The systematic study of birds in Augusta County did not start with John Mehner or even YuLee Larner. Prior to the arrival of Dr. John Mehner, biology professor at Mary Baldwin College (MBC), who taught from 1963 to 1986, the study of birds in Augusta County was sporadic. Several species of birds were referenced by a field worker in a personal letter (1919) based on work done prior to and after 1900. The Birds of Virginia published by Harold H. Bailey in 1913 discussed the distribution of birds in general terms and included only species that were known to breed in Virginia. In 1919 William Alphonso Murrill published The Natural History of Staunton, Virginia, which was based on his observations of the birds, insects, plants, and mammals located with a three-mile radius of the Wesleyan Female Institute in Staunton where he taught from the fall of 1893 to the summer of 1897. The Virginia Society of Ornithology (VSO) was organized in December, 1929, and launched the VSO journal, The Raven. A field worker for the Biological Survey (later the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service) collected the Dark-eyed Junco, Common Yellowthroat, and Eastern Towhee from Elliott Knob and the Song Sparrow from Staunton in 1934. A curator at the Smithsonian Institution recorded a Bachman’s Warbler in 1937 and a Swallow-tailed Kite in 1946. Dr. Lillian Thomson, a biologist at Mary Baldwin College (1937-1963), held a bird-banding license and began a comprehensive collection of bird skins in the Dept. of Biology. So who began the systematic recording of bird activity and when? It was Dr. James S. Sprunt, a pastor at Bethel Presbyterian Church (1957-1968) who was the first person to keep systematic avian data in this area during those years. Dr. Sprunt and his brother, Dr. Alexander Sprunt Jr., a well-known ornithologist, both began birding as teenagers.

It was Dr. John Mehner, however, who established a group of dedicated birders in Augusta County. Within three years of his arrival at MBC, Dr. Mehner had initiated a course in ornithology and founded the Augusta Bird Club (ABC) in 1966 with thirty charter members. He expanded the collection of bird specimens begun by Dr. Thomson and eventually, the collection numbered 750 by 1987, the year after Dr. Mehner’s retirement. Two of the ABC charter members, YuLee Larner and Isabel Obenschain, audited Dr. Mehner’s course in ornithology in 1968 and later joined Dr. Mehner’s “traveling ornithology class” in 1973 along with Dorothy Mitchell, a bird bander from Newport News, VA, who is now a member of the ABC. This class was a twelve-week field trip to the upper Midwest and included a stop in Michigan to see the Kirtland Warbler, an endangered species.

In the forward to the first edition of The Birds of Augusta County, published in 1988 and edited by YuLee Larner and John Mehner, Myriam Moore marveled at the effectiveness and dedication of the young club. She wrote in the foreword: “Since its early beginnings, the Augusta Bird Club has been outstanding among the local chapters of the Virginia Society of Ornithology (VSO), which now number 27 across the state.