drawn to it

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Photography is great. If you follow my blog you know that I take a lot of pictures. Always have.

But, if you truly want to SEE something, you have to draw it. This forces you to slow down and really look.

Recently I watched a belted kingfisher preen itself and I realized how much fun it would be to sketch one.

Slate blue and medium-sized, belted kingfishers have rather large heads and amazing blunt, often disheveled, crests reminiscent of the punk rock, spiked Mohawk hairstyles of the 1980s. I could use the word comical but that distracts from the overall regal dignity of the species.

Ever vigilant, they are generally seen perched over creeks and rivers, watching for slow moving fish near the surface. If a meal is spotted, they'll plunge headfirst into the water to snatch it. They are also rather noisy: their call a raucous rattle akin to a hoarse, maniacal burst of laugher. You generally hear them as they dart from perch to perch, laughing all the way, as if they have just played a practical joke and cannot contain their zeal for their devilment.

Parent kingfishers nest in tunnels they burrow into the sides of riverbanks. Both parents burrow, they take turns incubating the clutch and both feed the young.

They are also an example of reverse sexual dimorphism: the female is more brightly colored than the male. Why? No one knows for sure. And the kingfishers are being rather reticent on the topic.

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winter pond

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It’s always disheartening when a truly wonderful book drops from the bookstore’s shelves. Such is the case with Diana Kappel-Smith’s “Wintering.” Originally published in 1984, and now out of print (the three worst words to any author’s ear) this book is a charmer, a collection of beautifully scribed ponderings centered on the winter landscape of her rural Vermont.

Written with the wide-eyed innocent eye of a curious naturalist and backed up with the real science of a trained biologist, the author uses winter as a backdrop but the musings are larger. Is it even possible for us to truly understand the interwoven workings of the natural world? Is it truly knowable? Are we always doomed to be slack-jawed wonderers?

“I have seen a friend of mine, a brilliant doctor of freshwater biology, stand wide-eyed and immobilized in front of her blackboard, chalk clutched in her hand, intricate graphs and formulae forgotten, because she has said ‘…but every pond is different from every other pond!’ and has just heard herself, with a kind of panic, admit that she knows nothing—nothing beyond the most bland generalities—about a subject on which she has spent half her life,” writes Kappel-Smith.

This book is a delight. Now that winter is here, “Wintering” is a perfect nature book to curl up with on the sofa. Look for it!

According to the counter at the left, this is my 200th posting. Wow!

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sometimes

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Sometimes things don't go, after all,
from bad to worse. Some years, muscadel
faces down frost; green thrives; crops don't fail,
sometimes a man aims high, and all goes well.

A people sometimes will step back from war;
elect an honest man; decide they care
enough, that they can't leave some stranger poor.
Some men become what they were born for.

-From the poem "Sometimes" written in 1990 by Sheenagh Pugh, British poet who lives in Cardiff, Wales.

-Karen, thanks for sharing this with me.

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missed opportunity

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So what’s the dang deal? We go to bed thinking, perhaps even hoping, for a little snow to brighten the woodlands. After all, 'tis the season. Parts of Mississippi got eight inches of the frozen confection yesterday. Heck, it even snowed in New Orleans for only the fourth time since Teddy Roosevelt roamed the White House hallways.

So, why not us? Why was the Tennessee Valley left out? We ARE farther north. Compared to the Big Easy, we’re practically in the Arctic Circle.

I recently read that the Weather Channel has had to lay off a few people including on-air meteorologists. Does this mean they are losing a bit of the control over the weather they have had for two decades? Goodness, I hate to imagine what’s next!

Early this morning, Spring Creek near my home did manage to produce its own fog bank, albeit a mini, short-lived one. The photograph I took is very reminiscent of the painting by William Bliss Baker I waxed poetically about on November 25.

















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creepers return

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Somehow you know winter is here when you see your first brown creeper creeping along the trunk of a tree. Creep. Creep. Creep. The only North American member of the treecreeper family "Certhiidae," the smallish brown birds hop along, looking for things like spider eggs to eat that are wedged down in the bark. (So much for the mother spider that went to the trouble of hiding them there.)

I spotted my first treecreeper of the season working its way up the side of an oak near my mailbox. Spider eggs beware!

Curious little birds. (Also see my February 26 posting.)

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book signing

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Discover Life in America (DLIA) is sponsoring a book signing Wednesday evening, December 3 at 7 P.M. at the Hard Rock Café in Gatlinburg. The event is a fund-raiser for DLIA, a nonprofit that’s working with the National Park Service to conduct the All Taxa Biodiversity Inventory (ATBI), a project that seeks to inventory the estimated 100,000 species of living organisms in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

I will be signing copies of my book “Natural Histories.” Other writers at the signing will be Charles Maynard, author of “Waterfalls of the Smokies" and Ron Lance, author of “Woody Plants of the Southeastern United States: A Winter Guide.”

Books will be available for purchase and signing.

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The Garden Girls

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I’ll be the guest on "The Garden Girls" radio show this Saturday, November 29 at 2 PM. On your radio dial, it's WNOX FM-100.3

“The Garden Girls” is hosted by Andrew Pulte and features UT's Dr. Sue Hamilton and garden expert Beth Babbit. It’s a lively call-in talk show filled with lots of useful tips and information about gardens and nature in Tennessee.

This Saturday, we’ll be talking about turkeys, winter birds and, of course, my book. It’s great fun!

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fallen giant

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Today, we remember the life of William Bliss Baker who died 122 years ago this month. Born in New York City in 1859, Baker was a landscape painter in the growing Realism movement that was sweeping the country post-Civil War, a movement that began in France in the 1850s as a counter to the Romanticism so prevalent in the arts at the time. Truth and accuracy were the goals of the Realists. Photography had just came into being, but it wasn't there yet, it was only black and white, certainly it couldn't capture what the painter with a full palette could.

Yet, Bliss Baker wouldn’t live long enough to reach his full potential; he died at age 27 from a spinal injury he received while ice skating several months earlier at his father’s house at Hoosick Falls, New York.

Baker’s painting “Fallen Monarch” is considered perhaps his most important work and it’s also so evocative of the season. When I walk into the woods near my house along Spring Creek, this is something like what I see.


















