the verge of first flight

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Parent osprey with three nestlings watching it fly away

A big thank you goes out to TV's Fox43 Knoxville Weekend and its host Jac B Knox (Is that her real name?). Knoxville Weekend inviting us on this morning to talk about upcoming programs at Ijams including Slammin' Under the Stars.

In honor of today's International Mud Day, tomorrow we'll be hosting one of our Ijams Down and Dirty programs for kids where they actually get to play in mud and get dirty, plus an upcoming Sunset Stroll for people with mobility issues: strollers, wheelchairs, walkers are all welcome. Our Slammin' Under the Stars is Knoxville's first OUTDOOR poetry slam next weekend and my expectant event is an Osprey Watch early in the morning. We will be watching a nest with a mated pair of osprey and three nestlings on the verge of fledging (first flight). See above photo.

Let's hope they are still on the nest one more day because when they are gone...they're gone. Their entire lives ahead of them.

For more information about upcoming Ijams programs click EVENTS

News anchor Heather Waliga and Jac B Knox

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family owl search

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On last Saturday morning's Family Raptor Hunt, we found a solo barred owl in the woods by the historic Ijams Family pond but we did not find the red-shouldered hawk family as expected. They perhaps have left the wetland.

Ijams owl-whisperer and flâneur Rex McDaniel scouted the area before our group arrived on the scene. He had located and was keeping an eye on an owl as we made it down Discovery Trail. Because of its size, Rex thought it was the male or father owl. Mom and the three juveniles could not be found.

We all watched the male owl look for prey--mouse or mole--and flew to the ground to catch it, not once but twice. Shortly after each strike, he quaffed it down. The thing about owls is that they sit still, so kids can see them better through a spotting scope.

It is always gratifying for me to share purely natural moments with young children. Finding a wild owl hunting for food in the woods was special.

Owl photos by Rex McDaniel.

Rex McDaniel

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great snakes!

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Growing up in Gatlinburg with a national park at my backdoor, I learned at an early age the wonder of nature and the importance of protecting it. Today, sharing that sensation with essentially urban kids is a huge part of my life. 

And yesterday, it was "For Goodness Snakes!" At yesterday's Family Adventure Sunday at Ijams we learned the truth about some of the snakes that live in East Tennessee, had some garter snake ice cream, met three snakes eye-to-eye and then went on a snake-quest.

Snakes are beautifully simple creatures that never have to go to a podiatrist. They are not here to hurt us but to control the mouse population. Nature has a lovely balance. Well, some snakes actually eat other snakes, so we guess there is a trade off there.

On our quest, one of the fathers found something under a bridge. Was it a troll? Or maybe three Billie Goats Gruff? Nope. It was a Northern water snake.

Thank you, volunteer Janet for helping.

Wiki media

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For Goodness Snakes!

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The young girl in black at WBIR with absolutely no fear of snakes 

wanted her photo taken with our cornsnake, so we obliged.

Join me at Ijams Nature Center on Father's Day at 2 p.m. for another Family Adventure Sunday and learn the truth about the roughly 15 species of snake that live in East Tennessee. There's really nothing to be afraid of unless you are a mouse or mole.

We have no water moccasins in our waters. None. None. None. It's a myth. But we do have a brown water snake that eats small fish and tadpoles and both a kingsnake (eats other snakes) and a queensnake (eats aquatic life).

Snakes are all a part of nature's balance. They are benevolent creatures that simple want to be left alone to do their job. 

On Sunday, we'll meet a few of the snakes that the education department care for and go on a nature walk to the Homesite and along the river to look for any signs of the snakes that live in our 317-acre nature center.

For more information on For Goodness Snakes or to register click...

http://ijams.org/…/family-adventure-sundays-for-goodness-s…/

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a pond evacuation adventure

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The evacuation: the beginning of the pond restoration.

As sad as it is for Ijams to admit or accept, but our beautiful Plaza Pond in front of the Visitor Center has developed a leak or leaks and is not holding water. It has to be dredged down to its 8-inch-thick, circa 1998, concrete liner and repaired. 

We have no idea how long it will take until we locate the problem.

We began the process yesterday when a group of courageous volunteers—the A Team of critter catchers—joined me to rescue and evacuate all the aquatic life we could catch and move them to a second pond. It was hot mucky work. 

Our team also conducted a biological inventory of all we found: hundreds of tadpoles, plus frogs, newts, turtles and numerous aquatic invertebrates including two leeches and two hellgrammites! But oddly, no snakes.

A huge thank you goes out to Annabel, Oliver, Abby, Jacob, Linda, Tess, Bruce, Gloria and Evelyn.

Supplied photos by Linda Knott, Clare Datillo and Jack Gress. 

Don't try this at home. Snapping turtles will bite and won't let go. 

The A Team of muckrakers, plus Tess and Bruce.

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What the rain crow knows

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A memorial visit to sacrosanct Chota.
 

What can you say about an Ijams Bird-About that begins with a rainbow and ends with an intense thunderstorm? Dramatic! 

Our group had ventured to the Chota Memorial on Tellico Lake to hopefully hear one of the local nightjars calling just after sunset. Either a whip-poor-will or chuck-will's-widow, or perhaps both if we were lucky.

To some degree, I was recreating a trip I made to Chota and wrote about in my first UT Press book, Natural Histories.

First we paid our respects to the Eastern Band of Cherokee at the site of their former Chota council house and then laid small stones on the tombstone of Oconastota, their great war chief. Chota was the legendary Cherokee peace town, you couldn't live there if there was anger in your heart. Why was a great war chief buried there? In the 1780s, Oconastota was elderly and at peace in his heart and wanted to die at peace in Chota. His wishes were granted.

Birding-wise we heard or saw yellow-billed cuckoo, common yellowthroat, blue-gray gnatcatcher, red-winged blackbird, yellow-breasted chat and an osprey. We heard the cuckoo as soon as we got out of the cars, and if you know your bird folklore, locals called it the "rain crow." If you heard one, it would soon rain! But the clouds seemed to be breaking up as we awaited sunset, the time the chucks or whips would start to call.
 
But then things got interesting. Quickly. Standing in the grass just outside the council circle on the narrow peninsula we suddenly took note of a dark gray wall of storm clouds rapidly approaching from the south. Scurrying back to the parking lot, we began to hear chuck-will's-widows calling from the woods around us.
 

"Chip-fell-from-white-oak. Chip-fell-from-white-oak." And Jan from Georgia got to hear what she traveled so far the hear: a memory from her childhood.
 

"Nature is awesome!" Shouted the one among us who was descended from the Eastern Band of Cherokee as the storm wall closed in on us.
 
We stood in the gathering darkness listening to chucks as long as we dared.
 
But alas, with thunder and lightning popping all around plus heavy rain beginning in torrents, the group hopped into our cars and slowly drove away.
 
A visit to Chota, a Memorial Weekend outing worth remembering.
 
Supplied photos from Jason Dykes, Lo Kressin and Wiki media.

The rain crow knew something we did not.

Site of council house at Chota

Peaceful sunset

Chuck's begin to call just after sunset.

Then the grand finale began

Jason's cell phone said, "The rain begins in one minute." And it did.

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