
DATE: Sunday, September 28, 1997            TAG: 9709280088

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: GUY FRIDDELL

                                            LENGTH:   91 lines

WATCH IN AWE AS MIGRATING BIRDS REST

Thousands of North America's most beautiful birds, migrating to the tropics for the winter, will alight this coming weekend for a pit stop in Northampton County at the southernmost tip of Virginia's Eastern Shore near the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel.

Awaiting them will be people who have found the Eastern Shore Birding Festival to be a bewitching weekend. The festival has a 70 percent return ratio, festival chairwoman Joyce Holland said Saturday. ``And those returning, along with the birds, generally bring newcomers.''

The fifth annual festival, Friday afternoon through Sunday, offers guided tours throughout the Eastern Shore as far as north as Chincoteague in Accomack County.

As a last place to touch land, Kiptopeke on Eastern Shore's tip is a funnel drawing birds heading along the Atlantic flyway during September and October, Holland said.

Along with rainbowed warblers are sparrows in subtle shades of brown and gray and a host of hawks, falcons and eagles alert to snatch smaller prey along the way.

The idea for a festival arose when Virginia's Coastal Program manager Laura McKay heard that Roger Tory Petersen, bird-watchers' patron saint, had noted that Virginia's Cape Charles drew more migrants than New Jersey's Cape May.

In a meeting, amid rising enthusiasm, chiefs of Virginia's departments and several agency heads, along with leaders from the Eastern Shore Chamber of Commerce, pitched in ideas and resources.

In partnership with the state, the Chamber assumed planning and management of the festival. Its president, Holland, agreed to chair the committee.

A member, Karen Terwilliger, noted Saturday that nature tourism is a major year-round benefit for the economy.

The concentration of vivid neo-tropical warblers migrating at Kiptopeke is greater than any in tropical rain forests, McKay said.

When birds reach the shoreline, they stop in the cover to rest and feed and store energy because they have to fly all the way to the tropics over water in a very short time.

``It's a pretty hard life, all the way back and forth,'' McKay observed. ``That's why we are so concerned about preserving habitat in the stop-over areas.

``Birds follow the shoreline to navigate, and they are going to keep doing that regardless of what humans do to the environment. In essence, they don't know any other way to get to the tropics.

``If we don't take care that they have plenty of native trees, shrubs and vines to protect them from predators while they rest and feed and eat, more of them will die and steadily diminish in numbers.

``They aren't going to take a different route because that's the one they've known through millennia.

``If there are no rest stops, that's tough luck. For us, it would be like driving through a desert with no gas stations or restaurants.''

If bird-watching can continue to bring an increasing amount of money to a locality, local people can see a financial reason to want to protect that vital habitat, she said.

Bird watching in Cape May brings $8 million yearly.

The Eastern Shore festival keeps growing. At Sunset Beach, exhibits include backyard habitats. Vendors offer local treats and bird-watching equipment.

Kiptopeke State Park, directed by Scott Flickinger, features bird-banding and an observation deck for hawks. Experts lead walks in the Eastern Shore National Wildlife Refuge and on Fisherman's Island, and on private lands by the Bay and the sea, and canoe trips in marsh lands.

The festival will begin at 2 p.m. Friday. Birding guru Pete Dunne will speak at 7 p.m. at Sunset Beach Inn's Barrier Island Room. Each night speakers appear at local restaurants.

Register at $10 a day for adults and $5 for children under 12 at a tent behind Sunset Beach Inn. For lodging, call the Chamber of Commerce at (757) 787-2460.

On stepping onto this Eastern Shore of Eden, one feels an almost light-headed sense of vast open expanse of land, sea and sky with stirring of nature in the offing. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo

JIM WALKER

An egret, feeding, lives in marshy areas that visitors can see

during the coming Eastern Shore Birding Festival.

Photo

JIM WALKER

A great blue heron walks the Eastern Shore. Habitats of birds such

as the heron will be covered during the weekend's festival, as will

migrating birds, birds of prey, the scarcity of bluebirds, and

habitat diversity.

Graphic

FACT

THE EASTERN SHORE BIRDING FESTIVAL OPENS AT 2 P.M. FRIDAY.