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lose yourself

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"Develop an interest in life as you see it; the people, things, literature, music—the world is so rich, simply throbbing with rich treasures, beautiful souls and interesting people. Forget yourself."

–- Henry Miller (1891-1980) American writer and painter. Miller marched to his own drummer, breaking with existing literary forms and developing a different kind of novel, a blend that mixed forms, part autobiographical, philosophical and surrealist free association, ultimately it was part real, part fiction.

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fountain of youth?

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Sasssssss-a-frasssssss.

Say the word in a whisper. It flows like a gentle breeze off the tongue.

It's a great moniker and a curious plant, one with a unique claim to fame.

The early English colonists in North America along the Atlantic coastline were eager to find gold and silver as the Spanish had done in South America. They found neither. They did find lots and lots of trees. Looking for something of value, the Elizabethans learned that the Native Americans drank sassafras tea as something of a “cure all.” (In the age before wonder drugs, everyone was desperate to find one.)

Hoping to make a little money, Sir Walter Raleigh took sassafras back to England from Virginia. The miracle elixir made from its roots became all the rage, spawning the “Great Sassafras Hunts.” Ships were dispatched from England in the early 1600s to collect the medicinal roots and bark that were brewed into the tonic. Billed as a proverbial Fountain of Youth, the golden brown tea smelled like root beer and supposedly kept its drinkers ageless and full of health. Sassafras teahouses became as fashionable in England as Starbucks are in Manhattan today.

The craze ended when drinkers realized they were indeed still aging, and perhaps not the picture of health they had hoped to be. As TV journalist Linda Ellerbee was prone to say, “And so it goes.”

This past week, on a neighborhood walk, I encountered a sassafras tree beginning to molt into its fall color. I left its roots intact and took only a photo, which in itself, will never age.

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peakish color?

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Determining when the fall colors peak every year is a subjective, wishy-washy sort of enterprise. Peak suggests that there is an optimum moment, a summit, a climax, a crossing of a finish line with the popping of flash bulbs. It all depends on whom you talk to and where they are at the time. Last week, the Top of Ole Smoky had wintery weather, i.e. snow, while here in the valley, the season blessedly hangs on.

Early November seems a bit late to use the word peak but yesterday on a walk after work from Ijams west to Island Home Park along the Will Skelton Greenway, the colors certainly seemed peakish. The warm weather added to sense that all was golden (and tangerine and orange and crimson and maroon and lemony yellow) with the world.

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walkin' the rails

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Election Day! And it was a beautiful late fall afternoon with the sun beginning to slip below the ridge line. So perfect, I decided to walk the two miles to my neighborhood precinct, a community center surrounded by trees exploding with autumnal color.

There’s a little used railroad track paralleling the road that links my home to the ballot box. So in the spirit of Woody Guthrie, I walked the rails to cast my vote, humming “This Land is Your Land” along the way.

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slowness

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“It takes a certain slowness to see. Scurrying about, thinking of this and that, obscures the view. For only as the mind quiets can its view, both inner and out, deepen.”

-Stephen Altschuler “Sacred Paths and Muddy Places.” 1993.

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fern hill

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“Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs
About the lilting house and happy as the grass was green,
The night above the dingle starry,
Time let me hail and climb
Golden in the heydays of his eyes,
And honoured among wagons I was prince of the apple towns
And once below a time I lordly had the trees and leaves
Trail with daisies and barley
Down the rivers of the windfall light.”

From “Fern Hill” by Welsh poet Dylan Thomas, who spent much of his childhood in Swansea, Wales. Young Dylan made regular trips in the summer to visit his aunt's dairy farm in Carmarthenshire. These rural remembrances provided inspiration for his poem.

Dylan Thomas was born on this date: October 27, 1914.

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let's migrate

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“And over the grass at the roadside a land turtle crawled, turning aside for nothing, dragging its high-domed shell over the grass. His hard legs and yellow-nailed feet threshed slowly through the grass, not really walking, but boosting and dragging his shell along,” writes John Steinbeck in his 1939 novel "The Grapes of Wrath."

During October, the YWCA of Knoxville and Knox County Public Library are sponsoring “The Big Read.” Everyone is encouraged to read or reread “The Grapes of Wrath,” a work that won Steinbeck the Pulitzer Prize for literature in 1940.

In the novel, the Joads, a poor family of sharecroppers, are driven from their home by drought, economic hardship and changes in agricultural practices. The Joads are forced to sell most of their possessions, load their truck with what’s left and drive 2,000 miles from Oklahoma’s Dust Bowl to California’s lush, green central valley. Becoming migrant workers, they hope to start a new life. But, like the turtle, their journey is not easy. In fact, it's damn hard.

On Sunday, October 26 at 1 p.m., I will lead a symbolic migration along the Will Skelton Greenway to the land of opportunity, i.e. Ijams Nature Center. Along the way we’ll discuss flora and fauna both in the Tennessee Valley and the book. To make the nature walk even more memorable, period attire is suggested.

For more info or to sign up call Ijams Nature Center: 577-4717, ext. 10.

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such a day

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“O suns and skies and clouds of June,
And flowers of June together,
Ye cannot rival for one hour
October’s bright blue weather.”

By Helen Hunt Jackson

And such a day it was.

Helen Hunt Jackson (1830 -1885) American writer and poet best known as the author of the very popular novel “Ramona” about the ill treatment of Native Americans in southern California. (Ramona was originally published in 1884 and has been reprinted over 300 times since.)

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seed time

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Four months ago, I blogged about the Southern magnolia with its enormous citronella-scented white flowers that are so associated with the Deep South and sultry, hot afternoons; it's the polished, aristocrat of Southern trees. (See June 9 posting)

Well, the hot summer afternoons are gone for another year, perhaps you miss them, perhaps you don’t. It’s mid-October and we find that the tree is now presenting its bright red seeds. They are as eye-catching as the grand flowers were.

The one I photographed is on the Homesite at Ijams Nature Center.

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Ijams history

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I will be speaking tonight at 7:30 p.m. to the Harvey Broome Group, the local chapter of the Sierra Club.

