Wake+Audubon+Meeting+Champion+Trees+Isabella



I attended the Wake Audubon Meeting about champion trees on January 9th with speaker Gary Williamson, a champion tree expert himself. At the beginning of the meeting, there were a few technical difficulties so we initially learned a bit about the different projects the Wake Audubon group was involved in such as bird counting. Once the technical issues were solved, Gary Williamson took over and began to talk about champion trees. We learned all about what makes a champion tree different from other trees as well as how scoring each tree worked. The tree, varying of course with the type of tree, with the most points, would become the champion tree. Gary Williamson has some of his own champion trees including one called "Big Mama". "Big Mama" was featured in a newspaper in Virginia and unfortunately has fallen since it's discovery. This meeting relates to what we are doing in class as Mr. Williamson stressed the importance of protecting trees so that there someday will be other champion trees to be found. Honestly, I had no idea that champion trees were a real thing but it was rather cool to learn about.