atlanta and swept 
northward back to Washington D.C. where he met with a staff member of the 
Smithsonian. Tonight they go to dinner and talk more tropical biology.

O'Bryan had responded to the museum's invitation to join them on a nine-day 
Christmas adventure of the Amazon to study some of the most biologically 
diverse wildlife on Earth.

Ed Smith, who works as a museum specialist at the Smithsonian's National 
Zoological Park, Amazonia Department, met Chris' flight in Washington. Smith is 
an expert on invertebrate zoology and is knowledgeable of tropical botany and 
is an experienced birder. 

Smith and O'Bryan spent a day together this past May on a field trip together 
to a mountain ridge near Fredrick, MD where they observed and captured Timber 
Rattlesnakes which were emerging from their winter den. O'Bryan spent a portion 
of the day at the National Zoo snake room where he got a close look at the 
operations. He later spent a day at the U.S. National Museum.

He was presented a staff shirt and made an unofficial member. Chris will spend 
Friday of this week helping in the herp room and then board a flight with the 
staff, heading to Miami and then on to Lima, Peru. 

The Amazon area they will visit has recorded more species of primates than 
anywhere in the New World. Over the course of the journey, they may spot 
several varieties of monkeys, thousands of colorful birds, pink and gray 
dolphins, and an abundance of other exotic wildlife in an ever-changing vista 
of lush tropical wilderness. Chris expects to catch his first piranha or sees a 
Harpy Eagle flying through the trees. He will explore the world's largest and 
most diverse wilderness aboard La Amatista, a classic 48-riverboat. 

Chris checked his snakerake with his luggage early this morning. Armed with all 
kinds of digital equipment from an electronic compass to digital camera, he is 
poised. He is carrying his 35 mm camera, packed away 15 rolls of films. In 
addition he has tons of log books, field notebooks and everything else you can 
imagine.

Before boarding the flight this morning, a science teacher at Sullivan Middle 
School who had once worked at Steele Creek Park, came over to wish him well. 

"The first thing I want you to do when you get back is to come straight to my 
classroom and give us a talk on the Amazon," she said.

Not only is Chris on his first major flight but he went the distance alone 
today.

The Smithsonian team has kept him covered up with shipments of books on the 
wildlife and natural history of the Amazon. He has been sent packets of maps 
and his itinerary.

This is no small effort for a 10th grader !

This is no small effort for parents.

His mother cried as the plane left and we shared a hug of assurance. 

"We had to do this for Chris," his mother said of the family of four sons not 
being together at Christmas for the first time. "He is an amazing person who 
rises to this kind of challenge and blossoms with each next challenge and 
opportunity. It is hard," she said.

Out of Miami, Chris' flight will take him across the Caribbean, over Central 
America and along the high Andese Mountains of northern Peru. He will see 
volcanoes and rainforest and habitat most of us can't imagine.

In February he will be scheduled to give a seminar at the East Tennessee State 
University Department of Biology. His topic will be "A Basking Behavior Study 
of Eastern Spiny Softshell Turtle (Apalone s. spinifera) In Steele Creek Park, 
Bristol, Sullivan County, Tennessee." ETSU funded his research with a 2004 
Howard Hughes Student Research Scholarship. Dr. Tom Laughlin has been the 
faculty advisor for the study. Printing of his research report is being funded 
by a grant from the Friends of Steele Creek Nature Center and Park who provided 
research money for some of the field work.

In early spring, Chris will have a poster of his project presented at a 
Southern Appalachian science conference where he will appear with the poster to 
discuss his research with conference attendees.

Chris works as a naturalist on the staff of the Steele Creek Park Nature Center.

And, yes, we miss him on our Christmas Bird Counts which he has faithfully 
participated in for several years.

Merry Christmas.......

Wallace Coffey
Bristol, TN

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