Ralph Bell and Dan Williams Honored by the ASWP
At it’s annual banquet on Wednesday, May 24, 2006, the Audubon Society of Western Pennsylvania honored Ralph Bell and Dan Williams, two local birders and members of the Three Rivers Birding Club.
Ralph Bell received the W. E. Clyde Todd Award for significant contributions to environmental conservation.
Dan Williams received the Beulah Frey Environmental Scholarship Award, made to outstanding graduating high school seniors pursuing a college career in an environmentally-related field.
Background on why they received these awards appears below.
Introduction, by Gabi Hughes.
One of the important, though sometimes overlooked,
aspects of ASWP 
is its long history. And what makes
that history is the people who have been the fabric of
it. Their stories and experience give depth and
strength to the organization. When I first began
working at Beechwood Farms, I was asked “Are you going
on the Bell’s Farm outing?” I must admit, somewhat
sheepishly, that even with the intimation of tradition
that went along with that question, it has taken me
seven years to be able to answer “yes”.
This past spring, I finally made it on a Bell’s Farm outing, and immediately decided that this was something that should be shared. I also realized nearly as immediately, that there was an almost overwhelming amount of history, anecdotes, and scientific contribution associated with Mr. Bell. This article was going to require some serious research.
Good fortune smiled upon me, however, when Jack Solomon casually mentioned the idea of writing an article about Ralph during a walk in Frick Park. And so, a collaboration was born. Following is our humble attempt to paint a picture of Ralph K. Bell, both past and present. So, read on and enjoy, and hopefully we’ll see you at next year’s outing.
A Little Bit of History About Ralph Bell, by Jack Solomon.
The legendary Ralph K. Bell, leader of the famous annual Bell’s Farm Outing in Greene County, has an absolutely amazing ability to identify birds by ear for a man his age (he’s even older than I am) and compares well with good ear-birders half his age. Back in the early 1970s when I started birding, Ralph was already a legend, not only for his annual outing, but for his ornithological skills and personality. My sources tell me that the reason he can still tell you so many species by their vocalizations is because, when he was much younger, he would climb up into a tree when necessary, then patiently wait for a good look at whatever was singing. That kind of effort is amazing—I can see how it would firmly fix the sound in his brain.
Thirty-seven years after the founding of ASWP, the organization welcomed Ralph as a new board member. Bell’s birding experience quickly hit the pages of the Bulletin in 1954 with the results of the Clarksville Christmas Bird Count: Ralph Bell, sole observer, 14 species reported. The Bell’s Farm outing in Greene County was soon inaugurated with the Bulletin report that “we have been invited to explore new territory with Mr. Bell on his farmland,” known back then as Bell’s Chicken Farm. That first Bell’s Farm outing had 35 “observers” and 48 species — more people and more species than any other single day outing that year. Birds observed included Upland Sandpiper (a great find, anywhere around here), “quail,” and Mourning Warbler. The tradition was off to a great start.
Auduboners used to look forward to the Bell’s Farm outing in late May or early June. In one day, we’d see a singing male Yellow-throated Warbler, Worm-eating Warbler, Orchard Oriole, and have a really good chance to see a Summer Tanager or a grassland sparrow rarely seen in Allegheny county at the time. My favorite reason for attendance was to kid around with Ralph and marvel, not only at his uncanny hearing, but at the way he ably climbed a ladder to his Kestrel box. He’d bring down a hen Kestrel and chick to be photographed and banded, while the tiercel (male falcon) circled above, screaming defiance and irritation. Ralph would also open one of the many bluebird boxes in his yard to let us see the young; or he’d throw a handful of feathers right in front of us, an action followed immediately by several species of swallows swooping in our faces to snatch the feathers for their nests.
My favorite activity, though, was just talking to Ralph, enjoying his sense of humor, and learning about all aspects of nature. I also enjoyed birding, botanizing, and chatting with the people — sometimes numbering 100 — from ASWP and West Virginia’s Brooks Bird Club who came for the fun.
Only once in the course of over 50 years has someone filled in for Ralph at his outing —and that was only so he could accept the prestigious Poole Award from the Pennsylvania Society for Ornithology (PSO). That was back when the awardee’s identity was kept a secret until the actual presentation at the PSO banquet. Ralph’s daughter, Joan Bell Pattison, found it completely impossible to get Ralph to attend the PSO conference because he said it conflicted with his commitment to lead his ASWP outing. Finally, with PSO’s approval, she divulged he was the guest of honor. He went reluctantly, and only after arranging for someone qualified to fill in for him so that the show could go on back at home.
