Is Detroit Flats near Salem? My Apple Maps is clueless.
Chris
On Thu, Sep 2, 2021 at 5:30 PM Joel Geier <clearwater@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
Thanks Paul, for sharing this sad news. I had heard from a mutual friend
that Barb's health was not good in recent years.
When our family moved to the mid-Willamette Valley in the mid-1990s, Barb
was still very active with Salem Audubon Society. I recall an article that
she wrote for "The Kestrel" which recounted how she found an American
Redstart singing at Detroit Flats some years earlier. I believe Barb is the
one who deserves credit for discovering Detroit Flats as a "migrant trap,"
which has since been enjoyed by many birders.
Though I first met Barb at a couple of Salem Audubon events, we didn't
really strike up a friendship until the events of September 2001 and the
rush to war which followed. Barb was deeply skeptical of the wars in
Afghanistan and Iraq, and we struck up a correspondence which was roughly
half-and-half birds and politics. Twenty years later, U.S. involvement in
those wars finally seems to be drawing to a close, and now Barb has left us
too.
Having grown up in Benton County, Barb had quite an impressive county
list, but one species that evaded her was Nashville Warbler. I could never
find one that stuck around long enough for it to be worthwhile for her to
drive down here from Salem, but I always think of her whenever I see a
Nashville Warbler. The last time I saw her was when she and Jerry came to
Corvallis for Elzy Eltzroth's funeral.
--
Joel Geier
Camp Adair area north of Corvallis
