City leaders share a love of birding.

Byline: CITY BEAT/SPRINGFIELD By Bob Keefer The Register-Guard

Eugene and Springfield may have little else in common, but here's one thing they share: Both have assistant city managers who are birders.

Cynthia Pappas, assistant city manager of Springfield, has been birding seriously for two years. Over Memorial Day weekend, she joined scores of other birders from around the state to converge on Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Eastern Oregon during spring migration.

Pappas counted 125 species during the desert trip. "We had a great birding weekend," she said. "I saw three lifers," meaning three species she'd never identified before.

"I saw my first Lewis' Woodpecker, which is just a gorgeous, gorgeous bird. And it's pretty uncommon there." She also saw for the first time a burrowing owl and a green-tailed towhee.

Pappas is relatively new to birding. Her life list totals about 350 species, including 85 she saw this spring on a birding trip to San Blas, Mexico.

Jim Carlson, Eugene's assistant city manager, has been birding since his parents gave him a bird guide as a college graduation gift in 1971. His life list is up to about 1,200 species, bolstered by birding trips to Alaska, Mexico, Costa Rica and Ecuador. That last country alone netted 478 species. He's planning to bird Africa in 2005. "My goal in life is to bird on every continent," he said. "Well, maybe not Antarctica."

Carlson didn't make it to Malheur for Memorial Day, but is birding out there this weekend.

It's not entirely coincidence that both he and Pappas are birders as well as bureaucrats, Carlson said. "Both Cynthia and I came out of a planning background," he said. "We both are of a generation that was a little more environmentally attuned."

Employee looking to find out more about founder

Elias Briggs is known as the founder of Springfield. But beyond that, not much else is known about him, says Paula Guthrie, who works in the city's information technology department and is a history buff.

Guthrie is doing her best to find out more. For the past two years, she's been collecting whatever facts she can find about Briggs, who settled near what's now downtown in 1849. She hopes to work with Dorothy Velasco, one of the authors of "Between Two Rivers: An Illustrated History of Springfield," to produce a biography of the town's founder if she can find a grant to support the work.

Briggs named the town Springfield because, well, there was a spring in a field on his property. "The spring is under an apartment at Pioneer Parkway and B Street now," Guthrie says.

Besides filing for the first homestead in town, thus giving himself naming rights to the new community, Briggs dug the Springfield Millrace and operated a ferry across the McKenzie River.

But what became of his two children - four others died young - who survived childhood? Where are any letters by Briggs? How about a photo?

"We're hoping someone will let us know," Guthrie said. You can reach her at [e-mail] or by calling 484-6010.

Bob Keefer can be reached at 338-2325 or bkeefer@guard net.com.