My topic is “Ijams: Past, Present and Future,” an overview of the nature center’s long history that can be traced back almost 100 years. I'll also pay particular attention to the recent acquisition of—and future plans for—the Imerys/Georgia Marble property, the so-called “Dry Quarry” adjacent to Meads Quarry. When it’s opened to the public, the new property will grow the nature center and park to about 278 acres.

Everyone is welcome. The group meets at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian-Universalist Church, 2931 Kingston Pike.

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gibbous?

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“There are nights when the wolves are silent and only the moon howls.” - George Carlin (1937 - 2008)

Tonight the moon is waxing gibbous. My God, isn’t that poetic?

Our celestial dance partner will be more than 94 per cent full with waxing meaning “increasing in intensity” and gibbous meaning “more than half but less than fully illuminated; having a hump.”

If you are reading this tonight, stop what you are doing and go outside to look at it.

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at auction

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John James Audubon was this country’s seminal naturalist/artist/writer. Although more famous for his 435-print “Birds of America," the rugged buckskin-clad backwoodsman also wrote extensively about his outdoor observations. He would have loved a blog. When strapped for cash, which he often was, he sold oil paintings and hand-drawn copies of his originals.

It recently occurred to me that I could do the same. So at auction here is a hand-drawn pin-and-ink copy of my original illustration of a bald eagle that appears in my book, “Natural Histories.” This is not a Xerox copy or a laser print but a hand-drawn, tediously recreated copy. If you take it outside in the rain, the ink will flow like LeConte Creek in the Smokies.

Revisiting the composition, rediscovering its form, the weight of its line after three years was satisfying. It was like a reunion with an old friend, so much time has past, and so little. To my eye, the copy is actually better than the original, there’s more nuance, because as they say, “practice makes perfect.” The eagle’s intensity is rendered with more subtlety; an artist’s hand mellows with age.

The sheet size is 11X14, so it will fit nicely in a standard size mat and frame that you buy. You can bid here on my blog or, if you prefer a more private channel, e-mail me at lynbales@comcast.net. The bidding starts at $40 and will close in one month: November 8.

Best wishes. Satisfaction—as much as such an illusive concept can be achieved—is guaranteed. Please forward any questions.

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book signing

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Forgive me. I've been ill and away from my blog. Still shaky, but let's hope I'm back.

As part of this month's First Friday celebration, I'll be signing copies of my book, "Natural Histories: Stories from the Tennessee Valley" and the companion notecards at Woodward Books in the Old City on Friday, October 3, 5 p.m. to closing.

Woodward Books is located at 108 E. Jackson Avenue. They specialize in fine antiquarian and out of print books. If you love old books, this is the shop for you.

If you want to talk about collectible books, Tim and Jeannie will be happy to oblige!

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read along part 4

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"The world is a big place," Arab Ruta said. "I have been north as far as the Uasin Gishu, farther south than Kericho, and I have walked on the slopes of Ol Donia Kenya. But everywhere a man goes there is still more of the world at his shoulder, or behind his back, or in front of his eyes, so that it is useless to go on. I have hunted buffalo and lion, and traded sheep near the place called Soyamu, and I have talked with other men in all these places. After such things a man comes back to his home, and he is not much wiser."

From "West with the Night" by Beryl Markham about her years in Africa.

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birds, birds, birds

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I will be at Mast General Store this afternoon with Janet Lee McKnight and other members of the Knoxville Chapter of the Tennessee Ornithological Society (KTOS) to answer questions and talk about birds, birds, birds.

Please stop by and say hello!

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the journey

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On this date—September 3, 1907—anthropologist, science writer, ecologist and poet, Loren Eiseley was born.

Eiseley is best known for his poetic essays, often called “concealed essays.” He used his reader-friendly style to bring science to the general public.

His first book, “The Immense Journey” published in 1957, was a huge influence on me. Principally about the history of humanity, Eiseley’s lyric style flows. Here’s an excerpt:

"Perpetually, now, we search and bicker and disagree. The eternal form eludes us—the shape we conceive as ours. Perhaps the old road through the marsh should tell us. We are one if many appearances of the thing called Life; we are not its perfect image, for it has no image except Life, and life is multitudinous and emergent in the stream of time."

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cranberry harvest

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This one falls under the category of “one thing leads to another leads to another.”

While writing the entry about cranberry viburnum (see August 24 posting) I looked up cranberries and discovered the perfectly wonderful painting “Cranberry Harvest,” created in 1880 by Eastman Johnson.

Johnson (1824-1906) was an American painter and, as it turns out, a co-founder of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. His name is inscribed at the museum’s entrance. (You have to take my word for this since I have yet to visit the Met, even though it’s high on my “Bucket List.”)

Johnson is known for his genre paintings, scenes from everyday life in early America. He also did portraits of everyday and prominent people including the writers Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Ralph Waldo Emerson.


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nine years

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This is the ninth anniversary of my weekly nature column "The Neighborhood Naturalist" that's published in the farragutpress. My first one ran on August 25, 1999. It was about flowering spurge.

To commemorate, the column that appears in this week’s edition – dated Thursday, August 21 – is also about the same roadside plant.

Special thanks to Dan Barile and the rest of the farragutpress staff. And many, many thanks to all who have telephoned or e-mailed over the years.

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read along part 3

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"I am incapable of a profound remark on the workings of destiny. It seems to get up early and go to bed very late, and it acts most generously toward the people who nudge it off the road whenever they meet it."

(Also see August 8 posting)

- From “West with the Night” by Beryl Markham about her experiences in Africa. Published in 1942

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crown

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Too much rain
loosens trees.
In the hills giant oaks
fall upon their knees.
You can touch parts
you have no right to—
places only birds
should fly to.

- “Crown” by Kay Ryan (born 1945) American poet and educator. Last month, the Library of Congress announced that she will be the sixteenth Poet Laureate of the United States, and rightly so. Her work is simple, minimal, beautiful. Thanks, Karen.

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read along part 2

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“As the herd [impala, wildebeest, zebra] moved it became a carpet of rust-brown and grey and dull red. It was not like a herd of cattle or of sheep because it was wild, and it carried with it the stamp of wilderness and the freedom of a land still more a possession of Nature than of men. To see ten thousand animals untamed and not branded with the symbols of human commerce is like scaling an unconquered mountain for the first time, or like finding a forest without roads or footpaths, or the blemish of an axe. You know then what you had always been told—that the world once lived and grew without adding machines and newsprint and brick-walled streets and the tyranny of clocks.”

