The Log | School News
Bird Watch For Nicholas School researcher,
vocation and avocation meet in Duke Forest p.3
By Laura Ertel
A Nest Full of Projects
Pippen also takes on other volunteer assignments during his
evenings, weekends and lunch hours. There’s his contribution
to a brochure on butterfly gardening by the North Carolina
Cooperative Extension Service, and the chapter on Duke Forest
that he’s writing for a new book on birding in North Carolina.
There’s his time spent organizing the local Durham butterfly
census each August as part of the North American Butterfly
Association’s annual national “Fourth of July Butterfly Count,”
and his trips to help with other butterfly surveys around
the state.
There’s the listserv he established called “carolinaleps”—short
for Lepidoptera, the taxonomic name of the group of butterflies
and moths—for the exchange of information among enthusiasts
in the Carolinas, or his participation on the “carolinabirds”
listserv created by fellow birder Cook.
Cook, who has been birding with Pippen since
1991, enjoys their partnership. “We’ll go chasing any rare
bird, anywhere in the state, at the drop of a hat. We compete
with each other to some extent, but we have a lot of fun.”
Fortunately for the ultra-busy Pippen, he’s got
a very understanding wife and daughter who, while not to the
level of birding, do enjoy hiking and the outdoors and know
their way around birds and butterflies.
Breaking the 400 Mark
In North Carolina, Pippen has seen 395 bird species, and he
is hoping to break the 400 mark soon. When he does, he will
become one of fewer than 10 people who have surpassed that
mark in the state, and perhaps the fastest to make it to that
milestone. With a goal like that, it’s no wonder he needs
to hop in the car to drive to the mountains or coast when
he gets wind of a rare species. He has seen 144 butterfly
species in North Carolina, and logs each one into a database
of butterfly records for Duke Forest and for the state. Dragonflies
are a newer interest, but already he has put together an online
dragonfly checklist for enthusiasts.
Jeff ’s Big Day
In the birding world, it’s called “The Big Day,” an attempt
to see or hear as many species of birds in a given area as
you can in a 24-hour period spanning from midnight to midnight.
In May, Pippen was enlisted by a few of his hard-core birding
buddies to try to set a new North Carolina record for The
Big Day in the American Birding Association’s record book.
After careful scouting, the team mapped out a route from Durham
to the Carolina coast, complete with a detailed timeline,
and set out from Pippen’s house in pursuit of smashing the
184-species mark. Inclement weather intervened, however, and
the team ended up recording 157 species in 24 hours—short
of the record, but a personal best for Pippen. They plan to
try again next May, the best time of the year to catch both
breeding indigenous species and migrating birds passing through
the state on their way to the northern states or to Canada.
Hearing Pippen talk excitedly about his passion
for birds and butterflies, it’s hard not to get caught up
in his enthusiasm for the natural world. But beware: spend
an afternoon with him in Duke Forest, and you, too, may start
contemplating a trip to the mountains to try to make out the
mnemonically humorous song of the Warbling Vireo: “If-youcatch-
me-can-you-squeeze-me, if-yousqueeze- me-will-I-squirt?”
Laura Ertell is a freelance writer based in
Durham, N.C.
page 1 | 2
| 3 |
