[TN-Bird] KOS Fall Meeting: learning from a raptor expert

When the Bristol Bird Club last year was invited by the board of directors of 
the Kentucky Ornithological Society to join with them as co-sponsors of their 
annual fall meeting this year at Pine Mountain State Park near Middlesboro, Ky, 
we knew what a historical opportunity both KOS and BBC had undertaken.
Bristol Bird Club  members and Tennessee Ornithological Society members who 
drove to Kentucky this past weeekend for the event had one of the best fall 
meeting you could imagine.

Who would imagine having hours and hours of field clinic in raptor 
identification on such a personal and down-to-earth basis as provided by Brian 
Wheeler.  He flew from his home in Colorado to be the featured raptor expert 
and speaker for the weekend.

The Bristol Bird Club was proud to have helped pay his expenses and be able to 
do that.

He was so accessible, so enjoyable, so instructive, so laidback, so warm and so 
helpful to all.  Each person could have much personal one-on-one time with 
Wheeler.  Just ask the BBC's 15-year-old Chris O'Bryan what that meant to him.

A nationally renowned raptor expert and author of our most prominent hawk 
books, he not only knows his stuff but can relate it, teach it and use it with 
amazing style.   I felt like I was exposed to and learned more about raptor 
field identification this weekend than in my previous 45 years afield at hawk 
watches and birding.

Wheeler was an illustrator and co-author of  the Peterson Field Guides:  
"Hawks" and the photographer for "A Photographic Guide to North American 
Raptors."  In 2003,  he released his newest books, "Raptors of Eastern North 
America:  The Wheeler Guides and Raptors of Western North America:  The Wheeler 
Guides."

Not only did he conduct a 2-hour session on raptor photography and field 
identification but he taught us useful and valuable details and identification 
techniques 99 percent of hawkwatchers will never learn in a lifetime.

Hawk watching with him at the Pinnacles Overlook in the Cumbrland Gap National 
Historic Park was something to remember.  Wheeler revealed how to call species 
by age class, sex, feather tracts and relative patterns most would never think 
about.  Birders were jammed shoulder to shoulder with Wheeler focusing numerous 
scopes on the details as he called them.  As fast as Broad-wings, 
Red-shouldered, Sharp-shineds, Red-tails, Cooper's and Bald Eagle could fly 
past he was instructive. 

It was amazing to watch him seperate ages and sex instantly as they zoomed over 
the treetops in the wind and sun.  Who can forget that experience ?  

Personally, I was able to spend long one-on-one discussions with him about the 
raptor distribution maps in his new guides, learning his methods and sources 
and how he actually managed all that detail.  He talked at length about the 
issues of producing such a book -- how the money was advanced by the publiser 
and how much he got for that.  He is a very open guy who is tremendously 
sharing.

Everyone there should have been given a raptor diploma !

And the Kentucky Ornithological Society should be given a standing ovation for 
their creative and imagintive fall meeting which combined both a wonderful 
nationally known raptor expert and author but the field experiences with him at 
a hawk migration lookout.

Who thought to do that ?  Give that person a dozen red roses and a shiny trophy 
!  And hats off to the Kentucky Ornithological Society for asking the Bristol 
Bird Club to join with their state organization to make this all possible.  

Let's go birding...

Wallace Coffey
Bristol, TN







 





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