•
PRESERVING THE LEGACY, ONE LOVE AT A TIME
ONE LOVE Tennis founder Lenny
Simpson welcomes WECT TV news
anchor Frances Weller to join him at the
podium again this year to host
the One Love annual luncheon at Thursday, December
6 at 11:30 a.m., with an exclusive video tribute from
world-renowned tennis luminaries.
This year’s luncheon, held at 1406 Orange Street,
also the former home of Dr. Hubert and Estelle
Eaton will benefit preservation of the historic prop-erty,
now the permanent home of One Love Tennis.
Lenny Simpson, a Wilmington native, says the
target of the fundraiser is the restoration project,
but the purpose of the restoration is three-fold:
• to establish a ground-floor corporate office for
the Lenny Simpson Tennis and Education Fund,
Inc., a 501(c)(3) nonprofit better known as One
Love Tennis;
Christmas BIRD COUNT
14
WBM december 2018
CLARA’S DREAM
FROM the moment ticketholders
enter the lobby, the Christmas
holiday spectacle inside is bound
to enchant. Costumed carolers
and student dancers set the mood while
30 professional dancers from Wilmington’s
resident U.S. International Ballet wait backstage
to perform Tchaikovsky’s beloved classic, along
2018 was The Year of the Bird and marked
by the centennial of the Migratory Bird Act.
From mid-December to early January, birders
participate in the annual Christmas Bird Count, the
longest-running citizen science survey, sponsored
by the National Audubon Society. North Carolina’s
birders and nature enthusiasts take part in this
118-year tradition of collecting data that will help
shape the future of birds nationwide. Each indi-vidual
count is performed in a count circle with
a diameter of 15 miles. At least ten volunteers,
including a compiler to coordinate the process,
count in each circle. The volunteers break up into
small parties and follow assigned routes, counting
every bird they see.
In 2017, volunteers counted 872,508 individual
birds of 228 species, with Wilmington having the
highest species count at 172. Highlights included
several species of warblers inland and record
counts of loons at the coast, plus a surprising
first-ever brown booby at Morehead City and the
fourth-highest count of Baltimore orioles for North
Carolina at 132. — Colleen Thompson
From pelagic seabirds, like the brown booby,
top, to woodland songbirds, like the oriole,
bottom, the great migration has begun.