thank you Wild Birds

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Spitfire, an injured American kestrel, would like to thank owners Liz & Tony Cutrone and Assistant Manager Tiffiny Hamlin of Wild Birds Unlimited for inviting her into their store. 

Spitfire represented Ijams Nature Center and was there for a talk about how to identify local birds of prey. Birds like hawks, owls, vultures, eagles and falcons like her.

Spitfire has a very injured left wing. She can no longer fly but is well cared for by the folks at the nature center.

Wild Birds Unlimited, located at 7240 Kingston Pike, has everything you need to attract birds to your backyard and with the cold weather months rapidly approaching it is time to clean or replace old feeders and stock up on all of the other items you need to turn your backyard hobby into a passion.

Wild Birds Unlimited is a regular sponsor of the Hummingbird Festival held at Ijams every August.

Spitfire and Ijams thanks them all.

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thank you, Seniors for Creative Learning

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A warm thank you to the Seniors for Creative Learning for inviting me to speak at the John T. O'Connor Center in East Knoxville.

Our topic? Ephemerality in nature with examples from all three of my UT Press books: from freshwater jellyfish to 17-year cicadas to endangered/extinct species. 

"What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes away," James 4.14. 

Be mindful. Every day is precious, enjoy each ephemeral moment!

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a walk back in time

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Last Saturday, the 2018 class of TN Naturalist@Ijams took a walk with me back in time. We passed over the four layers of bedrock or formations that underlie the nature center. Starting with the Ottosee shale under the Visitor Center, we then moved on to Chapman Ridge sandstone, Holston crystalline limestone (the rock that was quarried and sold as Tennessee Marble) and finally brushed past the Lenoir formation of silty, crumbly limestone.

These four layers were deposited—one on top of the other—during the Ordovician geologic period between 443.8 and 485.4 million years ago. That's deep time. And our tour ended up deep in the ground at the Keyhole and Rock Bridge. The first of three pits found in the now abandoned Ross Marble quarry site.

Thanks to all who braved the awful heat.

Anytime I walk back in time at the nature center, I tip my hat to retired geologist and fellow UT Press author Harry Moore who was the first to lead me on such a journey.

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thank you, WBIR

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A gracious Ijams' thank you to WBIR's Leslie Ackerson and Katie Inman who visited with me very very early (5 a.m. is early) this morning to meet on live TV some of the injured or disabled animals that we care for daily.


What was the occasion? September 4 is National Wildlife Day, an annual opportunity to learn more about endangered species, preservation and conservation efforts around the world. Zoos, aviaries, marine sanctuaries and nature centers like Ijams provide a variety of ways to get to know local wildlife.

Either feathered, furry, scaly or shelled our adopted menagerie of animals is used by the education department to raise awareness of local wildlife and their issues.

Thank you, Leslie and Katie and our friends at WBIR.

(Both Leslie and Katie revealed that they had first visited Ijams on field trips when they were little girls which made me feel older than mud. Shhh! Our secret.)

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thank you, ORICL

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A warm thank you to Jim Rushton, Katherine Smith, Priscilla McKenney and the other members of the board of ORICL: Oak Ridge Institute of Continued Learning, for inviting me to be the featured speaker at their Community Lecture Series recently. We met at Roane State Community College on the Oak Ridge Campus.

My lecture was entitled Ephemerality: The shortness of life and I pulled examples from all three of my books published by the University of Tennessee Press: Natural Histories, Ghost Birds and Ephemeral by Nature, to illustrate my topic. 

And I was also able to take a jar of live freshwater jellyfish to symbolize the very nature of ephemerality. 

Thank you to all who attended.

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