[Bristol-Birds] Allan Trently's BBC homecoming simply great :-)
- From: "Wallace Coffey" <jwcoffey@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "Bristol-birds" <bristol-birds@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2007 13:27:19 -0400
Allan Trently was back among his many Northeast Tennessee friends
and naturalists buddies Friday to present a really nice program for the
Bristol Bird Club's annual banquet held at The Centre Friday night.
It was a home coming as such for Trently who shared his many interesting
experiences as a biologist with TVA's Heritage Program. He came "loaded
for bear" and even brought his famed "flying monkey" act. Everyone
loved that !
Trently's illustrated program covered an array of rare, threatened and
endangered
species and their habitats which he survey's throughout the Tennessee Valley
for TVA. He also gave a great summary of how the federal and state laws are
applied in decision making and planning by the government.
He explained how TVA will soon spend much time in the area making land
management plans for area reservoirs which could impact habitat and migration
sites like Musick's Campground at South Holston. He also talked about the
protection of Bald Eagles and the agency's extensive efforts to survey and
monitor shorebirds throughout the Tennessee River system. It was neat.
McDaniel shared some memories of Trently as one of the founding members
and first president of the original Butternut Nature Club which eventually
resulted in the Butternut Nature Listserver which is so famous throughout the
Southern Appalachians.
It was fun to listen to the exchanges during the evening between Don Holt
and Trently regarding the subtle but important aspects of some species.
Allan was very generous to take a day from his work and drive to Northeast
Tennessee from northwest of Knoxville to be with his friends and provide
a great program. It was rewarding to see those who are so close to him
and appreciate all he has done for the natural history of this area turn out to
support him and share good fellowship with our naturalists.
BBC had visitors Vick and Betsy Briscoe of Harkers Island, NC who attended as
guest of Dr. Ed Burke. Vick is a retired professor of physics from the
University of
North Carolina and was a former student of Burke's. He and Betsy travel widely
in
their birding.
President Dave Worley added a nice touch to the evening calling on immediate
past president Bill Grigsby to fill everyone in on a few of the 2007 highlights
which
included BBC's highly successful Annual State Meeting of the Tennessee
Ornithological Society held in May, two days of field trips held at FunFest this
summer and last weekend's birding weekend at Natural Tunnel State Park. Worley
also mentioned our member's contribution to the annual bird walk on the Virginia
Creeper Trail at the Highlands Festival in Abingdon.
Ron Harrington and Larry McDaniel detailed plans for the Heritage Hawk Festival
held today at Mendota, Va. BBC will have a booth about hawk migration to help
inform the public about this wonderful nature opportunity as well as tourism for
the tiny community at the foot of Clinch Mountain. Larry is conducting the
annual
BBC hawk watching field trip at the Mendota Lookout this morning.
Harrington noted that nearly 5,200 hawks have been counted as they migrated
past the lookout in the past 11 days since BBC opened it's annual fall project
to
monitor the migration, keep records and encourage and coordinate coverage.
Harrington is chairman of the project for BBC and statistician.
He has established himself as another in the long line of hawk migration
coordinators
at Mendota who have kept the vigil at the tower since 1950. A very unselfish
contribution to birding.
It was another good night of fine fellowship and a great start for the BBC
birding
year. Come join us.
Let's go birding.....
Wallace Coffey
Bristol, TN
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