(also see August 4 posting)

- From “West with the Night” by Beryl Markham about her experiences in Africa. Published in 1942

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it means red

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The only species of shrub or tree that’s native to all 48 contiguous states (and most of southern Canada), smooth sumac is now in bloom in the Tennessee Valley.

At Ijams Nature Center look for it along the Universal Trail near the solar panels, although, most people hardly notice the dense shrub until fall when it develops bright red leaves.

Its name “sumac” can be traced back to the Syrian word “summaq,” which means red.

The flowers are tiny, borne in dense erect panicles. They are followed by large clusters of hairy (yes, hairy) crimson berries that remain throughout the winter, much to the delight of mockingbirds.

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read along

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“I learned to watch, to put my trust in other hands than mine. I learned to wander. I learned what every dreaming child needs to know—that no horizon is so far that you cannot get above it or beyond it. These I learned at once. But most things come harder.”

- By Beryl Markham, “West with the Night.” 1942

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rescue

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OK. Call me an old softie, but I’ve always had a tender spot in my heart for Polyphemus, the one-eyed Cyclopes in Homer’s “Odyssey.” It’s the same sort of warm, fuzzy feeling I have for Frankenstein’s monster, King Kong and Quasimodo—Victor Hugo’s bell-ringing hunchback. Don’t we all? After all, they were benevolent, misunderstood outcasts; gentle giants forced to violence by our exclusionary society.

If you remember Homer’s story, Odysseus (Ulysses in Latin) was a Greek hero and King of Ithaca, who took ten years to come home after the Trojan War. Along the way he had many adventures. During one of these, Odysseus and a scouting party landed on the Island of the Cyclopes and slipped into the cave of Polyphemus, stealing some of his food and ultimately blinding his one good eye.

Odysseus and his men sneak out of the cave by tying themselves to the bottom of the giant’s sheep. Because he was now blind, Polyphemus didn’t notice the subterfuge. The Ithacans got away and were crowned heroes, while Polyphemus was left sightless. Where’s the justice in that?

Perhaps then, as a bit of payback, this week I came to the rescue of another Polyphemus.

One evening after work, I discovered three teenage boys throwing things at a brown spot high on a block wall of a neighborhood supermarket. Going to investigate, I discovered they were harassing a large winged insect.

“What are you throwing at?” I asked.

“A bug,” one answered in their defense.

“A bug? What kind of bug?” I inquired. I was wearing my Ijams Nature Center staff shirt, so I looked official.

Inspecting it closer, I announced that their target was a male Polyphemus moth, probably in search of a female.

The boys could relate to his quest, even sympathize with it and helped me catch it.

Polyphemus moths are tan-colored giant silk moths. They have an average wingspan of six inches and their most notable features are large, purplish eyespots on their hind wings. Because of these eyespots the nocturnal giants are named in honor of Homer’s Cyclops but the obvious markings are of no help in finding a mate because they are active at night, using their sense of smell to locate females instead. As caterpillars, they are Herculean eaters, consuming up to 86,000 times their weight in a little less than two months. But as winged adults, they do not even have mouths; their eating days are over. Reproduce is the only thing on their little lepidopteron brains.

Bringing it home, I released the large moth into the safety of my woods but not before I took its photo.

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trees

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“Trees are the earth's endless effort to speak to the listening heaven”

-By Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) Bengali poet. Asia's first Nobel laureate, who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913.

-"Cherry Tree" by Vincent van Gogh painted in 1888.

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anniversary

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I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth's sweet flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.

The poem "Trees" was written by American journalist, poet, literary critic, lecturer and editor, Alfred Joyce Kilmer. As a poet, Kilmer’s work celebrated the common beauty of the natural world as well as his religious faith.

Kilmer was killed on this date 90 years ago in World War I. During the Second Battle of Marne, he likely died immediately after being struck by a sniper's bullet to the head near Muercy Farm, beside the Oureq River near the village of Seringes in France. He was only 31 years old. Kilmer is buried in French soil in the Oise-Aisne American Cemetery near Fere-en-Tardenois.

I can only hope that a tree is standing somewhere nearby.

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brilliance part 3

On this date—July 29, 1890—118 years ago, Artist Vincent van Gogh died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. He suffered from an undetermined mental illness and probably felt he was a financial burden on his brother Theo. I have always believed creative exhaustion also played a role. During the last ten years of his life, Vincent produced more than 2,000 works, including about 1,100 drawings and sketches and roughly 900 paintings. Despite this tremendous output, Van Gogh died virtually penniless.

One of his favorite subjects was sunflowers. (See July 16 posting.) On March 31, 1987, Japanese insurance magnate Yasuo Goto paid $39,921,750 (in US dollars) for Van Gogh's still life, “Vase with Fifteen Sunflowers” at auction at Christie's in London, at the time it was a record-setting amount for a work of art.

In the pariah filled world of impressionist and post-impressionist art, Vincent was the king pariah, an outcast to the end.

- Painting: "Vase with Fifteen Sunflowers" (January 1889). Today located at the Sompo Japan Museum of Art, Tokyo, Japan.

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heart sick

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My city is in shock, stunned over the Sunday morning shootings at Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church. I know many people who go to that church; it's located near my home. The man who died protecting the congregation–Greg McKendry–lived near me as well. This is just tragic. Senseless. Senseless. Senseless. My deepest heartfelt condolences to all the families involved.

“Who can think of the sun costuming clouds
When all people are shaken”

- From “A Fading of the Sun,” by Wallace Stevens

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wilderness group

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I met with the good folks of Tennessee Citizens for Wilderness Planning in Oak Ridge last evening for a short program about the history of the nature center. The talk included two of our non-human staff members. They always steal the show.

Thanks for the invitation!





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canoe trips

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In the summer, the golden jewel of the Tennessee River shoreline is the prothonotary warbler. These school bus yellow and gray songbirds raise their young in hollow stumps and old downy woodpecker nest cavities near the water’s edge. There, they forage the shadows of overhanging branches looking for insects to eat.