It was great fun to look through the old Bulletins for glimpses of Ralph. For instance, Ralph once, long ago, observed magpies (undoubtedly Black-billed, though the species is not stated) near his Greene County home. He loaned a trap to a federal Fish & Wildlife agent, and, together, they trapped one of the magpies. Ralph’s neighbor reported a flock of 14 of them at their feeder —this puzzled me, since I believe there are no Pennsylvania records of magpies. Sure enough, a few issues later, a letter from Ralph stated the birds were found to be escapees, and he believed the reports of the flock of 14 were from someone who mistook pigeons for magpies. Another example of his scrupulous honesty is found in the June 1956 Bulletin where Ralph asks that the “lady who lost her billfold” on his 1955 outing return and claim “it and the money it contains this year.”
Like the Clarksville CBC, the Bell’s Farm outing has run for 51 years, the longest continuously running field outing in ASWP’s history. But these milestones just scratch the surface of the accomplishments of Ralph Bell.
Experts agree that Ralph’s meticulous, untiring field work has contributed much to our understanding of bird life in the southwestern corner of the state and in neighboring West Virginia. Ralph was already a registered bird bander in 1953. He has personally banded well over 100,000 birds, all while operating his farm. One bird banded by Bell at Clarksville, Pa., May 6, 1962, was recaptured 1,500 miles to the north at Battle Harbor, Labrador, on June 12, having averaged 40 miles per day. A Slate-colored Junco banded by Bell in August 1991 was recaptured in October 2001, establishing a longevity record of at least 11 years and four months old for the species! This junco was a local bird, staying in the area year round, and was caught many times. Bell says this shows at least two items of interest —first, that the junco did not seem to mind being caught and handled. Also, birds that do not migrate have a better chance of living longer due to all of the hazards of migration.
That junco was banded and recaptured at the Allegheny Front Migration Observatory (AFMO) at Bear Rocks, on the Dolly Sods in West Virginia. The AFMO was founded by Ralph, a Penn State graduate with a degree in Poultry Husbandry, in 1953. He’s banded there every year since. His daughter, co-leader of AFMO with him for the past several years, details the observatory’s history in an article in The Redstart, the newsletter of the Brooks Bird Club.
At least 12 technical articles in various journals, including the Eastern Bird Banding Association News, were authored by Ralph and over 200,000 birds and at least 120 species have been banded at the AFMO by Ralph and his team.
“In 1990, Bell started a program at AFMO to count flyovers going over the banding station. He and his helpers count and record Goldfinches, Blue Jays, Hummingbirds, Monarch Butterflies, and Green Darner Dragonflies,” added Pattison. Trends are already beginning to show up from the observations. “Blue Jays migrate in the daytime, not at night as most passerines do. Bell says some years very few Blue Jays migrate probably due to a good mast crop in their area. Other years they migrate to the southern US to spend the winter where food would be more plentiful. On October 3, 1999, 8,297 Blue Jays flew by.”
Among the many AFMO helpers of note, most of whom are Brooks Bird club Members, are Pittsburghers Carol and Fred McCullough, organizers and compilers of the Allegheny County portion of the PA Migration Count. With their young sons, they began helping at AFMO in 1973 and continued through the present. Bell, recognizing their dedication and ability, arranged for them to obtain sub permits under him, and they began banding at AFMO in 1999.
Carol has seen Ralph’s “huge bank-ledger type books full of data that he has kept since around 1927—all of it written in exquisite handwriting. He showed us book after book filled with banding records of Chipping Sparrows —he’d banded over 6,000 at the time.”
Ralph has monitored hundreds of nest boxes, has been a member of various ornithological and birding organizations (American Ornitholigical Union, Association of Field Ornithologists, Wilson Ornithological Society, PSO, etc.), has researched cowbird parasitism, and has years of service to ASWP and the Brooks Bird Club. A copy of the Eastern Bird Banding Association’s newsletter announced that in 1959, Ralph Bell “banded more Horned Larks, crows, meadowlarks, martins, Vesper, Savannah, Grasshopper, Chipping, Field and Song sparrows than anyone else.” The PSO web site records for Greene County show Bell twice in the Top County Lifelist: 194 (Ralph Bell) and Top Big Year: 137 (Ralph Bell, 1985).
