Bill sent us this email in tribute to a gentleman who taught us birders, early in my raptor watching years, to never say, "that bird's not supposed to be here." Since his observation, which it seems should have been noticed many years before, was so eye opening, I learned to watch for habits and habitat for birds in a way different than before. If you want to see certain birds, sometimes you need to know where to look. And this gentleman certainly taught us where to look. In find memory, God Bless your family, sir. We owe you a debt of gratitude for a very special time in our lives!
Bill's memorial~
" Yesterday I attended the funeral of Milburn Varner, of Soddy-Daisy, TN. Milburn lived down at the base of the mountain we drive up to get to the Soddy Mountain Hawk Watch. Milburn was best known as a fantastic mechanic, guru of anything MOPAR, and a drag racer in the 1960’s and 1970’s. He worked on several of my cars over the years. In his garage sits a 1970 Plymouth Barracuda, painted Plum Crazy Purple (an actual color Plymouth used….do you remember it?). It has “Drag Addict” professionally painted on the sides, and is a beautiful thing to look at. It has less than 500 miles on it. The miles were added a quarter mile at a time. I can well remember seeing that purple Barracuda scream down the quarter mile at Optimist Drag Strip in the early ‘70’s. Roi Shannon and I went down there several times to see him and the other drag racers battle it out. I know for a fact that he was once offered $125,000 for that car and turned it down. I’d say 99% of the people there yesterday knew him from this part of his life.
Milburn was not known to the birdwatching community, and he was not really a bird watcher. I’d wager that not a single birder in this area knew of him, or had ever heard his name. Even Jimmy and Cynthia have probably forgotten it, even though they’ve heard me tell his story several times over the years. You see, Milburn, a non-birder, but a good observer, was responsible for one of the most surprising and interesting discoveries about the lives of Bald Eagles in our area.
He was an early riser. A good number of years back, he called me one day and told me Bald Eagles were flying out of the Big Soddy Creek gorge every morning at first light. He invited me to come up to his place to see this. To be honest, I thought he didn’t know what he was talking about, figuring maybe he was seeing vultures, so I didn’t immediately take him up on his offer. A couple of weeks later, Milburn called again, saying “Are you going to come up here to see the eagles fly or not?” Well, when he put it that way, I decided I’d better go up there, so I promised I’d be there the next morning. He told me I’d better get there early, because they flew out at daybreak. The next morning, a cold, clear day, I got there when Milburn specified. He came out from his house, shook my hand and pointed up at the ridge over his house to two pine trees that stuck up above the other trees. “They always fly out from right there. Watch and you’ll see them in a little bit.” No sooner had he said that, than five Bald Eagles flew out past those pine trees! To say I was surprised was an understatement. Milburn was the first person to observe that Bald Eagles spend the nights in creek gorges in our area, flying out to the river at first light, then returning back to the gorges each night. Before then this was a behavior unknown to any birdwatcher in Chattanooga!
I went back up a few days later, and was astonished to see 16 eagles fly out of the gorge over Milburn’s house that morning over a 15-20 minute period. The next weekend, I had people stationed at first light where they had a good view of 4 creek gorges, the area stretched all the way from North Chickamauga Creek in the south to Rock Creek in Sale Creek, to the north. Lo and behold, in the space of less than 15 minutes, they saw a total of 50 Bald Eagles leave those creek gorges!
So Milburn, goodbye my friend, and thank you for adding to our ornithological knowledge. I will long remember you and know now that your spirit is flying with those eagles…..that is when you are not blasting down a drag strip somewhere up in heaven. "
Bill might not remember that from at least the second time he went up to Mr. Varner's, Jimmy and I were also there. I can remember the thrill as Eagle after Eagle entered the early morning skies. On one morning we were there, Blake, my son and his wife Janelle were with us. It was she who saw our last eagle that morning which flew out lower than the others, and we almost missed it. One morning, we were stationed at Harold's Church watching, toward that area of the gorge, to help Bill expand the count to include birds all along the gorges. Roi and Debbie also were stationed in one area. I can't remember our exact counts, but I remember it changing my attitude about Bald Eagles completely. I suddenly understood we had so many more BEs around than people knew. What a discovery! It was a huge contribution Mr. Varner and Bill had made to the raptor knowledge for our area. I still sometimes long to get up to an area where I can sit and watch them fly off the ridge in the morning. I do remember that seeing so many eagles leave from one area, in such a short few minutes, in near darkness, it would take an observant person to actually recognize them as such. Many thanks to Mr. Varner for one of my best birding memories.
Thank you Mr. Varner that you were faithful to
KEEP LOOKING UP!
No comments:
Post a Comment