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Larry Valade walks under a canopy of trees on 20 acres that he and late wife Thyra decided to protect under a conservation easement.
Valade, who retains lifetime visitation rights, enjoys going for early morning walks through the Stafford County forest to look for birds. |
After a life at sea, Larry Valade was happy to retire to a home in the Stafford County woods with his wife, Thyra, in the mid-1980s.
He'd commanded a Polaris submarine, the USS Andrew Jackson, and spent years as a surface sailor. As a Navy wife, Thyra had weathered more than 20 family moves and done most of the day-to-day raising of the couple's five children.
But now the kids were grown, and at their new home Thyra poured her energies into her garden and into her new passion, birding. Together the couple traipsed through their White Oak-area woods marveling at scarlet tanagers, wood thrushes, red-shouldered hawks and woodpeckers galore: hairy, downy, red-bellied and pileated.
In summertime, when the dense oaks hid the birds from view, Thyra Valade could identify them just by their songs.
Many years later, in the early 2000s, the couple noticed a survey marker just on the other side of their property. They investigated and found that a developer envisioned a dozen new homes on about 60 acres of woods.
"What are the birds going to do?" Larry Valade recalls Thyra asking. "This is all going to be houses."
They couldn't do anything about property they didn't own. But they could do something about their own land.
With the blessing of their children, Kathleen, James, David, Bruce and Donald, the Valades determined to give the 20 acres adjacent to their home to a conservation organization that would keep it as a sanctuary for the birds, forever safe from development.
It turned out not to be such an easy thing. Twenty acres, it seemed, was small pickings in the conservation world.
But eventually they did find a willing taker--two, actually. The University of Mary Washington accepted a gift of the property in 2007 and plans to keep it as a bird sanctuary and outdoor classroom. And the Northern Virginia Conservation Trust agreed to hold the easement that prevents the land from ever being developed.
While major donations of hundreds or even thousands of acres are celebrated with news coverage and public ceremony, the Valades' quiet gift also deserves praise, said UMW associate professor of biology Andrew Dolby.
He's already taken students to the site for field trips, in which they've observed ovenbirds--ground-dwelling warblers that build oven-shaped nests--and hooded warblers. The presence of those birds indicates a high-quality habitat, Dolby said.
"It's small, but it's of value to us," he said. "Most of all, it sets an example that it's possible to save significant green space just through individual decisions."
Thyra Valade died in late 2008. But this past weekend at a Virginia Society of Ornithology banquet in Farmville, Larry Valade, 80, accepted the 2010 Jackson M. Abbott Conservation Award on behalf of himself and his late wife.
The award recognized the Valades' "dedication, commitment and selfless act of altruism" in preserving food and nesting habitat for resident and migratory birds.
One recent afternoon, Larry Valade treated visitors to a half-hour stroll through the property, on which he has lifetime visiting rights. It's a long, narrow rectangle of mixed hardwoods with a seasonal stream, a nice bluff and other, more gradual slopes.
The birds weren't cooperative in showing themselves on a hot day with a storm threatening. But chickadees called to one another, and a lone vulture soared overhead. Near the end of the walk, Valade hailed a neighbor who mentioned having watched three wild turkeys that morning.
Back home Valade petted his 14-year-old dog, Vikki. The elderly dog is another reminder of Thyra, who years ago recognized that the shy black mutt she'd seen near their home was abandoned and in need. She coaxed the dog, then a year or two old, with treats. And Vikki has been a loyal friend ever since, though she's still wary of strangers.
Valade, too, is shy of publicity, agreeing to be interviewed only to help other landowners realize that conservation can be an option--and that even in small parcels, woods matter to the birds.
Laura Moyer: 540/374-5417
Email: lmoyer@freelancestar.com
