Fall Meeting on the South Carolina Coast
Don Faulkner
When you think of the best birding along the southern South Carolina coast, what comes to mind? Bear Island… Donnelley… ACE Basin… Savannah NWR… the Savannah Spoil Site… These sites are hallowed ground to Lowcountry birders, and we will visit them all and more during the upcoming 2011 Carolina Bird Club Fall Meeting! Field trips will be offered on Friday, September 30 and Saturday, October 1.
Our headquarters for the meeting is the Quality Inn at Town Center, at 2001 Boundary Street in downtown Beaufort. There is a 24-hour notice cancellation policy on individual reservations. Check-in time is 3 p.m. and check-out time is 12 noon. Cut-off date for reservations to be made under the group block is September 12, 2011. Any reservations made after that date are subject to hotel availability. Contact the hotel at 843-524-2144 to make your reservations and be sure to mention the Carolina Bird Club in order to receive the group rates.
Directions to the hotel are as follows: from I-95 N Take Exit 8 to Hwy 278 East. Continue on 278 East and take the Hwy 170 ramp toward Beaufort and turn left onto Hwy 170. When you get to the end of Hwy 170 (approximately 19.4 miles), make a right onto Hwy 21/Boundary Street. Continue straight approximately 1 mile. Make a left at the light after the K-Mart traffic light and make your immediate right at the hotel's main entrance. From I-95 S Take Exit 33 to Hwy 17 South toward Beaufort. Continue straight and take Hwy 21 South towards Beaufort and continue straight approximately 13 miles. Make a left at the light after the K-Mart traffic light and make your immediate right at the hotel's main entrance.
The Quality Inn at Town Center has plenty of room for our meetings, registration, and the Saturday night buffet. The CBC rates for rooms are $59.99 for king or queen and $49.99 for a double (not including taxes). The king and queen rooms include a microwave and a fridge. All rooms have complimentary Wi-Fi connection, and there is a computer available for guest use in the lobby. These rates will be available two days before and two days after the meeting for Club members. Breakfast is not included, but the restaurant, Fryed Green Tomatoes located next door, has a breakfast special for $3.99. They will be opening at 6 a.m. Friday and Saturday. The web site for the hotel is: www.qualityinn.com/Beaufort
The speaker for Friday night's meeting is Ann Shahid, Important Bird Areas Coordinator for Audubon South Carolina. She is going to speak on the distribution of Swallow-tailed Kites in SC and the Southeast and what we have learned from five years of kite boat surveys on six river systems.
Saturday night's speaker is Nancy Ricker Rhett, a local artist, author, and native of Beaufort, SC. The Rhett family owns the 'Rhett Gallery' on Bay Street in Beaufort that contains Nancy's paintings and books, plus her son William's paintings, and husband Bill's paintings and some of his bird carvings. One of Nancy's watercolors is in the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. Nancy is going to speak on Audubon's octavo Birds of America.
The Saturday night buffet will be $21.93 per person and include Low Country shrimp boil, pulled pork BBQ, collard greens, red beans & rice, Southern-style cole slaw, Pecan pie, tea, and coffee. The buffet is being catered by our breakfast restaurant, Fryed Green Tomatoes.
Register for the buffet at the same time as you register for the meeting using the form on page 9. We hope to see you in Beaufort where we plan to enjoy the spectacle of fall migration, enjoy friends old and new, sample excellent cuisine, and most of all, have fun!
