(no subject)

The Center for Conservation Biology has published reflection Chronicles with 
the assistance of Walter’s widow, Doris Smith and Aventine Press.  

The following is a short reflection on Walter and accompanying book description 
written by Bryan Watts, Center Director

Walter Post Smith and his Kiptopeke Chronicles

Each of us in our own way and time seek out vantage points on the natural 
world.  Places where unleashed from the past and unencumbered by the future we 
are free to explore the innermost reaches of ourselves.  For Walter Post Smith, 
this place was Kiptopeke, Virginia.  Along with Fred Scott, Charlie Hacker, and 
Mike Mitchell, Walter was one of four bird banders who founded the Kiptopeke 
Banding Station.  He was there during the first week of operation in September 
of 1963.  Walter would continue to be associated with the station for nearly 40 
years.  He often stated that he felt more alive there than anywhere else in the 
world.  

Walter Smith was born in Newport News, Virginia and was a lifelong resident of 
Hampton Roads.  A draftsman by trade, Walter loved ships and worked for Newport 
News Shipbuilding for his entire career.  After his first encounter with fall 
migration he was captivated by Kiptopeke.  After retirement, Walter spent 
several weeks each fall living on the Eastern Shore and banding at the 
Kiptopeke Station.  His enthusiasm for this place and for the birds that 
stopped there during migration was infectious and attracted dedicated 
volunteers from a broad geographic area.  He spent much of the year planning 
and preparing for the fall season.  Particularly from the late 1960s through 
the 1980s, Walter was the glue that held the station together.  

Now operated by the Coastal Virginia Wildlife Observatory, the Kiptopeke 
Banding Station has banded more birds during fall migration than any station in 
North America.  On 17 October 2005 the station reached a milestone, banding its 
300,000th bird, fittingly, a hatching-year, male Black-throated Blue Warbler.  
For more than 4 decades the station has collected valuable information on bird 
populations migrating along the Atlantic Coast and has provided thousands of 
individuals with the opportunity to see birds in the hand.

For most years, at the close of the banding season, Walter wrote his 
reflections on the operations of the banding station.  Before his death in 2004 
he compiled these stories into a book titled Kiptopeke Chronicles.  The book is 
a history of the development of the Kiptopeke Banding Station through the eyes 
of someone who was there from the beginning.  More than a diary, the volume is 
a memoir of a person who enjoyed the energy of migrants passing through the 
woods on a fall day.

“Yet, I constantly found beauty there--- in the wake-up calls of the Screech 
and Great Horned Owls, in the thin chips of Warblers and the rich chirps of the 
Thrushes coming in overhead, and even in the loneliness of some mornings when I 
was trying to guess how much help might show up, and how many nets I could 
safely open.  There were times when visitors commented on my supposedly dogged 
dedication to the Banding Station--- but they had it all wrong.  There I was, 
doing every day what I loved best of all, and wasn’t I the lucky one to have it 
that way!”

The book reveals Walter’s day to day passion for and dedication to a cause but 
also to the people of Kiptopeke and in his life more broadly. Walter Smith's 
memoir will appeal to 
fellow bird banders, visitors to Virginia's Eastern Shore, and anyone who 
appreciates a journey back in time, to the good old days.

The Center for Conservation Biology has published Kiptopeke Chronicles with the 
assistance of Walter’s widow, Doris Smith and Aventine Press.  The book is 
available for $14.50 through the Center.  To order copies, contact Carla 
Schneider (conbio@xxxxxx or 757-221-1697).
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