do you have any grape jelly?

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It is always a pleasure to hear from Betty Thompson in Kansas because there are usually photos with the email.

"I am attaching some photos of Baltimore orioles, which are quite abundant here. The grocery store shelves are often empty of grape jelly this time of year! I walk the local parks hoping my lens will capture a decent photo! The photo of the nest was taken in late March at Quivira Wildlife Refuge, aren’t they just a work of art? The orioles photos were taken at a local park here in Wichita," Betty emailed. 

We get these orange and black orioles passing through East Tennessee in the spring but not in huge numbers. Their time here is ephemeral. Their summer breeding range is to our north and west. Part of their diet includes fruit and can be fed in backyards with a variety of edibles including slices of oranges and apparently they have a fondness for grape jelly.

Thanks, Betty. 

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Thank you again, Tremont

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Special thanks to Logan for inviting me to speak to the Birds Southern Appalachian Naturalist class at the Great Smoky Mountains Institute at Tremont.

Driving to Tremont in May is lush. You stop often just to soak in the positive ions of Little River, the dampness of maidenhair ferns and listen for the reclusive ovenbirds. 

My talk was The Secret Life of Birds, and yes, they have a private life that they reveal only slowly. The bird class is part of Tremont's Southern Appalachian Naturalist Certification Program or SANCP.

For more about the program, click here for details: SANCP.

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ciarra's miracle

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This is perhaps our last monarch butterfly story for awhile and one that will wrap up our portion of the rescued caterpillars saga that were on display with me at Wilderness Wildlife Week in Pigeon Forge.

For a Show & Tell item at my Author's Table I had six monarch butterfly caterpillars munching away on milkweed leaves.  One had been given to me by my monarch friend naturalist Clare Dattilo and five were part of 37 rescued by Glenna Julian. 

Of the six, one shriveled up as a caterpillar and died of unknown causes, while four were raised by me through the process of metamorphosis and then released to fly away. 

I gave the sixth to young Ciarra who had milkweed growing at her home. She watched over it until it competed the process. 

Of the five that survived, three were male and two were female. Ciarra's was the third male from the group. 

Thank you, Ciarra and to your Mom Jaime for sending me the below photos.

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a second miracle

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And, can a miracle happen a second time? It can if you are watching carefully and you are living in the moment. 

Yes, a second miracle in the early morning hours...or in this case, in the early morning seconds. At 7:26 a.m. this morning, a second monarch butterfly emerged from his chrysalis to begin his ephemeral life as a winged, reproductive adult butterfly. But his time is short, days to weeks.

This is from one of the monarch butterfly larvae I had on display as part of my Show & Tell at Wilderness Wildlife Week in Pigeon Forge two weeks ago. 

The caterpillar was given to me by Clare Dattilo and I fed it about equal parts common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca) and swamp milkweed (Asclepias incarnata). It seemed to have no preference. 

Thank you, Clare. 

10:07 a.m. 

Yes, he is starting to move around, trying out his wings.

He was released at Cherokee Farms off Alcoa Highway this afternoon. 

Godspeed. 

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and speaking of miracles

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Albert Einstein once said, “There are only two ways to live your life: as though nothing is a miracle, or as though everything is a miracle.”

A naturalist lives life as though there is a miracle happening every hour of every day. All you have to do is find it.

And speaking of miracles...Sixty-one minutes ago, I watched the above monarch butterfly emerge from her chrysalis. 

For those of you who were at Wilderness Wildlife Week and know the story, this butterfly is just one of 37 monarch caterpillars that Glenna Julian rescued after their host plants were cut down by a maintenance crew in Sevierville. 

This is what the monarch looked like two weeks ago. May 10.

The larval monarch was being held by one of my assistant naturalists. 

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a towhee by any other name

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Martha Brewer sent me a second photo and it's probably the best I have ever seen of a male Eastern Towhee. Just perfect right down to the color of the leaves. (If I have seen a better one...I do not remember it.)

