Date: 1/1/25 2:49 am From: John Voigt (via carolinabirds Mailing List) <carolinabirds...> Subject: About John Fussell
I'm John Voigt. I lived in Carteret County for over 3 decades but moved to Indiana a while ago. I lost touch with John because of my move. John was my birding mentor who took me under his wing and transformed me from a backyard birder to a more advanced birder. I'd like to share my experience with all of you concerning a paid year long birding project John recruited me for. The military base Camp LeJeune 12-15 years ago requested that John take on a year long project to survey the birds present at Camp LeJeune. John agreed to take on this assignment and recruited me to assist him on this project. There was a preliminary meeting on base where I remained quiet and let John interact with the base Wildlife folks. During this meeting John nudged the base Wildlife folks into creating several routes on base a bit similar to BBS routes but not stopping every 1/2 mile but instead stopping at interesting habitat spots. The base Wildlife folks went along with John's recommendations and within a week I found myself riding shotgun in one of John's old Ford Escorts. Per John I had 2 things on my lap as we drove around Camp LeJeune surveying for spots as to setup point count locations. I had a copy of the fairly heavy Onslow County soils map and a handheld Garmin GPS unit. What became pretty obvious during the 3-4 days where we drove around Camp LeJeune to setup the routes was there was no need for the County soils map book!!! John stopped his Ford Escort dozens of time in this 3-4 day period, he'd get out of the car and study the topography of where we were and also walk around examining all of the trees, shrubs and anything else growing in the area where we were and then casually (as only John could do) would tell me the exact soil type of the area we were standing in!!! FYI, I have a degree in Agronomy (the study of crops and soils) from Purdue University and took a bunch of graduate level soils classes and I never thought it possible to determine soil types in the manner that John matter of factly described to me. And oh by the way John was ID'ing every bird we came across by any and all clues the bird would give us including John's incredible ability to bird by ear. Also, I do look back at all the Sunday's I used to spend with John and others at places like North River Farms, Cedar Island and the Croatan Forest. Those were special times and I still reflect back on how much of an influence John had on me not only when it came to birding but on so many other topics as well.
