‘Earth Day makes me grumpy’ says Ecological Biologist who clings to hope for this beautiful planet with all the love in his heart

By Patric Hedlund and Marcy Axness, TME

One of our dearest friends of this newspaper is a sometimes-grumpy ecological biologist who wooed his true love making birding life lists with her. Their Valentine’s Day ritual was to join—heart and soul—into the Great Backyard Bird Count (GBBC). Edie and Lynn Stafford were the king and queen of the GBBC prom.

On Valentines Day in 2009 they found a Tennessee Warbler in their backyard that typically winters in Venezuela, travels up into the Carribean, passes through the American South, then spends the summer in Canada. In 2009 one little warbler, that Edie called “Buddy,” somehow got off course. It spent the entire snowy winter, including…(please see below to view full stories and photographs)

Photo captions:

Tennessee warbler ‘Buddy’

Left: Elke Heitmeyer, with trash she cleaned up from Frazier Mountain Park Road April 21; Above: Community members showed the dry park pond some loving care in May 2019.

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This is part of the April 23, 2021 online edition of The Mountain Enterprise.

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