[TN-Bird] Jeff Wilson passing

  • From: "Kevin A. Calhoon" <kac@xxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <tn-bird@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>, "Ray Zimmerman" <znaturalist@xxxxxxxxx>, "Harold Sharp" <sharp_h@xxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2013 08:37:00 -0500

I don't really know where to start.  The very first time I met Jeff
Wilson I was new to Tennessee and I was on my first trip to the pits.  I
saw this guy with a scope looking intently at something.  His first
words to me were "do you want to see a Sharp-tailed Sandpiper!".
Looking back from this moment I surely wished I had spent more time in
the field with him.  I learned more about birding, identification,
passion for being in the field, than from anyone else.  His quotes are
always in my head in the field "always bird to the horizon!"; "don't
wear white, it does matter what you wear in the field!".  I remember
what he wrote so eloquently when Lula Coffey died, that she was a Snow
Egret, next to her Great Blue Heron (her husband Ben).  Well what is
Jeff, I would think some kind of windbird that he loved so much, maybe a
American Golden Plover, or a Sharp-tailed Sandpiper wondering thousands
of miles.  I already miss him, his presence will always be at the pits,
he will always be a legend!!

 

Kevin Calhoon

Assistant Curator of Forests

Tennessee Aquarium

423-785-4070

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