Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, September 26, 1993 TAG: 9309260103
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B4 EDITION: STATE
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: KIPTOPEKE, VA. LENGTH: Medium
The two-day festival, which begins Oct. 9, is a cooperative effort by state and Northampton County officials.
The officials took a look at other communities, like Cape May, N.J., where bird-watchers contribute millions of dollars into the economy each year. Binocular-toting enthusiasts migrate there each fall to ogle warblers, flickers and hawks as they travel down the coast.
If bird-watchers come to Cape May, reasoned state planners, why not Virginia?
"The birding festival is a pretty exciting thing," said Sara Mabey, who is studying songbirds on the Eastern Shore. "Cape May has a big hoopla, but we have pretty fantastic birds here."
Mabey heads a two-year, $140,000 study funded through the state Department of Environmental Quality and Department of Conservation and Recreation.
The study will determine which places on the Eastern Shore are vital to the survival of about 70 species of songbirds - a third of which are threatened by declines in their populations - as well as eagles, hawks and falcons.
As the birds migrate south, songbirds and birds of prey follow both the Atlantic and Chesapeake Bay coastlines. The flight paths take them down to the tip of Northampton County, where they rest and wait for good weather for their flight across the mouth of the bay.
The bobolink, for example, breeds in the north and spend each winter in South America - one of the longest migrations for land birds, Mabey said.
"They concentrate on the Eastern Shore in astronomical numbers," Mabey said. One of her colleagues counted more than 60,000 one night near the town of Oyster.
State employees will be helping with some tours at the festival, and some state money will be going into the event's $20,000 budget.
The festival is almost exclusively focused on watching birds, and going to those places where bird-watching is best.
One tour, of the Mockhorn Wildlife Management Area, gives visitors the opportunity to visit a seaside preserve that is usually closed to the public.
About 300 people pre-registered for the festival before a mailing went out members of the Virginia Society of Ornithology.
by CNB