Lapham Bird Banding Station

… from Lapham’s Bird Banding Station ~ Rhode Island Audubon ~ 10/02/88

I know the grand-daughter of the Laphams. Erica would tell me great stories of her family and friends getting together to band the migrating birds at her grandparent’s place in Rhode Island. As I came to this entry in Mum’s sketch book and began researching the Banding Station and I came across this video  created by Curt Milton (see link above). I recognized my friend’s mother in the video because they look so much alike. I sent this image of the view from the Banding Station to Erica, the following text is our correspondence.

Erica is at her grandparents land in Rhode Island at the moment and this is her email to me this morning (October 2, 2011).

“Hi there Nancy,

I’m up at Block Island, just arrived yesterday.  Turns out today (October 2, 2011) is the anniversary of your Mum’s visit 23 years ago!  Pretty amazing.  I looked in our log of happenings for that day and what it says is “People here again early and kept coming.  Must have been 100 people in the lawn listening to Hugh Willoughby.  Still very few birds to show but picked up in the P.M. after the crowds had gone.”  In the other log my grandfather wrote- “More hordes of birders and very few birds.  Hugh gave his geology lecture to about 100 people sitting on lawn.  Barbara Lawrence, friend from my Sachelles trip, here as well as Bobby McPherson and her guests including a brother of Bob Anderson, one of FDL’s classmates at Yale.  Ann Shepard Stevens also here with a friend.”  Didn’t know if your Mum was here with any of the people mentioned, although I know the McPhersons were friends of my grandparents from New Canaan.  Still, pretty fun to be here on the same day and all……. “

I just have returned from a visit with my mother (Ann Carter) who lives in New Hampshire now. I told her that I know the grandchild of the keepers of the Banding Station that she visited 23 years ago. She was so interested in hearing some of the details of her visit and was just  astonished with this connection . “Small World” she says

Below are pages 1 and  2 of the “Block Island Weekend ~ 96 Species ~ Sept 30 – Oct.2, 1988 report from their excursion.

Crystalis of monarchs emerging like jeweled christmas stockings in miniature

I inquired about the crystalis in Ann’s drawing and she writes: “I saw that the date on your Mum’s sketch was 1988 which means my grandmother was in full swing running the station, my grandfather was still alive and the sketch of the monarchs on the mantel is from inside the house. I asked her, “was there an actual miniature fireplace for the chrysalis to be in?” She answers,” The fireplace wasn’t miniature.  It is the fireplace we use to this day.  The mantel is pretty thick and the jars would sit on top of it with the cocoon, then when they were close to hatching, they got pulled out and attached somehow.”