[Bristol-Birds] Historical Snippet -April 13, 1968

 BBC Snippet  
The month of April was a busy time for a Charlotte, NC birder and a tiny
Saw-whet Owl high atop Roan Mountain along the Tennessee-North
Carolina border.  The spring and summer of 1968 not only was busy for
the birder and owl but the editorial staff of the Tennessee journal of 
ornithology
who was scratching their heads and pondering what to do next.  It continued
throughout the summer and into the fall.

 Dr. Lee R. Herndon, editor of THE MIGRANT who lived at Elizabethton, had
opened correspondence from the birder, Marcus B. Simpson, Jr., Charlotte
County Day School.  Simpson had included a manuscript for a note under
the title A Saw-whet Owl on Roan Mountain, and dated his correspondence
April 18, 1998.
"Despite the fact that the Saw-Whet Owl has never been 
recorded on Roan Mountain previous to this date, its 
occurrence there should come as no surprise to those 
familiar with its habits and haunts," wrote Simpson.

His article noted that beginning at 8:20 pm. on 13 April 
1968, he had listened for over an hour to the monotonous 
cooing notes of a Saw-whet calling from the Spruce-Fir 
forest of Roan High Bluff.  

"The bird apparently began its calling in response to my whistled imitation
of its song, a technique which has proved highly successful in locating this
owl elsewhere in the southern Appalachians," he wrote in his note for 
publication.   He went on to say that a rapidly growing body of evidence 
suggests that this owl may be found during the nesting season on any peak 
which harbors a sufficiently large forest of Spruce and Fir."  In his cover 
letter he reported that he had found the species 23 different occasions 
around Brevard and Waynesville in North Carolina.

Windy conditions had prevented him from surveying the entire Roan Mountain
area and he felt additional field work was needed.

Little did we know that this young birder would eventually 
become one of the experts on the distribution of the 
Saw-whet Owls in our mountains but also the author of 
Birds of the Blue Ridge Mountains, published in 1992
by The University of North Carolina Press. 

In 1968, Simpson was preparing a paper for publication about 
the Saw-whets in the southern Appalachians and he was 
pushing the editorial staff for a publication date and issue 
that he could site for the Roan publication in THE MIGRANT.

Dr. Herndon sent the paper to Wallace Coffey, assistant editor, for it to be
put in the correspondence to be acknowledge, placed in the copy flow for
editing and consideration and eventual follow-up.

The manuscript was assigned as submission number 20 025 and a post
card with the title, date received and number to acknowledge receipt.  It
was mailed to Simpson April 29, 1968.  Simpson continued to push for a 
date for publication.

Herndon was skeptical and raised his eye brows.  Charles R. Smith, a staff
member of the journal, received another post card from Simpson earlier on 
April 16 and it had apparently been written a few days before but no date was
entered with the correspondence.  "I spent the night of April 13 on the peak 
and 
managed to call up one (and perhaps two of the owls).  The bird was near 
Roan High Bluff and was heard from the loop road at the extreme western 
gardens," he wrote.  He was now pushing for publication and offered that if 
the note could be published before the end of the season, "I will write it up 
with all the details."

Smith responded with a lengthy letter and sent him journal standards for
"What Constitutes and Acceptable Record."  He was also mailed a copy of the
journal so he could familiarize himself with the style.  Smith suggested these
items would help with any further notes submitted to the journal and instructed
him to begin corresponding with Coffey, who handled such papers.

No further manuscript arrived.  Simpson wrote Coffey on July 15 and again
asked when he could expect his field note to be published so he could cite it
in an inclusive paper in THE CHAT, publication of the Carolina Bird Club.

The staff was skeptical of the timing and demands.  Smith wanted the Tennessee
journal to have a record with more documentation.  Herndon didn't seem to want
to act on the paper.  Coffey sent a rejection note to Simpson and noted that the
manuscript would not be returned,  per communications with Simpson.

Charlie Smith took delight when, at a fall naturalist rally, Simpson showed up 
and
had just heard another Saw-whet making some kind of sound upon the mountain
road near Carver's Gap.  Coffey no longer has a good recollection of what took
place that night but knows it ended with Smith going to the site and, sure 
enough,
there was the sound.  A flash light beam was shined on the bird and it was a
an American Woodcock.   No one knew what to think by then.

In the cafeteria of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine hospital in Baltimore,
December 1974, Coffey's brother, Dr. Donald S. Coffey a faculty member, wanted
to introduce Wallace to one of their medical fellowship students who was a 
birder and
said he knew Wallace -- it was Mark Simpson.  It was small talk and a small 
world.

At Boone NC, Rick Knight and Coffey 
shared a room to participate in the annual
state meeting of the Carolina Bird Club.  
The speaker on the night of May 8, 1992
was Mark Simpson.  

With him was  Dr. H. Douglas Pratt, 
chosen to complete the final paintings 
for Roger Tory Peterson's Field Guide 
to Birds of the Eastern and Central United 
States.
 
Pratt helped illustrate the National Geographic 
Society's Field Guide to the Birds of 
North America and did many of the color
plates as well as the Yellow-breasted Chat
on the title page.  He also did Mark Simpson's 
book, Birds of the Blue Ridge Mountains. 
 
Pratt was a scientific illustrators at the famous 
LSU Museum of Natural Science.

Pratt told Coffey Simpson was looking forward 
to signing his new book for Coffey and Pratt agreed to sign also, since he did 
the 
illustrations for Simpson's book, including the Saw-whet Owl on the title page.

A big smile spread across 
Simpson's face as he wrote, 
"Yes Wallace!  There are
Saw-whet Owls on Roan !"  

Pratt followed his signature 
with a P.S. "Mark owns
the Saw-whet drawing!" 
in reference to the title page.

Simpson wrote Coffey, 
Wednesday, August 9, 2006, 
asking him to review pages 
of his new and revised book 
on the birds of the Blue Ridge 
Mountains. He had not worked 
much on the book due to his 
wife having a very serious 
illness.

In the years following first 
discovery of Saw-whets on Roan Mountains, it has become the most reliable place 
in the region to hear and sometimes see this tiny mite of an owl which is as 
small
as a beer can.  Its soft hoots are heard at sundown near Carver's Gap in April. 
 

From 1993 until 1995, graduate student Mark Barb of East Tennessee State
University placed 16 nest boxes on the Roan.  They produced five confirmed 
nests.
On March 16, 1994, Barb found the first nest every known on Roan Mountain. 

Larry McDaniel, Lorie Shumate, John Shumate, Jr. and Coffey joined Dr. Matt 
Rowe 
of Appalachian State University, his graduate students, and Mark Barb at 
Carver's
Gap  June 12, 1994 and went to that first nest to band young and gather DNA 
materials from the young.  What an exciting and historic moment.

Coffey looked up at the mother bird perched on a branch just a few feet away
and the handful of baby Saw-whets.  It had been a quarter of a century since
Mark Simpson found the species on Roan Mountain and the editorial staff of
the Tennessee journal of ornithology just couldn't get their minds around all 
that 
at that time.

from the archives of the Bristol Bird Club

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