Eagle-eye view

Wildlife expert tracks comeback on Georgia's coast.

By Allen Thigpen | Photographer Jim Ozier

With little warning, pilot Ed Watkins of St. Simons Island, Georgia, tilted the helicopter about 30 degrees and cut sharply to the left, circling tightly a hundred feet or so above a patch of trees. There, resting between the forked upper branches of a tall cypress, was an enormous eagle nest, home to a pair of gray-feathered eaglets.

“Did you get a good look at that one?” came the voice over my headset.

“Got it,” I responded wobbly, my stomach still absorbing the tilts and turns experienced from the back of the six-seater helicopter. Out the window to my left were the forests, tidal marshes and beaches of Little St. Simons Island, Georgia, seemingly parallel to us, hundreds of feet below.

The voice was that of Jim Ozier, program manager of the Georgia Department of Natural Resource’s non-game conservation section. Our trip through the skies is a 20-year tradition for Jim – the four-day Georgia bald eagle nesting survey.

Leaving that morning from McKinnon Airfield in St. Simons Island, Georgia, I was abuzz with curiosity as to what we’d find. I was the lucky passenger afforded the opportunity to soar above the eagles and Georgia coastline.

Dressed to the ’09s

Producer Allen Thigpen | Photographer Ed Hall

If you’re a year-round sun worshiper – island cruiser or poolside lounger – this head-to-toe look is diva-ine. The Kokin hat ($340), Millie bikini ($225), Danialli necklace ($1,925) and earrings ($150), Gucci sunglasses ($445) and Skemo sandals ($90), are all available in the Ladies Boutique at The Ritz-Carlton Amelia Island (Florida). (904) 227-1100.

Researcher spreads his conservation wings

By Allen Thigpen | Photographer Judd Patterson

In the midst of swarms of bats on Cumberland Island, Georgia, and flocks of shorebirds in the Canadian outpost of Churchill, Manitoba, Chris Burney is happy. Be it feathers or fur, the Lakeland, Florida, researcher knows a wing when he sees it.

‘‘I don’t know if I just have aspirations to fly at some point,’’ Chris says.

Chris is the shorebird partnership coordinator for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, overseeing the monitoring and protection of the state’s shore-bound populations, many of which call North Florida home. It’s the latest stop in a conservation career that spans eight years and more than 20 different jobs.

‘‘I knew I was going to be involved with conservation and biology, and I knew that from an early age,’’ says Chris, a graduate of Auburn University.

His conservation efforts have taken him across the map to Mexico, Alaska, Arizona, California, Texas, Hawaii, Chile, Puerto Rico and eventually Florida, where his work in the University of Florida’s graduate program led him on the trail of bats along the coast of Georgia and North Florida.

‘‘I was interested mainly because there hadn’t been a lot of research done on bats in Florida, especially in that area,’’ Chris says. ‘‘They’re unique to begin with – a flying mammal that occupies a particular niche that few other organisms occupy. They echolocate. That’s pretty bizarre. Not many other animals do that, especially terrestrial ones.’’

In the summers from 2004 to 2006, Chris combed stretches from St. Simons Island, Georgia, to Cape Canaveral, Florida, catching, studying and releasing evening bats, Seminole bats, eastern pipistrelles, yellow bats, big brown bats and eastern red bats for the National Park Service. In addition, his master’s thesis work centered on the effect of development on bat populations in Cumberland Island, Georgia, and Amelia Island, Florida.

‘‘Cumberland is one of my favorite places, probably ever,’’ Chris says. ‘‘It’s a beautiful, really pristine area. It’s one of the things that most surprised me and shaped my thesis ideas with research – the concentration of bats out there compared to other sites I surveyed. The other sites bordered different levels of development, whereas, in Cumberland, you had an intact system.’’

Shortly after graduate school, Chris traded his bat concerns for birds, joining the FWC as shorebird partnership coordinator. He travels the state, working with local groups and nongovernment agencies to partner with and receive volunteer assistance in statewide coast monitoring.

‘‘There’s 700-plus miles of coastline in Florida,’’ Chris says. ‘‘We just don’t have the manpower to get on every beach and adequately protect and study. My position is to try to coordinate different groups that are like that across the state, hopefully to expand our network where we have those gaps in our knowledge and management.’’

Chris and his teams post signs to control crowds in breeding areas, set up chick fencing for endangered young and educate the public on shorebird concerns. According to Chris, North Florida is an area rich in activity, from Wilson’s plovers and least terns along the Matanzas Inlet, to gull-billed terns found on Huguenot. Even the red knot, migrating from Tierra del Fuego in South America to the arctic regions of Canada, makes the shores of Little Talbot Island its halfway-point rest stop.

‘‘Managing people in those kind of port sites is our biggest challenge,’’ Chris says. ‘‘Especially for conservation on the coast.’’