A WEST VIRGINIA NATURE FESTIVAL
AND AN HONORARY DEGREE

In my continuing effort to catch up on posting "This Week at Hilton Pond" AND to maintain continuity in reporting phenological happenings at Hilton Pond Center, I offer the following installment covering the first few days of May 2013. Some entries appeared in some form on the Center's Facebook page while others--and several images--are new.

Happy Nature Watching!

BILL HILTON JR.

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All text, maps, charts & photos © Hilton Pond Center

29 April-2 May

Late afternoon on 28 April, Ernesto Carman Jr.--my long-time Costa Rica guide, collaborator, and friend--and I loaded net poles, banding equipment, binoculars, and personal gear into Hilton Pond Center's full-sized Ford Econoline van and headed north, with Susan Hilton as navigator. Our specific destination was Opossum Creek Retreat in Fayette County, home of the New River Birding & Nature Festival. I've been involved with this outstanding annual event since its inception in 2003, leading banding workshops and field trips for 100-plus participants from across North America.

Bird Watcher's Digest calls the New River festival one of the top birding events in the country and--in fact--BWD editor Bill Thompson III and his wife Julie Zickefoose attend and make presentations each year. Other recent notables include Dr. Scott Shalaway (nature columnist & radio host from Pittsburgh), Jim McCormac (nongame specialist with Ohio Division of Wildlife), Pat & Clay Sutton (naturalists & authors from Cape May NJ), Connie Toops (nature writer & photographer in North Carolina), Ben Lizdas (sales manager for Eagle Optics), Katie Fallon (author of a recent book about Cerulean Warblers), Jim Rapp (director of Hazel Outdoor Discovery Center in Maryland), and numerous others. Ernesto (at left above with Thompson & Fallon) was invited this year as an accomplished birding guide who could bring an international perspective.

In addition to co-leading field trips for the Festival, 'Nesto also was in the U.S. for some intensive training in the art and science of banding birds. At Hilton Pond Center and during Operation RubyThroat's expeditions to Costa Rica, Belize, Guatemala, and Nicaragua I've given him ample opportunity to practice his skills--all in the hope he will qualify soon for a U.S. subpermit to band Neotropical migrants in Costa Rica when I'm not there conducting research. To this end 'Nesto helped in West Virginia with banding demos for participants in the New River festival and for a concurrently offered Road Scholar session (formerly Elderhostel). He also gave an afternoon "popcorn lecture" about bird-friendly Finca Cristina, an innovative organic shade-grown coffee farm his family owns and operates at Paraíso, Costa Rica east of San Jose.

All text, maps, charts & photos © Hilton Pond Center
Cerulean Warbler photo above courtesy Ernesto Carman Jr.

As further evidence of the overall quality of the event, 'Nesto remarked the New River Birding & Nature Festival had been the most exciting week of his life--in part because he got to observe Cerulean Warblers (above) he studies along their migratory path in his home country of Costa Rica. (For more info about the New River Birding & Nature Festival and other nature-related events in West Virginia, please see www.birding-wv.com.)

After Thursday morning's field trips and my own popcorn lecture about hummingbird research in the Neotropics, Susan, 'Nesto, and I boarded the van and headed back south toward Hilton Pond. The Festival was due to go on for two more days, but we had another engagement to get ready for back in South Carolina.

All text, maps, charts & photos © Hilton Pond Center

3 May

Ernesto Carman Jr. got up early on 3 May, drank some Café Cristina light roast he brought with him from home, and set two sunflower seed traps that snared only a couple of female American Goldfinches (above)--each already showing her bright spring plumage. We were on a tight schedule, however, requiring us to quit banding by mid-morning at Hilton Pond for a van trip to Newberry College, a small Lutheran school in the Midlands of South Carolina where now-wife Susan and I long ago received undergraduate degrees--she in psychology and I in philosophy. We were bound for our alma mater and graduation weekend festivities, including a jazz band concert on the afternoon of 3 May recognizing senior band members and long-time band director Bill Long, who was about to retire. 'Nesto was quite impressed by the talents of the ensemble, as were the Hiltons--as always--and we later delighted in giving him a walking tour of campus and regaling him with tales of our years at Newberry (3.5 for Susan and six for me--but that's another story). We spent the night in town across the street from the Newberry Opera House (above left), a beautifully restored and now fully functional structure built in 1881.