Their name comes from their wonderful sunflower color: officials in the Roman Catholic Church known as the "protonotarii" once wore golden robes. If their saffron garments were as remarkable as the birds that bare their name, they must be stunning.

Prothonotary warblers are somewhat difficult to see from dry land; the best way to find one is in a canoe.

In fact, there’s no better way to beat the summer heat than in a canoe. The City of Knoxville Department of Parks and Rec is offering canoe trips every Saturday morning for the rest of the summer into October. Each trip starts at Holston River Park and ends at Ned McWherter Park east of downtown (roughly four river miles).

Kristin Manuel, Knoxville's aquatics coordinator, is the organizer of the trips. A naturalist from Ijams Nature Center will go along to help identify plants and animals along the way. On some trips, that would be me. (I know it’s a difficult assignment—leisurely canoeing down a slow moving river—but I’ll do my best to keep up a brave face.)

In addition to prothonotary warblers, we’ll look from herons, osprey, kingfishers and a possible bald eagle.

The canoe tours are every Saturday morning at 8 a.m., but you must reserve your spot on the Wednesday before. The cost is $20, but group rates are available. For more information or reservations visit: http://www.cityofknoxville.org/recreation/canoeing.asp


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Ijams talk

On Thursday, July 24 at 7 p.m., I will be speaking at the next meeting of TCWP (Tennessee Citizens for Wilderness Planning) in the Craft Room, Oak Ridge Civic Center.

My talk is about the history of Ijams Nature Center, tracing its roots back to 1910 when Alice and H.P. Ijams built their home (pictured above) on 20-acres of land on the Tennessee River in South Knoxville.

Alice and H.P. (Harry Pearl) were more comfortable outside than in. They created gardens, trails and ponds but the young couple left most of their property wooded and wild, establishing a wildlife sanctuary they shared with the public. The couple also taught classes in bird identification and gardening while championing conservation issues. Their property became the cornerstone of the 175-acre nature park that honors their legacy today. In many ways, Alice, H.P. and their four daughters—Elizabeth, Jo, Mary and Martha—were this area's original "green" family.

TCWP (Tennessee Citizens for Wilderness Planning) is dedicated to achieving and perpetuating protection of natural lands and waters by means of public ownership, legislation or cooperation of the private sector. While their first focus is on the Cumberland and Appalachian regions of East Tennessee, their efforts may extend to the rest of the state and the nation.

- Photo: Original Ijams' home became the first Visitor Center for the park

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tanagers delight

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We had a wonderful turnout for an early morning bird walk at Ijams Nature Center yesterday. Thank you! After meeting at the Visitor Center our group drove to Forks of the River Wildlife Management Area, 400-plus acres one-half mile east of Ijams.

Although it's a bit late in the season, we were looking for some of the summer species that might still be actively singing: indigo buntings, common yellowthroats, yellow-breasted chats, white-eyed vireos, yellow-billed cuckoos, and found all but the cuckoo.

But, as is often the case, the birds that delighted us the most were ones we didn't expect to see: a pair of summer tanagers. Ron, one of the group members with an excellent eye for birds, was the first to find them. We got much better looks at the yellowish female, which perched in the open preening for a long time, but we did get a brief glimpse of a male.

Known as the "summer redbirds" these tanagers are found all across the state during the warm, nesting season, but they are far more abundant in Middle and West Tennessee. Although their preferred habitat is wooded lowlands with open spaces, here in the valley they are far less common. In the Volunteer State, you are most likely to find them along the Western Highland Rim, roughly halfway between Nashville and Memphis.

Also, special thanks to Mary, who took a taxi to be with our group. She has an excellent ear for both bird and insect song.

- Special thanks also goes to Charles (Chuck) Nicholson. His "Atlas of the Breeding Birds of Tennessee" published by UT Press in 1997 is an indispensable reference to the nesting birds of our state.

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The Garden Girls

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Garden Girls! Garden Girls! Don't you just love the Garden Girls! Once again, I’ll be the guest on "The Garden Girls" radio show this Saturday, July 19 at 2 PM. On your radio dial, it's WNOX FM-100.3

“The Garden Girls” is hosted by Andrew Pulte and features UT's Dr. Sue Hamilton and garden expert Beth Babbit. It’s a lively call-in talk show filled with lots of useful tips and information about gardens and nature in Tennessee.

This Saturday, we’ll be talking about hummingbirds, passionflower, turtles and whatever other topics the telephoning listeners want to discuss. It’s great fun!

For more information go to: http://gardengirls.tennessee.edu

To listen to a past program go to: http://gardengirls.tennessee.edu/listen.htm

My last visit on the program was on November 24.

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brilliance part 2

Sunflowers are native to the Americas. (See July 14 posting.) The earliest known examples of a fully domesticated sunflower were found at the Hayes archaeological site in Middle Tennessee and date back over 4,000 years.

In South America, the Incas used the sunflower as an image of their sun god. Gold representations of the flower, as well as seeds, were taken back to Europe early in the 16th century.

Sometime later, in France, sunflowers became a favorite of artist Vincent van Gogh. He painted a series of six still lifes with sunflowers while living at Arles in 1888 and '89. (Only five still exist; one was destroyed by fire in World War II on August 6, 1945.)

Vincent used the sunflower paintings to decorate the “yellow house” he shared with artist Paul Gauguin.

- Painting: "Vase with Twelve Sunflowers" (August 1888). Today located in Munich, Germany at the Neue Pinakothek.

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true economy

“The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation, said Henry David Thoreau, and if his book continues to attract us it is because we are desperate. In desperation, I turn to night as Thoreau turned to his pond. I measure those starry spaces with the same care of rods and chains that the naturalist of Concord used to measure Walden. Thoreau plumbed the depths of Walden Pond and marked them on his map. He surveyed the fish that lived in the waters of the pond, he catalogued its weeds, and during winter he recorded the thicknesses of the ice. It was a part of his balance book, an accounting of his riches, a reckoning of a fortune that was there for the taking. These, said Thoreau—the measures, the depths, the thicknesses—are a man’s true economy.”

- From 1985’s “Soul of the Night” by Chet Raymo (born in Chattanooga), retired physics professor, astronomer, naturalist. Just a wonderful, wonderful book

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green Sasquatch

As wildflowers go, this one is a big boy, or girl, you know how plants are, sort of gender-fused. Some are males, some are females but most are male/female.