Still, whenever I show up and say hello to him, Ralph always smiles and tells me he’s “really pleased to meet someone famous.” I’m really pleased to know the man who epitomizes the joy of making a major contribution to science while having fun and enriching many lives.
My Visit to Bell's Farm, by Gabi Hughes.
I must confess that I have always had trouble identifying Acadian Flycatchers by ear. I could do it, but it was a less than instantaneous process of elimination. “Plodding” would be the more apt description. It just never clicked for me. Of course, that was before my visit to Bell’s Farm this past May. Now I can pick out that Acadian in a heartbeat — Cerulean Warblers, too. And it is because of Ralph Bell. Well, in truth, the Acadian is due to Ralph’s daughter, Joan, but we’ll get to that.
As I mentioned, the Bell’s Farm outing has been on my “to do” list for seven years. And every year there is some reason why I don’t go. But this year, I was determined. It also helped that I had a passenger to accompany me on the drive to Greene County. And so, on a lovely May morning, I set out with my fellow birder, Alberta.
Bell’s Tree Farm sits near Ten Mile Creek in Greene County. It is a beautiful ride down interstate 79 as you exchange the city and the suburbs for the rolling hills of southwestern Pennsylvania farmland.
Any reservations that I may have had about finding Ralph’s place were unfounded, since there are at least three cars ahead of me that are obviously going to the same place. As we pull into his drive, several volunteers — veterans of previous Bell’s Farm outings, are on hand to direct traffic.
The first bird sightings happen as we exit the car. The fields leading away from the farmhouse and outbuildings are being scanned by about 20 birders. Eastern Bluebirds perch on the wires in between forays to the grass below. Barn Swallows zip in and out of our field of view, and an occasional Eastern Meadowlark adds to the mix. Then someone yells out “Bobolink”, and we get a great view of a male sporting the striking black and white plumage with a buffy-white nape. One minute, four species, not too shabby.
As we all gather, at least 60 of us, Ralph begins introducing various friends — folks that have attended previous outings, and people that Ralph has worked with over the years. People like his daughter, Joan Bell Pattison; educator and researcher, Bill Beatty; and naturalist/legend Esther Allen. Already, there is a feeling that this day is special, that you are taking part in more than a bird outing. This has the feel of a family reunion, one in which the whole family gets along.
Ralph begins by making sure everyone has had a chance to see the field birds before we head down the road. He points out the Purple Martin houses and gourds, and notes that their numbers haven’t been the same since Hurricane Agnes hit in June of 1972. The storm brought a week of rain and cold temperatures during the birds’ nesting season, and wiped out a large part of the western Pennsylvania population. Ralph doesn’t put up all of his gourds anymore, because he doesn’t want to hog all of the nesting pairs, seeing as his neighbor has martin housing as well.
This considerate, and easy-going manner is evident in everything that Ralph does throughout the day. He walks along, surrounded by people with binoculars and high-powered spotting scopes, but Mr. Bell never brings his binocs to his face. He relies on those fantastic ears of his, that and long experience. Ralph says he’s color blind, and that’s why he had to learn the songs so well. He calls out birds he hears along the road, “didja get that one, kid? You’ll know that one.” He calls everyone “kid” no matter how old they are, and he makes sure no one misses out.
As we walk along beside the wooded creek, several species are our constant companions. The buzz-buzz teedle teedle ti ti ti teeeee of the Cerulean Warbler, and the spit-a-keet of the Acadian Flycatcher should be forever burned into my memory banks. Ralph’s daughter Joan told me the phrase that she thinks of when she hears the Acadian song, and it is not spit-a-keet, and I probably can’t reprint it here, but it definitely clicked in my brain, and I haven’t had trouble identifying it since.
Our large group stretches out into various little subgroups along the road, but we all come together whenever there’s a notable find, such as the Common Nighthawk perched cryptically along a sycamore limb, or the Yellow-throated Vireo sitting on her nest. At one point, Larry Helgerman just happens to look up at the right time to catch a female hummingbird building her nest high up on another sycamore limb. He sets up his scope and the 10 of us who are lucky enough to be lagging behind get to watch a few of her many repeated trips, carrying wisps of spider silk and plant down to place on the barely visible bump on the branch.
