[TN-Bird] First announcement: TOS Shady Valley Foray - June 10-11-12
- From: "Wallace Coffey" <jwcoffey@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "TN-birds" <tn-bird@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 19 May 2011 22:47:06 -0400
Tennessee Ornithological Society Invites You
To The Shady Valley, June 10-11-12, Bird Foray
Among the most thrilling birding experiences of the
Volunteer State is going afield in one of the Southern Appalachians'
most ecologically important areas, a rare high-elevation
remnant of the last Ice Age. Birding in Tennessee's highest
mountain valley. Walking among Swainson's Warblers in
their natural nesting haunts by a roaring mountain trout stream
in a spectacular, riparian cove hardwoods. Looking
around the next tree to see a Ruffed Grouse. Hoping to glimpse a Yellow-bellied
Sapsucker in a northern hardwood forest. Wading the edge of an awesome mountain
wetlands to hear Virginia Rails and maybe seeing a hen with her downy black
young.
Or hoping we can again find an Alder Flycatcher.
Shady Valley is not only one of the most rare places on earth, and being saved
by
The Nature Conservancy, but it is one of the most beautiful and rural of great
places to
bird in Tennessee. It is nestled in the arms of the Southern Blue Ridge
Mountains.
The main day is Saturday, June 11. But we'll be up and running early Friday,
June 10,
for you early birders. Oh, yes. We'll still be here until early afternoon on
Sunday, June 11,
when most of you will be heading home with enormous satisfaction.
If you insist, we might be able to assist anyone who wants to bird extra, early
days.
Members of the Lee & Lois Herndon Chapter of TOS and their neighboring Bristol
Bird
Club are hosting this rare and exciting TOS State Foray. The Herndon chapter
hosted the first foray here 50 years ago in 1961 and the Bristol club hosted
the last,
35 years ago in 1976. So it has been 35 years since the last foray opportunity.
Who wants to miss that ? You can join in celebrating these great anniversary
moments
of the Tennessee Ornithological Society.
You can also bird as hard as long as you want from three hours to three days in
God's
country where Canada Warblers sing at daybreak. Veery, Black-throated-blue
Warblers,
Black-throated Green Warblers and even nesting Blackburnian Warblers are on
territories
along the highest ridges and in the deepest coves.
In 1934, a founder of TOS, Albert F. Ganier, came to Northeast Tennessee from
Nashville by train to first survey this valley and find acres of Least
Flycatchers calling for
the first time in state history, The US National Museum stationed a party here
for at least
a week just a few years later as they studied the birds of the state.
You can't get here by train or a 1934 buggy but you can zip right up on I-81.
And you can come and stay until your heart is content with no reservations to
be made. No
registration fee or whatever. You can even camp free at the beautiful Orchard
Bog where
our headquarters will be in the old stone house shown above. You can also hunt
for motels
on the internet by search nearby towns and cities. Damascus has a bunch of
bread and
breakfast homes along its main street and cabins or cottages for rent.
A foray is a concentration of birding in a limited area for a few days to make
as complete
a list of birds as can be made in that time. Some birders will listen for owls
before dawn and
after sundown. Some will bird big time dawn to sundown.
Rick Knight, who compiles the Tennessee "season reports" in the state journal,
THE MIGRANT,
will be in-charge of coordinating field trips and compiling daily lists and the
foray list. The results
will be analyzed and published in the state journal. If that doesn't ring your
chimes, then just
meet Rick and talk birding. You'll love it.
In between time, you can go down the mountain trout stream a few miles to tiny
Damascus,
VA, the most important waypoint on the famous 2,000 miles of Appalachian Trail.
It is a quaint
little community where you can have pizza, shop for some of the greatest trail
gear, tents, clothing,
etc. Then, if you have the bug, you can bird all morning or all day along the
many miles of the
Appalachian Trail, hiking thru the clouds with the Dark-eyed Juncos. You will
see others heading
north, walking the trail and maybe catch a drink of cold mountain water from
one of the high-elevation
springs. The nice thing is that you don't climb the mountain. You begin in a
high-elevation gap and
walk to another, to end your bird trip. Don't forget to listen for a
Rose-breasted Grosbeak singing
just below you.
Shady Valley is located just north of Elizabethton, TN and Johnson City, just
east of Bristol TN/VA,
just southeast of Abingdon, VA, just south of Damascus, VA and just west of
Mountain City, TN and
Boone NC. It is really just near everything and just a wonderful place to bird
and enjoy life on a cool
June day when the warblers back home are gone. But the chorus of great
mountain singers will be
in harmony at their peak in Shady Valley, TN.
You will enjoy our wonderful hospitality and the friendly people at the
mountain country stores (order
a Shady burger).
You can enjoy birding in 700 acres of several great preserves of The Nature
Conservancy. Or you will
enjoy birding an old growth forest. You might want to just head out on a side
trail into the massive
Cherokee National Forest and get your life and good birding in tune with nature
and the many colors
of wildflowers among dramatic and rare species of ferns.
Several good farm folks will open their farms to let you bird on private lands.
How about that ?
And when you are catching your second wind with a good power drink or a cold
bottle of water, you
can stroll among wild mountain cranberries and bogs and a sea of rare plants.
Bet you've never even seen real poison sumac -- it's a bog plant ! We'll show
you, if you promise not to touch.
Come go birding and love yourself for doing it.
We'll have more details in another post coming real soon.
If you can't wait, then email:
Rick Knight at rknight8@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
or
Wallace Coffey at jwcoffey@xxxxxxxxxx
If you are in a state of panic, call Coffey
at 423-360-2532
And don't ask! Yes, butterfly types, we have Appalachian Swallowtails.
Yes, we have a beautiful boardwalk which allows you to enjoy the wetlands
without getting your feet wet on a 22-acre preserve where bubbling springs
gush to the surface in a sandy, seemingly bottomless upwelling of fresh
water from the bubbling springs. Yes, tree huggers, we have the highly
unusual Carolina Maples growing in the wetlands.....yes with Marsh Marigolds.
Of course with Royal Fern, Crested Shield Ferns and plants you've never
heard of.
Obviously, wonderful birding . . . .
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- » [TN-Bird] First announcement: TOS Shady Valley Foray - June 10-11-12 - Wallace Coffey
