Birding trail has official launch
HORSESHOE BEND––The official launch of the Piedmont Plateau Birding Trail drew a large crowd from throughout the nine-county region Thursday.
The trail includes the counties of Randolph, Clay, Autauga, Chambers, Chilton, Coosa, Elmore, Lee and Tallapoosa.
The official launch of the fifth of eight planned trails was at Horseshoe Bend National Military Park.
The Piedmont Plateau Birding Trail has 34 sites in the nine counties.
Joanne Ninesling, a member of the Alexander City Chamber of Commerce and special projects coordinator, said she drove from one site to another visiting each stop. It was a 20-hour 600-mile journey, she said.
The trail will cover 3.6 million acres, which she said was “an awful lot of nature to see. A family can go for an afternoon–find a place close to them, find a site they have never been to or travel from site to site.”
An experienced birder has life lists of birds he wants to see. Typically, experienced birders are in their 50s, an older, educated population with disposal income, she said.
Nationally, wildlife tourism generates more than $65 billion annually annually and of that $45 million just in Alabama. “We want a piece of that,” she said. Somebody traveling from Tennessee will stop in Randolph County and buy gas at Lakeside Marina. They will see the birding brochures and decide to go to Fox Creek in Wedowee, near the Highway 48 boat ramp. All that is there now is the ramp and a parking lot. When the water recedes they will see a roadbed that leads to nearby sites where birds can be observed. Other sites in the county are Wedowee Kiwanis Park and Southern Union State Community College. Signage will be added later.
This trail will join the already established North Alabama Birding Trail and the Alabama Coastal Trail.
In 2006, she said, $45 million was spent on birds and wildlife activities in the state or one-tenth of 1 percent of the national amount of $65 billion.
Cotina Terry, president of the Randolph County Chamber of Commerce, said 53 people are already participating in bird counts. A Christmas bird count is scheduled for December. Other birding activities are scheduled up to the Randolph County launch event in May, 2012. Brochures with a map are available at the Randolph County Chamber of Commerce office in Randolph Plaza in Roanoke, near Circle K.
For more information go to www.piedmontplateaubirdingtrail.com.
(For more of this story see the November 23 issue of The Randolph Leader.)