Birds aren’t the only finds on our walk. Esther Allen points out the delicate blossoms of Miami Mist along the roadside. At another spot, Bill Parker nearly sits down on an egg sac full of newly emerging baby spiders. We all spend a few moments transfixed by miniscule spiderlings pouring down the leaves, throwing invisible lifelines into the great beyond.
Making our way to the old iron bridge, Ralph tells us how the habitat has changed over the years. More forest has grown up, bringing more birds, although he notes that he doesn’t hear as many Wood Thrush as in the past. As we walk along, I ask a few people here and there why they chose to come on this outing. Whether they have been attending for years, or are newbies like me, the answer is always the same — Ralph. They relate anecdotes that have been passed down over the years. Like the time that Ralph netted one of the empidonax flycatchers, notoriously hard to differentiate from each other unless they sing. Ralph wanted to be accurate when he recorded the bird, and didn’t want to just put “empidonax species.” So, he popped the bird in a cage and started driving to the Carnegie Museum in Oakland to have Dr. Ken Parkes, then curator of birds, identify it. Now this was back before interstate 79 existed, and it was no small drive from Greene County to Oakland. He was all the way to Dormont, about five miles from his destination, when the bird sang — a Willow Flycatcher. Ralph turned around and drove home.
We make our way back to the farm for a picnic lunch under the shade of the trees. We just naturally form a great big circle, laughing and sharing stories. Someone remarks on all of the many projects that Ralph is involved in —the Envirothon for high school students, scouting, bird banding, wildflower groups — and wonders how he does it. “I like to go to bed early and wake up around four in the morning,” says Ralph. What’s early? “Oh, anytime after midnight.”
After lunch, it’s time for the highlight of any Bell’s Farm outing: heading up on the hill to check the kestrel nest boxes. Most of the group wanders through the field while Ralph fires up the ancient Willys Jeep. The old truck is a utilitarian beauty that can still do her field runs just fine. As we gather around the nest box, which is easily 15 feet off the ground, someone wonders aloud who is going up the ladder to get the chicks. “Most likely Bill (Beatty)” is the concensus, but as we debate, Ralph calmly put s the ladder up, climbs up to the hole, and reaches inside. “Eggs,” he exclaims. He is clearly disappointed that we are not going to see any chicks, but we are not. He descends, adult female in one hand, collection bucket in the other, ladder in neither, while his daughter admonishes him to please drop the bucket and hold on.
Ralph gently turns the kestrel over, and checks her leg. Apparently they are old friends—she’s been banded before. After holding her up for some photo ops, he releases her, none the worse for the experience. Later, Ralph will look her band number up in his ledger. She was banded as an adult in 2002. Thumbing through his records, he points out another one, “That’s an interesting story. Banded May 20, 1999, found in Orlando, Florida, October 17, 1999.”
The Allegheny Front Migration Observatory, founded by Bell in the early 1950s, banded its 200,000th bird September, 2004 — a Black-throated Blue Warbler — and Ralph was there to do the honors. Watching him handle his umpteenth kestrel feels like no less an event to those present. Turning to go, I wonder at the many people, young and old, that Ralph has shared his experience with over the years. Next year, when someone asks me why I go on the Bell’s Farm outing, I may just turn to them and say, “Didja get that one, kid? Acadian Flycatcher, you’ll know that one.”
As a biology teacher with the Fox Chapel Area School District, Beulah Frey made it her mission to inspire her students to respect and conserve the natural resources that surrounded them. Over the years, Beulah instilled a love and respect for the natural world in numerous people who have devoted their lives to the environment and who now work in environmentally-related fields.
The Beulah Frey Environmental Scholarship was established in 1997 to honor Ms. Frey and the impact she has had on so many people. Sixteen scholarships have been awarded to graduating high school seniors pursuing a college career in an environmentally-related field.
Daniel Williams is a graduating senior at Upper St. Clair High School with a long-standing interest in the environment. His interest first showed in second grade, when he made an eagle’s aerie for a project. Later, when he visited the Everglades National Park with his family, his enthusiasm deepened and he started birding, both in Florida and at home. He is an active member of the Three Rivers Birding Club, and recently he and another teenager became the youngest birding guides for a club outing. Dan has been active in Upper St. Clair Citizens for Land Stewardship and was one of the first volunteers in the township’s cardboard recycling program. This fall Daniel will enroll in Yale University, where he plans to major in science.
