The 15th Annual Bristol Bird Club's Burke's Garden Golden Eagle Field Trip will get underway from the ETSU-Bristol Campus at 7 a.m. this Saturday, Feb. 12. Wallace Coffey will meet birders in Bristol. Don Holt will meet anyone wanting to meet at the north Johnson City K-Mart on State of Franklin at 6:15 a.m., Saturday. That group will then drive to Bristol to meet the ETSU-Bristol Campus group by 7 a.m. We will meet other birders at the Abingdon First Bank & Trust parking lot on U.S. 19 just off West Main at 7:30 a.m. Our final check for meeting birders will come between 8 a.m. to 8:15 a.m. at the Food City Store just off U.S. 19 at Lebanon, VA. in Russell County. We will stop for our last break in Tazewell and grab a quick bite at Hardee's where we sometimes have other birders waiting. Some years we have had birders from the Bibee Bird Club of West Virginia join us. We will be at Hardee's for about 30 minutes for a light breakfast stop, bathroom break and waiting on others. We then head over the mountain into Burke's Garden. Carpool arrangments may be made at the meeting sites as needed. Dress warm for Burke's Garden and plan for very cold wind. Dave Worley of the BBC will lead the birding trip in Burke's Garden. This has long been our most popular fieldtrip with many birders attending. The garden is a high-elevation valley at 3,000 feet and the windchill is often brutal in winter. In some years we have had as many as four Golden Eagles and three Rough-legged Hawks. A Long-eared Owl was found dead hanging in a wire fence one winter. We may also expect Red-headed Woodpeckers, migrating Red-tailed Hawks, Wilson Snipe, Green-winged Teal, Pintail and goldeneye have been found. In addition we usually find several Fox Squirrels. A store in the valley will provide us with lunch items and a warm and clean bathroom. Our usual plan of action is to stop at the store in mid-morning, leave our individual lunch orders and go back at noon to find everything ready, hot and delicious. The store provides a warm stove and friendly atmosphere for birders. Of extreme importance is the need for very warm clothing, including gloves, hats, scarfs, boots and such. Even when the temperature is 40 or 50 degrees the wind can be very cold and difficult. If you have any question e-mail Wallace Coffey or telephone (423) 764-3958. My enroute phone number will be car phone 423-335-4095. If you have a family (FM) two-way radio or two bring them along for car-to-car communications. We will be operating on Channel 10 with no subchannel. This is of importance because often the trail of cars along the valley roads can stretch almost one half mile back and good birds up front and along the road can be called back or ahead as needed so everyone can see. There is no hiking on this trip. All of the vast and beautiful valley is very large farms with few houses and private land. Many of the old homes are beautiful. The church and unique headstones are historic. We will depart in mid to late afternoon. A fun feature for several birders is to stop at the amazing U.S. Post Office in Burke's Garden. You cannot imagine anything like this in modern civilization. There we purchase post cards and mail ourselves a reminder of the weather, birds and fun of the day. The cards are hand canceled and arrive home in several days. Let me know of your plans. By knowing your plans, we can watch for you and make sure we are picking everyone up along the way. Let's go birding....... Wallace Coffey Bristol, TN ************************************************* BRISTOL BIRDS NET LIST Bristol Birds Net Photo Gallery located at: http://f2.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/jwcoffeyy/album?.dir=/efd5 This is a regional birding list sponsored by the Bristol Bird Club to facilitate communications between birders and bird clubs of Southwest Virginia and Northeast Tennessee. -------------------------------------------------- You are subscribed to Bristol-Birds. To post to this mailing list, simply send an email to: bristol-birds@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx To unsubscribe, send an email to bristol-birds-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with the one word 'unsubscribe' in the Subject field. -------------------------------------------------- Wallace Coffey, Moderator wallace@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (423)764-****