I met Martha and her husband George at Wilderness Wildlife Week in Pigeon Forge two weeks ago. They are from north Georgia near Ellijay and they came to one of my presentations and visited with me at my Author's Table afterwards.

Now, some of you of a certain age might wonder, "Whatever happened to the rufous-sided towhee? Isn't that what I am looking at?"

After all, the rufous-sided was in my first bird book: the little Golden Nature Guide of Birds I had when I was 12-years-old. And in my first "grown-up" guide: A Field Guide to the Birds East of the Rockies by Roger Tory Peterson.

So what's the deal?

The deal is this. Science is not static and ornithology, like nature, is a work in progress.

If you look at the above range map from the Golden Guide you see that once upon a time the species known as the rufous-sided towhee ranged from the east coast to the west. But oddly, the western rufouses looked a bit different than the eastern. They had spots. After careful study, it was decided that the two populations only intermingled slightly in the middle of the country but were actually two different species. So in 1995, the American Ornithological Society (AOS) "split" the rufous-sided into two separate species. Out west, they are now known as spotted towhees and our eastern birds became the Eastern towhee. 

Any field guide published before 1995 has the rufous-sided but my Sibley's published in 2000 and my most recent Peterson's published in 2005 (see below) has them as two species but a rufous-sided by any other name would still sing, "drink your teeeeaaaaa." 

Once asked how many field guides do you need? I replied, "As many as you have time to peruse. But stay current." 

  

metamorphosis magic

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"It's no secret that kids are spending more time inside playing on screens and less time outside playing in the woods. One recent study in the United Kingdom found that the average child there spends less time outdoors than the average prisoner," writes Jamie González for Nature Conservancy magazine.

What are we doing to our youth? 

When I discovered that a lot of homeschool kids were visiting Wilderness Wildlife Week in Pigeon Forge with their parent/teachers, I made sure to have a bit of nature at my Author's Table for a hands-on Show & Tell. Most days it was monarch butterfly caterpillars and milkweed leaves provided by Clare Dattilo and Glenna Julian. 

Young naturalists are fascinated by the life cycle of a butterfly: egg to caterpillar to chrysalis to winged adult, i.e. metamorphosis. And that's a bit of real life magic you won't find online but outside in your own backyard. And it happens unheralded millions of times a year, but few of us take the time to notice.

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stunning grosbeaks

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Last Wednesday at Wilderness Wildlife Week in Pigeon Forge I met Martha and Gordon Brewer from north Georgia near Ellijay.   They came to one of my presentations and visited with me at my Author's Table afterwards.

I soon learned that Martha loves nature photography. 

"I do enjoy taking photos of nature and am always on the lookout for an interesting subject. Nature is fascinating, as you agree," she emailed.

Martha sent me the above stunning photograph of three male rose-breasted grosbeaks, all at their feeder at the same time. These grosbeaks are spring migrants. They spend their winters in Central and South America and return generally every April to nest farther to our north and in the higher elevations of the Cumberland Mountains in East Tennessee.  

Most birds migrant south for the winter because their diets are largely made up of insects. But the grosbeaks are related to cardinals and have those large seed-cracking bills so they can often be seen eating sunflower seeds at our feeders as they pass through the lowlands. 

BUT you rarely see three at the same feeder at the same time!

"Each spring and fall, the grosbeaks migrate through our area," emailed Martha. "They usually appear the last of April or first of May and then again in September, although the numbers are smaller then. The males normally show up first, and then the females arrive.  I miss them when they are gone (ephemeral!!)." 

Yes. It is all so ephemeral. 

Great photograph, Martha.

Thank you for sharing.

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northern harriers

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Male Northern harrier. Photo by Fred Bowman

At this time last week I spoke about birds-of-prey at this year's Wilderness Wildlife Week in Pigeon Forge. Afterwards, I chatted with Fred Bowman from Knoxville at my Author's Table.

In our area, there is slight plumage difference between the male and female of just about all the species of raptors. Two exceptions are the American kestrel and the northern harrier. 

