The Outdoor Writers Association of America honored Roanoke Times outdoors reporter Mark Taylor with three writing awards in its Excellence in Craft contest, and also rewarded Taylor for his service on the group's board of directors, at its recent annual conference in Grand Rapids, Mich.

For his story "Smell of the Trail," a humorous look at odoriferous Appalachian Trail hikers, Taylor topped runner-up Brett Prettyman of the Salt Lake Tribune for first place in the camping and backpacking category.

Taylor was second to Tom Stienstra of the San Francisco Chronicle in the "Value of Wilderness in the Outdoors Experience" category for "Wilderness Reward," a story about three hunters from Roanoke who spent several challenging days hunting white-tailed deer in the James River Face Wilderness.

Taylor earned a third place award in the newspaper humor writing category for a column about his misadventures testing a rickety johnboat.

Also at the conference, the OWAA's board of directors named Taylor as its outstanding board member for the year and elected him as the group's vice president.

Established in 1927, the Missoula, Mont.-based OWAA has 1,070 individual members who specialize in outdoors coverage in newspaper and magazines, and on video and the Internet.

Purple martin field day to be held in Charlottesville

Species expert Lance Wood will be the featured speaker at an upcoming purple martin field day in Charlottesville.

Set for June 27, the event will be held at Wood's home in Louisa County.

Wood's purple martin colony, started in 1992 with just four pairs, now features roughly 110 mating pairs.

In his talk Wood will discuss how to establish a colony, advantages and disadvantages of different types of martin housing, protecting martins from predators and nest-invading starlings, and how to grow gourds used for martin nests.

The event starts at 9:30 a.m. It is free but donations will be accepted.

For more information contact Ron and Priscilla Kingston at (434) 293-5173 or by e-mail at kingston@cstone.net.

--Staff reports