This colossal green thing is the Sasquatch of wildflowers and can reach heights of up to nine feet. It also likes to be tucked away in high mountains but unlike fly poison (see July 4 posting) cow parsnip is edible. The stems and roots can be cooked but because the flowers resemble those of water hemlock, a very, very poisonous plant, most people avoid it. When in doubt, go without.

The white flowers are borne in clusters called umbels (a great Scrabble word) that can be eight inches wide.

Cow parsnip is widespread but somewhat hard to find in Tennessee--generally the higher elevations of the Appalachians--and absent farther south.

In some locales, the plant was known as Indian celery. Native Americans used about all parts of the plant including turning the dried, hollow stems into play flutes for their children.

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roadside delicacy

Perhaps, methinks, my mind is in the gutter or ditch or highway culvert. Like yesterday, I’m noticing a flower growing along our roadsides.

Orange daylily, its botanical name “Hemerocallis fulva” means “beautiful for a day” “tawny orange in color,” is originally from Asia (from the Caucasus east through the Himalaya to China, Japan, Korea and southeastern Russia) but like chicory (see yesterday's posting) it has become naturalized and widespread, often found in damp low-lying areas throughout most of the United States except the desert Southwest. Too hot and dry!

All parts of the daylily are edible, and plants have been cultivated for thousands of years in Asia for food. This one I have tried. I once collected a pot full of flower heads before they opened and boiled them like potatoes. Surprisingly, they tasted rather bland; perhaps I should have mixed them with chicory.
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June

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“In the month of June the grass grows high, And round my cottage thick-leaved branches sway. There is not a bird but delights in the place where it rests: And I too—love my thatched cottage.”

-by T’ao Ch’ien, 4th century Chinese poet, who tired of the trappings of his career in civil service, retired at the age of 33 to a simple cottage on the slope of Mount Lu south of the Yangtze River to write, read and work in his garden.

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need a little sun?

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Now that summer has arrived, here’s a handy word of the day:

Insolation. Noun. Exposure to the rays of the sun. A useful substitute for sunbathing.

Usage: “I’ll be taking a long lunch-hour today, Mr. Fernbred, if that’s all right with you—I’m overdue for my insolation treatment.”

- From: “The Superior Person’s Book of Words” by Peter Bowler.

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sad? I think not.

The last bird to nest during the calendar year in our area is the American goldfinch. The female collects the plant fibers from thistle seeds — abundant in late June — to line her nest. It’s a finishing maternal touch to make her bassinet more comfy for her young.

Henry David Thoreau described the goldfinch’s song as a “watery twitter,” but within that there is a mournful “mew.” The latter is the source of the bird’s species name “tristis,” which means “sad.” Although to be truthful, it’s hard to see anything sad about these energetic, yellow and black songbirds; lively is a better descriptor.

Goldfinches are granivores; they eat seeds, seeds, seeds and are especially adept at balancing precariously on floral seedheads. They feed on a wide variety of annual plants such as thistle, teasel, dandelion, ragweed, mullein, cosmos, goatsbeard, sunflower and alder.

I recently received a report that the coreopsis planted by the city along Third Creek near West High School are now in seed and goldfinches are there in big numbers.

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bad gravy

If you are a monarch butterfly, you already know this: common milkweed is in bloom. It’s a robust perennial that can grow up to six feet tall, so it’s no shrinking violet, it’s rather “in your face.”

When broken the hairy stems produce a milky, white latex that looks like Elmer’s glue and tastes like my homemade gravy.

Monarch butterflies are foul-tasting, even poisonous. (I have never worked up the courage to eat a monarch butterfly to test this, maybe someday I will.)

Monarch caterpillars eat milkweed leaves because it renders them unpalatable, much like my gravy. Blue jays know this and avoid the bright orange and black lepidopterans like they were bad restaurants on the wrong side of town. The kind of places you used to frequent at 3 a.m. when you were in college because you didn't know any better.

The insect’s toxicity is due to the presence of “cardenolide aglycones” in their bodies, which the caterpillars ingest as they feed on the plants.

Milkweed likes to grow in sandy soils, basking in full sun. The photo was taken in the plaza at Ijams Nature Center.

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dog days

Summer must be here. Last evening on a bike ride down the Third Creek Greenway, we heard the first Dogday harvestflies, i.e. cicadas calling from the trees in Tyson Park, so what more proof could you want?

Since the ancient Greeks and Romans, the sultry, hot period between July and early September was known as the Dog Days. The Dog Star Sirius (the brightest star) and the Sun were in the sky at the same time, which they thought made the days hotter. It was believed to be an evil time "when the seas boiled, wine turned sour, dogs grew mad, and all creatures became languid.” (If you have a dog, watch to see if it shows any unusual behavior. An overall sulky mood, malaise or grouchiness is to be expected in the summer heat, but watch out for madness. If you determine that it's agitated, speak to it gently and try to find out why its hackles are up.)

Back it insects: male cicadas look like large green flies. They buzzzzzzz from the trees to attract females. The louder they call, the better chances they have of finding a mate. The he-bugs also tend to collect in the same tree, called a “chorus tree,” to create an even louder commotion. How can the she-bugs resist such six-legged machismo?
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wayward

This one falls under the category of “If you build it, they will come.”

I created a very small pool under the drip, drip, drip of the air conditioning unit. It was really fashioned as a birdbath and the birds do use it, but several weeks ago a green frog (Rana clamitans) took up residence in its shallow water.

Green frogs grow to be rather sizable frogs. In our area, only bullfrogs are larger. By the size of its tympanum or eardrum (prominent circle behind its eye) you can tell it’s a male. Like the gray treefrog of last week (see June 12 posting) green frogs generally call May through late summer.

Green frogs live in ponds, not birdbaths, but this guy seems quite content. I’m surprised because I live on a ridge, a long ways from any natural pond, so how did he find me? He has hopped a good distance, uphill all the way, whereas, it would seem, that his natural instinct would have lead him to hop downhill. Water is always found down not up.

