Ron Harrington's efforts as the hawk migration education and outreach person for the Bristol Bird Club were never more obvious than today at the Town of Abingdon's 4th Annual Arbor Day & Earth Day. Again, Ron was an ambassador for BBC that makes us proud. He also worked on our behalf with the Wynn Wood Wildlife Rehab center from Carter County to secure their partnership with BBC in a joint booth as well as working out arrangements and details for the event. I dropped in on the celebration and was glad to see other faces from BBC showing up. We were all set up under probably the largest tent at the celebration and our booth took up three large folding tables. It took two vehicles to move in everything that made up our booth. All afternoon people came to see the exciting live Red-tailed Hawk and red morph Eastern Screech Owl. Geri Wynn carefully talked with young and old alike. Many adults had never seen such a big hawk so close. Children stood and gazed at the mysterious birds. Geri fed a basket of young American Robins and had a baby groundhog and baby 'possum she was caring for. Several people left money in a dontation jar to help pay for the work that Geri and husband Keith do to rehab wildlife. Keith worked overtime in building displays and hauling and setting up. He stayed the afternoon too. Ron had carefully worked up a really neat factsheet and member benefit about the BBC. He fielded questions all afternoon about membership in BBC and gave out the attractive and informative handouts. It tells you more about BBC than most of us know about our own club. It was really a neat idea. Two tables were covered with all of our books and field guides and bird magazines of all type as well as hawk identification material. The public entering the booth were welcomed by a large poster with our name over a dramatic very large photo of a Bald Eagle soaring. There were beautiful color photos and detailed descriptions about Barred Owl, Rose-breasted Grosbeak, Red-bellied Woodpecker and Wood Duck. It was a splash of color for BBC. The splash was anchored with two columns written for the Bristol Herald Courier by Jack Kestner (1) about the annual Christmas bird count and (2) local participation in the Cornell Project Feeder Watch. You could also see six photos of our BBC good-time crowd birding in Burke's Garden for eagles in the winter and President Dave Worley and the gang having a great time at our annual Christmas party. There were 16 great photos in series showing scenes from the annual hawk watching at Mendota FT in the fall. You could see great photos provided by Roger Mayhorn of the Buchanan County Bird Club. There were all types of photos of various raptors flying past Mendota and view from the mountin into the valley. Visitors to the booth could look at the totals from 2001-2002-2003 of the hawk counted in migration at Mendota. He spoke with knowledge about the hawk migration and had all the details about the how, when and where of hawk migrtion. Ron was promoting the Fall Hawk Migration Festival. Ron had bought four large bulletin boards at Walmart to mount everything. It was all put up with a neat series cords to keep any wind from being a problem. The Nature Conservancy came to see us, the Virginia Division of Forestry, the Virginia Deaprtment of Transportation, Washington County Public Library, Virginia Department of Conservation and the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service all were there and said hi. Amanda Martin, former secretary of the BBC and former editor of our BBC newsletter, THE EAGLE, pushed a stroller in with her new baby and the family dog. The Wynn Wood Wildlife Rehab display had a great selection of photos of all the different types of reptiles, mammals, birds and other critters they have cared for. Even Chris O'Bryan was in a photo right in the middle of it all showing him at the release of a recent rehabed Great Horned Owl. The educational effort they made was neat. They had brochures on everything from what to do if you find and orphaned or injured raptor to what to do it find and injured or ill turtle. They even had a bottle with a terrible looking parasite worm taken from the throat of a Barn Owl which Bert Hale had picked up injured from two Sullivan County farmers and BBC members took to the Wynn Wood Wildlife Rehab center. The owl has had its leg x-rayed and it is healing. Good news there. So far, so good. In the center of their display was a full page in color from the Johnson City Press morning editon about the Wynn Wood rehab efforts and program. It was neat and well done. The rain did not come. The wind was never a problem. The crowd was good and the kids and grownups came all afternoon. A biologist from VDOT wanted to ask about a Loggerhead Shirke being seen at their district office in Bristol. Dave Raines, a member of the Buchanan County Bird Club from Breaks, VA, name came up when his brother-in-law stopped and talked about Dave and his birding. The brother-in-law's wife was at the other end of the tent and had just visited with Ron Harrington. Emily Lachniet, a former nature center staffer with one of the National Audubon's centers in the northeast stopped to talk a bit. She and her husband now live at Abingdon and they are birders. She is a resource person at one of the area schools and Ron helped by giving her information on the Project Feeder Watch program for schools. She asked all about the Bristol Bird Club. Dr. Ramsey White, a dentist from Abingdon and formerly active in BBC, came over to say hello. He wanted back on the Bristol-Birds net e-mail list and I hope he is reading this. He needs to join us again at the ETSU-Bristol Center for meetings and again go birding. That won't happen until his daughter's wedding is behind him. They have a big spring ahead. After it was all taken down and loaded at the end of the day, I left as Ron headed off to talk about the BBC with some new folks who now work for The Nature Conservancy's Abingdon office. The BBC ambassador is probably still there. It was a good weekend for the BBC ! Thanks to Mary Jane Erwin and Ruth Smith who were leaders Saturday for the BBC field trip for 11 birders. And for several of us who did double duty by spending Saturday on the Herndon Chapter TOS spring count in five northeast counties. We missed our BBC fieldtrip but we thought about you all. Larry McDaniel and I spent 13 hours afield in Shady Valley and Holston Valley at South Holston Lake and Middlebrook Lake helping with that count -- we never found an oriole :-( We drove 111 miles and got just 101 species. Rick Knight and Don Holt had 110 species ! A good show! 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-****