The Pine Warbler

October 2006 (Text Version Only)

Rushing Wows PWAS with Rescued Critters

Dr. Karen Rushing presented a wonderful program at the September 7th meeting, bringing with her a pair of  “show and tell” specimens.  The young gopher tortoise that Dr. Karen showed us had been hit by a car and her shell cracked. The shell was patched and the tortoise is now thriving.  Despite some permanent injury to one leg, Karen is hopeful that this lucky girl will be able to be relocated and released back into a colony in the wild.

The second animal that Doc showed us was a beautiful young raccoon who suffered a severe head injury in a fall as a baby.  This young ‘un will never be able to go back into the wild because of the blindness she suffered from the head injury, but she had no trouble charming all of us as she chased tasty treats. 

Dr. Rushing also talked in depth about the WRANPS (Wildlife Rehabilitation and Nature Preservation Society, Inc.), the organization formerly on the Gulf Coast and now relocated to her property since Katrina swept through.  Their plan is to relocate to the old fish hatchery in Lyman as soon as all the appropriate Memos of Agreement are signed.  In the meantime, she is feeding hundreds of pounds of food a week and caring around the clock for many abandoned and “found” nature babies.

You can donate to WRANPS or Dr. Rushing’s own ministry by contacting her at P.O. Box 43, Moselle, MS, 39459 or through email to Angel4stfran@aol.com.



Dauphin Island Field Trip, Oct. 6-8                                 Chuck Gramling, Field Trip Coordinator

Have you ever been to Dauphin Island?  Have you ever observed the birds that migrate through this special place?  Have you ever seen birds you have never seen before?  Well, everybody should!   Come join us on Dauphin Island the weekend of October 6-8, 2006.

Dauphin Island, a small barrier island just southwest of Mobile, is a birders place this time of year, where we all just rove on our own or in small groups, to relax, get away, and enjoy life and the migrant birds.  Members of our group will be going down between Thursday 10/5 and Sunday 10/8 to enjoy it. There is usually a compilation meeting on Saturday night.

This trip is not an organized trip, other than there will be many bird watchers there to help at any moment find the birds whether you’re viewing at Shell Mound, the Goat Tree, the several beaches, or in other places.  Motel accommodations are listed in the back of our yearbook, but the Gulf Breeze Motel (251-861-7344) is a popular stay-over spot (see yearbook for others). Come join us for a great get-away; you will love birds on Dauphin Island and you will enjoy this special place! 

Questions? Call me: Chuck Gramling (home 601-268-3859, cell phone on trip 601-408-0499) or clgramling@comcast.net).


Program Refreshments Providers At Top of our List for Thanks!

Many thanks to Walter & Lorene Deen and to Emily Nelson for the September feast!  What a way to start off our new year!

Emily, our stalwart Refreshments Coordinator, passed around the list for folks to sign up to provide refreshments at future programs this year.  Here is the list as it stands now:

October:  Larry Morgan
November: Cile Waite & Liz Wolfe
December: Jean Gramling & Eileen Atkins (tentative)
January: Oliver Hord
February: Linda Smith, Virginia van Wart, & Jane Heidelberg
March: Sarah & Latrelle Bush
April: Louanne Fossler
May:  TBA

Emily’s goal is to have at least 2 providers for each meeting so no one feels too overloaded.  Now is the time to take our President’s message to heart (“volunteer for one new thing this year!”) and sign up to do refreshments! 

You can contact Emily, our Hospitality Chair, to volunteer.


Book Review
Where the Birds Are: The 100 Best Birdwatching Spots in North America

Broken down into three regions (Eastern, Central, & Western) and even covering Canada, this wonderful book is part-picture book, part-travel guide. For those of us planning trips (or dreaming of planning trips!), there is a national map with sites notated, as well as a map of Canada.  If you find yourself on a “mission,” you can easily see what sites are referenced in that state and head that way. Just for fun, Mississippi’s highlighted sites are Noxubee National Wildlife Refuge in the northern part of the state and St. Catherine Creek National Wildlife Refuge in Natchez, and the rest of the southeast is liberally represented.

