Bald Eagle on South Holston River

From Wallace Coffey of Bristol Bird Club:

"Sullivan County Bald Eagle nest digiscoped at 30x from 600 yards.
5/2/2012, 2:43PM Wallace Coffey"

"Baby" Bald Eaglet

From Wallace Coffey, of Bristol Bird Club, with permission to share:
Most of us would simply
love to hold one of the cute
and fuzzy eaglets from the nest
upstream of Bluff City on the
South Fork Holston River in
Sullivan County, TN. It would
be wonderful to cuddle the little
creature, pet it and love it. So
a photo of a Virginia Tech
graduate student holding
one when we were at a nest
site to band an eaglet in Burke's
Garden, Tazewell Co. VA a couple
of years ago would encourage you.

Perception and reality can sometimes be just a large beak and
sharp talons apart.

CCV Spring Meeting

The Board of Trustees of the Cave Conservancy of the Virginias met the weekend of April 28 at the scenic Mountain Lakes Hotel near Pembroke, Virginia. There was pressing business to install a new roof at CCV's Water park/ bingo hall before major damage is done to the buildings. About $25000* was allocated for roofing. About $22,000 was granted to a project to publish the first of a series of waterproof regional field guides to cave organisms, starting with one for Virginia. The Butler Cave Conservation Society asked for and received $8000 for the purpose of buying the Robins Rift cave property. Robins Rift is at the periphery of the great hydrologically connected Burnsville Cove system. Three times Robins Rift has been opened and three times it has collapsed. This time the plan is to build a stable entrance. Not much passage has been mapped but it has a lot of moving air. Finally, CCV Chair Mike Ficco released $500 to a project to dye trace the resurgence of Mountain Lake, which has been largely empty for the last decade, although it appears to be filling back up now. All the likely nearby springs and streams have tested negative for the dye, which was dumped as close as possible to the apparent drain holes.
*Except as noted, all expenditures were split 50/50 with our sister organization, the Cave Conservancy Foundation.

2012-04-28; Scott County Survey

April 28, 2012: Paul and Lucas Gaskins and I started a survey on an unnamed and undocumented cave in Scott County, Virginia. I originally estimated it at 800 feet long, but since then we've found segments of old stream passage that run parallel to the main trunk. The trunk trends east through big breakdown passage and comes to a flowstone choke. A smaller north trending passage joins it there. This passage is substantially wetter than the trunk and has numerous active soda straws and small helictites. It may have a conduit to the surface, as I noticed fresh air when I came into a room with a possible high lead. At the back of this passage are some old signatures, including one with a 1776 date, and a lot of lewd mud sculptures of more recent vintage. On previous trips, we noticed several big brown bats and pips. This time, we saw a single pip and a single gray, which took off as we surveyed beneath it. Both looked healthy and WNS-free. We plan to finish the survey this Saturday. I expect it to tape out around 1200 feet.

Update: flickr pictures at http://www.flickr.com/photos/xcaverx/sets/72157629593888512/