I can relate. I have always been rather wayward, hopping in the wrong direction, often uphill instead of down, the hardest road, so to speak. I’m reminded of Robert Frost, “I shall be telling this with a sigh / Somewhere ages and ages hence: / Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— / I took the one less traveled by, / And that has made all the difference.”

As a footnote: I’ll be even more flummoxed, if the green frog’s calls manage to attract a female. Perhaps, she will be just as wayward as he. In that case, a good match.
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buried treasure

It’s curious how one thing leads to another, and little unanticipated discoveries can be made at anytime. Call it serendipity.

Recently, my hot water heater went out and I had to call a plumber. The sick appliance lives quietly in my basement where it does its job 24/7 with little fanfare. I like its dedication, especially when I climb into a hot bath at the end of a long day. While its illness was being diagnosed, I spent some time downstairs where I have a set of shelves with an odd mishmash of books. For some reason they do not merit being upstairs on the good bookcases. Beats me, but it was the books' owner (that would be me), who made the distinction.

As I was waiting on the plumber’s prognosis, I perused the volumes and discovered an old book, “Birds in the Garden,” by Margaret McKenny published in 1939. I don’t remember buying it but I’m sure it must have been at a yard sale sometime in the past 15 years or so. As I leafed through it, a card fell out. Buried treasure!

The unexpected booty was a little bigger than a post card and had a color illustration of a mockingbird. At the top it read “The American Singer Series: No. 12” The copyright date was 1899.

Turns out it was produced as a promotional handout by the Singer Sewing Machine Company and was given away at the “National Conservation Exposition” held in Knoxville in 1913. The “No. 12” indicates that it’s part of series.

Wow! And it had been living in my basement unknown by the basement’s owner (that also would be me) for years. I wonder what else is hidden down there?
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your cheeks?

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Talk of mysteries! — Think of our life in nature, — daily to be shown matter, to come in contact with it, — rocks, trees, wind on our cheeks! The solid earth! The actual world! The common sense! Contact! Contact! Who are we? Where are we?

- Henry David Thoreau, “The Maine Woods,” Ktaadn, Pt. 6 (1848)

To be a part of it all, and not dive headfirst into life’s stream and drink deep, is not to live. If you have not felt the wind on your cheeks in awhile, what have your cheeks been doing?

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lonely frogs

If the calls of the chorus frogs (see February 25 posting) sounded lively and communal, the isolated calls of male gray treefrogs somehow evoke longing and loneliness. It's a forlorn sound. EErrrrrrrrrrrrr!

As the temperature warms and the chorus frogs of February and March go mute, the damp muggy evenings give way to Cope’s gray treefrogs here in East Tennessee. These small (1.25 to 2 inches long) frogs are gray-to-green and covered with splotches for camouflage. They look like lumpy hunks of tree bark and like to hide in the shrubbery amongst the leaves and branches, often it seems a long ways from water. But all they really need is a little rain and a shallow temporary pool to reproduce.

The male’s call is a short raspy trill. EErrrrrrrrrrrrr! If it’s warm enough, you can hear these isolated crooners March through October, but the calls generally peak May through July.

Cope’s gray treefrogs are quite common in a wide variety of wooded habitats, even suburban settings with plenty of trees and shrubs for cover.

- Photo by my dear friend, the late Jim Logan. I still miss you buddy.

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new star

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On this date: June 8, 1918, 90 years ago today, American astronomer Edward Emerson Barnard (born in Nashville, Tennessee) looked up into the night sky of Wyoming and saw a star he had never seen before. At the same hour, seventeen-year-old Leslie Peltier of Delphos, Ohio saw it too. Soon the new star in the constellation Aquila became brighter than any other star except Sirius.

The new found star was 1200 light years away, the brightest nova—a star that suddenly becomes thousands of times brighter and then gradually fades to its original intensity—seen on planet Earth in 300 years.

Today the star cannot be seen with the naked eye.

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book discussion

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As part of the Adult Summer Reading Program, I will be doing a discussion of my book: Natural Histories: Stories from the Tennessee Valley in the Sharon Lawson Room at the Blount County Public Library next Tuesday evening, June 10 at 7 p.m. The library is located at 508 N. Cusick Street in downtown Maryville.

Please stop by and say hello!

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carless

After losing the use of his car, author Stephen Altschuler was forced to walk. He writes, “I began to discover a world full of sensory richness, perceived formerly only with senses dull as a neglected kitchen knife from run-around city living. Speed had inured me to think of the destination at the expense of everything in between. As a consequence, my mind raced as well, anticipating more than experiencing the moment at hand. And with only a finite number of moments available in this lifetime, I found I had missed most of them.”

“Now you might say, so what? What’s so important about living each moment, anyway? The answer lies in the effects I enjoyed from slowing down: less anxiety, more peacefulness, being clearer in thought and deeper in breath. Life sparkled with more joy, interest, and appreciation, as if some part was returned—a part that, missing but unnoticed, made the whole feel unsettled, off-centered, incomplete. And all this from being literally back on my feet again.”*

Perhaps, getting places has become too easy. We pack every day with short little car trips, not taking the time to savor the world around us. With the cost of gasoline soaring, it sounds like we all need to walk more, rediscovering where and when we live.

* Passage from "Sacred Paths and Muddy Places: Rediscovering Spirit in Nature” by Stephen Altschuler, published in 1993

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miraculous

Five weeks ago, I wrote about tent caterpillars. (See April 25 posting) They were trundling about all over the place looking for hidden locations to spin their cocoons. Inside these woven bassinets, one of the most astonishing events in the entire natural world takes place: metamorphosis.

All of the organic matter that make up the hairy little caterpillar breaks down and somehow rearranges itself into a winged moth covered with power-like scales. For a while the little creature is unrecognizable moth goop. Most of the legs simply dissolve away—caterpillars have three pairs of true legs and up to five pairs of prolegs—and four wings emerge. The new winged creature no longer trundles; it flies. Sounds like science fiction.

After the tent caterpillars disappeared, I found the small woven cocoons here and there: attached to lawn furniture, inside the mailbox, tucked away in nooks and crannies all over the house.