Each write-up of a site includes general information on the site (phone/web site), habitat description, “birds to look for,” visitor information, highlights, and site map.  I suspect the visitor information is dated in terms of hours of operation, etc., and users should certainly check the information before heading out.  The directional maps are scant, usually small and not very detailed, but there are also driving instructions included. I found a couple of errors in directions, so you should be careful to double-check the information given before you go.

The book is filled with full-color pictures of birds we commonly see right here in the Piney Woods and was a surprisingly good read, making me long for many of the places we’ve visited and yearn to see those we haven’t.  The beautiful picture of a Purple Gallinule reminded me of our visit last Christmas to the Everglades; the Painted Bunting on page 185 made my breath catch in my throat, even though I know I can see the “real thing” a few blocks away at the local sewage lagoon; and the Mississippi Kite photo (page 158) brought me home again to my own back yard and our recent summer neighbors. Really, folks, all that travel within 325 pages -- what more can you ask from a book?

-- Lin “Road Trip Junkie” Harper


A Poetry Offering

A few years back, long-time PWAS member Cile Waite read excerpts of letters from her daughter Wendy to our chapter gathering, regaling us with tales of a tiny rescued baby hummingbird and its miraculous, sometimes funny, development.  Wendy passed from this world last summer but her love for that tiny life, and indeed all life, lives on in her poems.  Here, reprinted with permission, is “How to Build a Hummingbird.”  Thank you, Jonathan, for sharing.


How to Build a Hummingbird

Your thumb would make two of him
but you mustn’t use that.  No shortcuts
allowed.  All it takes is all you are

and more than that.  With your art
use hope and muster, take the air
behind his wings and the space

where the bird may be, and the part
of you that breaks with the blur
of  him.  With wings do the best you can.

When you begin he has no more
scent than stones in deep water.
With your breath give him ocean

spray, cedar and scent of cotton
and though you are finished
with him you know he is not done

with you when he lifts at last from
the heresy of your hand, your first
day, the beginning of everything

Reprinted from Wendy Waite Collected Works with permission from Otter Press, copyright owned by Otter Press, 2006.


PWAS Moves Online, too!   

That’s right.  PWAS now has a website, albeit as basic as it can be.  Hopefully someone will show up who has more skill than I in web site design and maintenance and can do a better job, but at least we have a presence out in “cyber-space”!

Check it out at
http://home.comcast.net/~blackwellr/ 


Audubon Adventures

Liz Wolfe, our Chapter Education Coordinator, is out in the community working with teachers who would like to have Audubon Adventures in their 4th & 5th grade classrooms this year.  This package includes materials for both student use and for the teacher and has four separate modules for use throughout the year.

The cost for this package of materials that teachers can literally “pull out of the box” and use is only $45.65.  If you are interested in sponsoring one (or more) classrooms OR if you know a teacher who would be interested in using the materials, please contact Liz Wolfe at 601-264-9545.

PWAS Calendar of Events

October 5:  PWAS Board Meeting, 6:15 p.m., Hattiesburg Zoo Education Center.  All are welcome to come and participate in the board meeting.

October 5: PWAS Chapter Meeting, 7:00 p.m., Hattiesburg Zoo Education Center.  Program: M. LaSalle on “Effects of Hurricane Katrina on Coastal Bird Habitat.”

October 6-8: Dauphin Island Fall Migration Field Trip.  Make your own reservations. Contact Chuck Gramling for more information.  See article earlier in this issue.

November 2: PWAS Board Meeting, 6:15 p.m., Hattiesburg Zoo Education Center.  All are welcome to come and participate in the board meeting.

November 2: PWAS Chapter Meeting, 7:00 p.m., Hattiesburg Zoo Education Center. Program: “Forest Service Management” by Jeff Long.

November 11: Red Cockaded Woodpecker Field Trip. More information to come on that in the November newsletter.