gone jelly-fishin'

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At my Look & Learn Sunday at Ijams yesterday, we explored the ephemeral world of freshwater jellyfish (Craspedacusta sowerbii). The small medusae are here one day and gone the next.

The medusae are the sexual form of cnidarian in which the body is shaped like an umbrella.

Currently, the penny-sized jellies are in Mead's Quarry Lake and will probably remain there in their medusa form until after Labor Day and the weather and water temperature cools. This is the final part of their lifecycle were the free swimming males and females need to find each other and it is important they get as much time as they need. After all, it's a 25-acre lake.

Thanks to all who attended.

For more information about freshwater jellyfish get my newest book, Ephemeral by Nature published by the University of Tennessee Press.

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It's time to hummmmmmm.

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Wonder of Hummingbird Festival

Saturday, August 25, 8 a.m. to 2 p.m.

A huge Ijams thank you to media sponsor WBIR Channel 10 and to reporter Emily Devoe who stopped by the nature center this afternoon to chat about our upcoming 8th Annual Wonder of Hummingbird Festival.

There will be birding supply, plant, craft and food vendors plus eight speakers talking about a wide range of backyard nature topics from hummingbird-loving plants, butterflies, honey bees, an ephemeral author and a lot more.

Plus, you'll get a chance to talk with and watch up-close Federally licensed hummingbird master bander Mark Armstrong and his team catch and affix numbered leg bands on hummingbirds. A truly remarkable thing to witness.

For more info and list of sponsors go online:

http://ijams.org/hummingbird-festival/

Hummingbird in flight photo by friend-to-Ijams Wayne Mallinger.

With WBIR reporter Emily Devoe

Master hummingbird bander Mark Armstrong

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crawdad fetch & catch

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Last week's Great Crawdad Fetch & Catch at the nature center was major league edu-tainment. The goal of my Family Adventure Sunday series is to get young families outside having fun together exploring nature.

In all, the families caught 16 to 20 crayfish in Ijams' Toll Creek, perhaps even more because some may have gotten away, they had prior commitments.

We also caught water striders, cranefly larvae, dragonfly larvae, snails, black-nosed dace, larval salamanders and aquatic fishing spiders. And we encountered a brown water snake just hanging out on a tree branch. No big deal, snakes just like to hang out. It's their thing.

Did we turn some young kids into future aquatic biologists? Maybe. But at least they got a better idea of what lives in our waters.

Through activities like this, children learn that the natural world is explorable and knowable and full of wonder. The next Family Adventure Sunday is August 26.

Thank you, Mac and Jeff for helping. 

And yes, all animals were returned to the creek with a story to tell.

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Phoenix rising: Anakeesta

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Boyhood home before & after.

And now a personal note, although all writers from Melville to Dickens to Matthiessen write from a deeply personal mindset. You live it, feel it, bleed it, write it. 

Almost two years ago my hometown of Gatlinburg was ravaged by a fast moving wildfire. Most of what I knew and loved—childhood home, neighboring houses, pretty much everything along my natal waters of Baskins Creek and the mountainsides up to the ridges above this watershed were destroyed in a matter of minutes. I have only been back one time to walk the road I traveled so often. It's much too unbelievable. Surreal. Tears form as I write these words. 

But that was the past, my past and now my hometown is recovering. As a nature writer, I full well know that change and regrowth is the driving force in all the natural world. And the same ridge I climbed so often has been reborn, the burned sections cut away, a Phoenix has risen. 

I am so pleased by the work of my friends, Karen, Bob, Bryce Bentz and Michele Canney, and proud of the long hours it has taken to create Anakeesta, a Cherokee word that means "place of the balsams" or a place of high ground. 

Please visit them soon and rejoice in the rebirth. 

And when you do, stop by Pearl's Pie in the Sky for some ice cream. The eatery honors my grandmother Pearl Bales, one of the very first truly independent mountain women to own her own businesses (yes, two) in Gatlinburg. She was born roughly two miles upstream on that same Baskins Creek. Her maiden name was Ogle. Inside of Pearl's place you will find a photo of Pearl and her grumpy grandson (that would be me) in bib overalls. Grumpy, if I recall, because I did not have a pencil to "mark with." 

For more news about happenings at Anakeesta click: Cliff Top.  

Bless you all.

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a season for owls

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Father owl. Rex McDaniel. June 23, 1018

It has been a story that has fascinated us at Ijams for weeks. A pair of barred owls raised a family of three high in the trees above the historic Homesite pond built by H.P. Ijams in 1924. H.P. wanted a safe place for his four daughters to swim. He also created a barred owl magnet since their preferred habitat is woods near water.

This isn't the first year that barred owls have nested there but it is the first year the process has been so well documented.
 

Our 2018 mother owl probably laid her clutch in mid-March. Incubation takes about 4 weeks and they tend to leave the nest in another 4 or 5 weeks. On May 10, our own owl whisperer Rex McDaniel was the first to spot one of the owlets out of the nest cavity perched on a branch. At this point, before they actually can fly, they are called "branchies." Since then, we have posted several photos by Rex and TN Naturalist student Evan Kidd.

 Now, the clutch of three seems to have dispersed. Occasionally, throughout most of July, one was seen here or there even near the Visitor Center, Universal Trail and up at the garden site.

BUT, Rex met Jay Simoneaux down by the pond a few weeks ago who had managed to take a photo of all three juveniles together on one branch, even grooming each other. Taken on Friday, June 29, this was probably one of the last times all there siblings were together. Although we know that Hannah Bingman reports that they saw the trio together plus a parent at the pond on July 2.

Thanks for sharing your photos, Rex, Evan and Jay.

Rex McDaniel. May 10, 1018

Rex McDaniel. May 12, 1018

Evan Kidd. May 19, 1018

Evan Kidd. May 19, 1018

Rex McDaniel. May 23, 1018

Evan Kidd. June 1, 1018

Rex McDaniel. July 2, 1018

Rex McDaniel. July 2, 1018

Jay Simoneaux. June 29, 1018

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