4 May

We all arose on the morning of 4 May a bit more excited than usual, for it was the events of this day that actually brought us to Newberry. It seems my undergraduate college had asked me to deliver the commencement address for the 156 graduating members of the Class of 2013 and had seen fit to grant me an honorary doctorate.

I was deeply honored by the invitation to speak and even more so by the school's wish to award me the Doctor of Science degree (D.Sci.). I beg the indulgence of followers of "This Week at Hilton Pond" in allowing me to share my personally rewarding news with you in this current installment. College president Dr. Maurice Scherrens accepted the following citation and conferred the honorary degree as Dr. Wayne Kannaday (faculty marshall, above right) and Hap Pearce (chair of the College's board of trustees) bestowed my doctoral hood:

In recognition for service to his alma mater,
Newberry College Class of 1970;
His continued dedication to educating and learning;
In honor of past recognition he has received from the College, including:
The faculty’s highest recognition the Luceo Mea Luce Award and
His charter membership into the Newberry College Hall of Master Teachers; and
His implementation of the John Bachman Symposium during the
College’s 150th Anniversary; and,
For his service to the Alumni Association and the Board of Trustees,

Newberry College is pleased to confer upon
William J. Hilton Jr.
The degree of Doctor of Science, honoris causa,
with all rights and privileges thereto appertaining
on the fourth day of May 2013

After the awarding of the honorary degree, vice president of academic affairs Dr. Tim Elston made the following introduction:

In 2002, Bill Hilton Jr. was President-Elect of the Newberry College Alumni Association and the College’s 150th anniversary was still four years away. Bill had the vision to make the Sesquicentennial a four-day celebration in honor of College founder, Rev. John Bachman [below right, for whom John James Audubon named Bachman's Warbler and Bachman's Sparrow].

This ambitious symposium brought Bachman scholars, Newberry alumni, Bachman family members, and other interested individuals from across the country to the College. It involved every student, faculty member, and all departments. The Bachman Web site he created (www.johnbachman.org) is still the Internet’s most visited resource about John Bachman and is frequently visited by students, teachers, and the general public.

Bill has shown that he always has a vision to the future. He was instrumental in launching the South Carolina Governor’s School for Science & Mathematics in Hartsville.

In 2008, Discover magazine cited him as one of the "50 Best Brains in Science" and one of the ten top amateur scientists in America. He is a widely published author on nature and education and leads workshops across the United States and internationally.

He founded Hilton Pond Center for Piedmont Natural History on family property in York, South Carolina, as a non-profit research, education, and conservation organization. “This Week at Hilton Pond” is an on-going series of photo essays about nature and phenomena in the Carolina Piedmont. It consistently ranks in the top 20 natural history blogs out of more than 2,500 monitored internationally by Nature Blog Network.

We are pleased to have Newberry College graduate Dr. Bill Hilton Jr. as our commencement speaker today.

All text, maps, charts & photos © Hilton Pond Center
Commencement photos courtesy The Newberry Observer

In addressing the Newberry College Class of 2013 I wanted to avoid commencement clichés, make my comments personal and Newberry-related, and include a few appropriate references to natural history. After many weeks of pondering the speech, my topic evolved as Luck, Destiny, and Serendipity: Confessions of a Frisbee Fanatic. I'm happy (and relieved) to say it was well-received. To read the thoughts I shared with the graduating seniors and their guests, please see Newberry College Commencement Address, May 2013.

All text, maps, charts & photos © Hilton Pond Center

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