Harriers are only in East Tennessee during the winter months. The females are brownish overall and the males are a rather striking pale gray. In fact, they are known as Gray Ghosts and watching them cruise low to the ground over the fields in Cades Cove in the winter, it is easy to see why.

Fred sent me his photographs of both a male and female harrier, so you can quickly see the difference.

Thanks, Fred.

Female Northern harrier. Photo by Fred Bowman.

turtle rescue?

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Perhaps the best part of Wilderness Wildlife Week in Pigeon Forge is all the wonderful people you meet from around the country. Many of them had a nature story to share. For Diane Valen the story happened just last week in the river along the greenway near the LeConte Convention Center. Since retiring from Geauga Park District in NE Ohio, Diane has been living in Oakdale, Minnesota. 

"Here are the photos of the critters some of the Wilderness Wildlife Week birdwatchers attempted to rescue during the May 8 Bird Walk led by photographer Clay Thurston," emailed Diane.

"At first glance it appeared as though a turtle was stuck upside down in the river near LeConte Center."

"However, when a sandal-footed birder waded in to try to flip it over, much to everyone’s surprise, she discovered a second head attached to a second shell at which time grins broke out on everyone’s faces."

Yes, indeed. May is the beginning of turtle nesting season. But all turtles, even aquatic snapping turtles, dig a hole and lay their eggs on dry land. 

Thanks, Diane.

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Thank you, WWW

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Thank you. Thank you to all who attended one of my presentations at this year's Wilderness Wildlife Week in Pigeon Forge. And to all who stopped by my author's table to chat about birds, butterflies or books. 

And thank you Butch Helton and Brandon Barnes for asking me to speak at the noon luncheon of the Pigeon Forge Hospitality and Tourism Association. 

I lived in Pigeon Forge from 1974 until 1983 and it was good to be back for a great five days!!  

See you next year.

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Monarchs love gardeners with milkweed

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Common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca) 

Monarch butterflies were the topic for my 21st annual talk for the Tellico Village Garden Club last Thursday. 

Yep. Twenty-one talks over the years about birds, frogs and this time, the orange-and-black butterfly that so loves a good gardener who plants milkweed. Although monarchs will feed on many different kinds of flowers, the females prefer common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca) or swamp milkweed (Asclepias incarnata) to lay their eggs.

And thank you,Tim Pyles for working out the arrangements. 

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Wilderness Wildlife Week 2019

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This is the 29th year of Wilderness Wildlife Week at the LeConte Center in Pigeon Forge. The event runs from Tuesday, May 7 through Saturday, May 11. 

Seven eleven, that's easy to remember.

My speaking schedule is:

Tuesday, May 7: Noon

Secrets of Backyard Birds

Wednesday, May 8: 4 p.m.

Identifying Local Birds of Prey

Friday, May 10: 4:30 P.m.

Ephemeral by Nature

Saturday, May 11: 10 a.m.

Ephemeral by Nature

Saturday, May 11: 2:30 p.m.

Jim Tanner and the 

Search for the Ivory-billed Woodpecker

1935-1941

LeConte Center in Pigeon Forge

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stinkbug eggs?

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Who needs TV or cable news?

You find your happy wherever you can and if you are a nature nerd (NN) like myself—you find it in the smallest of things in the unlikeliest of places, albeit generally outside.

Most curious. A recent text from my good friend and fellow NN Christie Collins had this wonderful photo attached. So what the heck is it? Well, as Christie informed me, it is a cluster of stinkbug eggs she found in her garden. 

Oh, wow!

Stinkbugs are in the insect order Hemiptera and get their unkind name from their defense mechanism. If you pick one up it releases "a pungent unpleasant odor from a glandular substance released from pores in the thorax." 

Well, if threatened, wouldn't you?

Christie now works as a naturalist in a strange land called southern Florida but I had the good fortune of working with her for a year at the local nature center and I found her great joy in all things in the natural world—even if it was a bit stinky—an absolute delight.

Good to hear from you, Christie. Happy Birthday.

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