Yesterday, I found an adult moth attached to its cocoon. Something had gone wrong and it was dead. In April, I called the tent caterpillar moth nondescript: pale brown with two light stripes. Perhaps I was being too cavalier, a mammalian chauvinist, because anything that goes through such a transformation is remarkable beyond words. My own maturation from toddler to teen to graying adult was a slight-of-hand card trick by comparison. Presto chango! (Well, puberty had a certain amount of angst but come on, I didn’t grow wings, just body hair. Wings would have been fun; pubescent fur was just an embarrassment.)

Side by side, the caterpillar and the moth have little resemblance. Who could possible guess that they were one and the same? Simply miraculous.

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book signing

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As part of next month's First Friday celebration, I'll be signing copies of my book, "Natural Histories: Stories from the Tennessee Valley" at Woodward Books in the Old City on Friday, June 6, 5 p.m. to closing.

Woodward Books is located at 108 E. Jackson Avenue. They specialize in fine antiquarian and out of print books. If you love old books, this is the shop for you.

Congratulations Tim and Jeannie on your new store!

it's a magnolia

In 1947, the Tennessee General Assembly voted to name the tulip poplar (a.k.a. yellow poplar) the official State Tree. It was chosen because it grew from one end of the state to the other. They also had historical, homey significance: the majestic trees were widely used by the pioneers to build their log cabins.

The statuesque tree commands respect. They grow straight and strong eventually reaching heights of over 250 feet, dominating the other trees around them. Their flowers are tulip-like, the same soft orange color as cantaloupe or Creamsicles. They’ve been in bloom here and there around the valley for the past few weeks.

But, I would be remiss and even disappoint the late Dr. Aaron Sharp—one of my botany professors at the University of Tennessee—if I did not mention one thing. The wonderful trees are not poplars; they’re magnolias: Liriodendron tulipifera (means "lily tree, tulip-like") If I had named the plant, I would have called it "Liriodendron creamsiclera."

The more proper common name is tuliptree.

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tree afire

“Saw a tanager in Sleepy Hollow," wrote Henry David Thoreau in his journal on May 20, 1853. "It most takes the eye of any bird. You here have the red-wing reversed, the deepest scarlet of the red-wind spread over the whole body, not on the wing-coverts merely, while the wings are black. It flies through the green foliage as if it would ignite the leaves."

Ignite the leaves indeed! It’s always a jolt to see a scarlet tanager, hidden away in the top of a tree, singing its raspy song. When you finally train your binoculars on the songster, it can take your breath away. These tanagers are only passing through the Tennessee Valley, although they do nest in the Smoky Mountains to the east. I saw the first one of the season with Rachael Barker. It was high in a tuliptree at the end of my driveway near the mailbox. Special delivery. It set the morning afire. And then again, this past Saturday, one was bouncing around a tree high over the Visitor Center at Ijams.

Thoreau was correct: it most takes the eye of any bird. And when it gives the eye back, you know that nothing quite like it will enter your field of view the rest of the day.


Photo credit: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0

happy birthday

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“Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.”

- By Ralph Waldo Emerson, who was born on this date in 1803.

Emerson was a poet, essayist, philosopher and leader of the Transcendentalist movement in the early 1800s. His writings directly influenced the growing New Thought movement of the mid 19th century. His essay “Nature” was published anonymously in 1836. In it he “defines nature as an all-encompassing divine entity inherently known to us in our unfettered innocence.”

your present

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“To the ego, the present moment is, at best, only useful as a means to an end. It gets you to some future moment that is considered more important, even though the future never comes except as the present moment and is therefore never more than a thought in your head. In other words, you are never fully here because you are always busy trying to get elsewhere.”

- from “A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose” by Eckhart Tolle

Ergo: Enjoy your Saturday! Life happens in the present. The future will get here soon enough. Perhaps the present is called such because it is a present for you to enjoy. Open the gift! It's your present and it's not even your birthday. Go for a walk outside and enjoy today. By stringing together a lot of pleasant presents, you build a memorable life.

one of many

Recently, on a walk through the woods at Ijams Nature Center with Karen Sue Barker, we found a dead moth lying among the leaves. Picking it up, I knew I had never seen anything like it so I brought its lifeless corpselet home to pin and dry. It’s small, that's what makes it a corpselet (my word, it's not in any dictionary) with a wingspan of about 1.5 inches and eight bright spots—four yellow, four white—against its black wings.

We looked it up and discovered it was an eight-spotted forester (Alypia octomaculata) first given a scientific name in 1775 by Danish entomologist and economist Johan Christian Fabricius.

But here’s the thing. The forester turns out to be in the insect family "Noctuidae" or owlet moths. Owlet moths? I’d never heard of such a thing, which is something of a surprise since I grew up in the woods and to date there are more than 35,000 known species of the robustly built moths flying around; possibly as many as 100,000 species altogether worldwide.

You're kidding, 35,000 known species! That’s a lot. How could I have overlooked them?

The reason: Scientists believe that there are at least three million and perhaps as many as ten million separate species of life on planet Earth. Naturalist and retired physics professor Chet Raymo writes that, "There are not enough biologists alive to make sense of it all." Indeed!

In other words, you could spend your entire lifetime trying to learn all of just the owlet moths and die long both you completed the task. And, to date, Karen Sue and I know the name of only one: eight-spotted forester. That leaves 34,999 more known species to comprehend.

chatted

I’m not exactly sure who named the chat, but they did an admirable job because the yellow-breasted chat, does just that. They chat. Chat. Chat. Chat.

For most of my life, chats were believed to be a kind of New World Warbler, albeit a very atypical, large warbler. However, it was recently confirmed that they are not warblers. But what are they? Currently, they’re in a group by themselves.

Their song is a long varied series of this and that, simple notes, bleeps and chucks, sometimes harsh and raspy, sometimes liquidy whistles. David Allen Sibley records it as “toop-toop-toop-toop toop toop toop; chook; terp; jedek; chrr chrr chrr chrr chrr…….” Yes, chrr, chrr, chrr. That's about right except like a vireo, it seems to go on and on and on.

Chats are very secretive, hiding in forested edges near open fields.
Today on a walk at Seven Islands Wildlife Refuge, I discovered a chat in a tree directly above me. I got his full repertoire. Chrr. Chrr. Chrr. Click. Terp. Whistle. He was feeling chatty. Luckily, I had my camera, but unfortunately he managed to stay fairly well hidden.