nature calling

beetle navigation

2012-01-28T07:50:00.001-05:00

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Ambling about in search of poo, a dung beetle finds its putrid treasure. How then does it find its way home. Navigate, moving it along on a true and proper course.

Well, it seems, it does a little dance and consults the stars or position of the sun. What else can it do? It has no road map. Video: beetle bearings.

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1 more for Audubon

2012-01-27T09:53:00.009-05:00

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my favorite Audubon's:

Wild Turkey

John James Audubon, the naturalist/artist/writer died 161 years ago today. If yesterday's osprey was my favorite Audubon print, we'll end our three week look at his work with probably his favorite. Out of the 435 prints produced—initially by William Lizars in Scotland but the great bulk by Robert Havell, Jr. in London—the wild turkey engraving was the first: Number 1, Plate 1. The print that when anyone saw it, they said, "I got to have more!" And Audubon obliged.

Audubon also wrote more about America's favorite gamebird than any other species, including how they crossed over great rivers, here's an excerpt:

“The Turkey is irregularly migratory, as well as irregularly gregarious. With reference to the first of these circumstances, I have to state, that whenever the mast of one portion of the country happens greatly to exceed that of another, the Turkeys are insensibly led toward that spot, by gradually meeting in their haunts with more fruit the nearer they advance towards the place where it is most plentiful. In this manner flock follows after flock, until one district is entirely deserted, while another is, as it were, overflowed by them. But as these migrations are irregular, and extend over a vast expanse of country, it is necessary that I should describe the manner in which they take place.

"About the beginning of October, when scarcely any of the seeds and fruits have yet fallen from the trees, these birds assemble in flocks, and gradually move towards the rich bottom lands of the Ohio and Mississippi. The males, or, as they are more commonly called, the gobblers, associate in parties of from ten to a hundred, and search for food apart from the females; while the latter are seen either advancing singly, each with its brood of young, then about two-thirds grown, or in connexion with other families, forming parties often amounting to seventy or eighty individuals, all intent on shunning the old cocks, which, even when the young birds have attained this size, will fight with, and often destroy them by repeated blows on the head. Old and young, however, all move in the same course, and on foot, unless their progress be interrupted by a river, or the hunter's dog force them to take wing. When they come upon a river, they betake themselves to the highest eminences, and there often remain a whole day, or sometimes two, as if for the purpose of consultation. During this time, the males are heard gobbling, calling, and making much ado, and are seen strutting about, as if to raise their courage to a pitch befitting the emergency. Even the females and young assume something of the same pompous demeanour, spread out their tails, and run round each other, purring loudly, and performing extravagant leaps.

"At length, when the weather appears settled, and all around is quiet, the whole party mounts to the tops of the highest trees, whence, at a signal, consisting of a single cluck, given by a leader, the flock takes flight for the opposite shore. The old and fat birds easily get over, even should the river be a mile in breadth; but the younger and less robust frequently fall into the water,-not to be drowned, however, as might be imagined. They bring their wings close to their body, spread out their tail as a support, stretch forward their neck, and, striking out their legs with great vigour, proceed rapidly towards the shore; on approaching which, should they find it too steep for landing, they cease their exertions for a few moments, float down the stream until they come to an accessible part, and by a violent effort generally extricate themselves from the water"

By Audubon the naturalist, from his Ornithological Biography.

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2 more Audubon's

2012-01-26T07:39:00.013-05:00

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my favorite Audubon's:

Fish hawk, (today, Osprey)

This is just a magnificent portrait of an osprey. Love it! Love it! If I could own but one Audubon, this would be it. Watching an osprey dive into the water after a fish and then wrestle it to the surface and fly away is one of the most dramatic acts you'll ever witness in nature. SPLASH! I've seen it often. Power personified. Audubon writes:

“When the fish hawk plunges into the water in pursuit of a fish, it sometimes proceeds deep enough to disappear for an instant. The sure caused by its descent is so great as to make the spot around it present the appearance of a mass of foam. On rising with its prey, it is seen holding it in the manner represented in the Plate. It mounts a few yards into the air, shakes the water from its plumage, squeezes the fish with its talons, and immediately proceeds towards its nest, to feed its young, or to a tree, to devour the fruit of its industry in peace. When it has satisfied its hunger, it does not, like other Hawks, stay perched until hunger again urges it forth, but usually sails about at a great height over the neighbouring waters."

By Audubon the naturalist, from his Ornithological Biography.

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3 more Audubon's

2012-01-25T07:54:00.003-05:00

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my favorite Audubon's:

Carolina parrot, (today, Carolina parakeet)

If yesterday's whooping crane almost went extinct, this one surely did. The last documented Carolina parakeet died in the Cincinnati Zoo in 1918. But in Aududon's day they existed in great flocks. Sadly though they had a fondness for maintained orchards and their young fruits, he writes:

"Do not imagine, reader, that all these outrages are borne without severe retaliation on the part of the planters. So far from this, the Parrots are destroyed in great numbers, for whilst busily engaged in plucking off the fruits or tearing the grain from the stacks, the husbandman approaches them with perfect ease, and commits great slaughter among them. All the survivors rise, shriek, fly round about for a few minutes, and again alight on the very place of most imminent danger. The gun is kept at work; eight or ten, or even twenty, are killed at every discharge.

"The living birds, as if conscious of the death of their companions, sweep over their bodies, screaming as loud as ever, but still return to the stack to be shot at, until so few remain alive, that the farmer does not consider it worth his while to spend more of his ammunition. I have seen several hundreds destroyed in this manner in the course of a few hours, and have procured a basketful of these birds at a few shots, in order to make choice of good specimens for drawing the figures by which this species is represented in the plate now under your consideration.”

By Audubon the naturalist, from his Ornithological Biography.

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4 more Audubon's

2012-01-24T07:27:00.003-05:00

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my favorite Audubon's:

Hooping Crane, (today, whooping crane)

Probably never very plentiful even in Audubon's day, whooping crane populations are making a slow comeback due to extensive conservation efforts. In the late 1940s, only about 20 still existed, today there's just over 500. In December, I saw one (a direct release juvenile) at Hiwassee Wildlife Refuge in Meigs County in East Tennessee. A coup. Audubon writes:

" While in the Floridas, I saw a few of these birds alive, but many which had been shot by the Spaniards and Indians, for the sake of their flesh and beautiful feathers, of which the latter they make fans and fly-brushes.”

By Audubon the naturalist, from his Ornithological Biography.

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5 more Audubon's

2012-01-23T09:49:00.004-05:00

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my favorite Audubon's:

Purple heron, (today, reddish egret)

Since I've never been to the Keys or spent much time on the Gulf coast—it's on my bucket list, or in my case barrel list—I've never seen this egret. Audubon writes:

"The Purple Heron is a constant resident on the Florida Keys, to which it is so partial at all seasons that it never leaves them. Some individuals are seen as far east as Cape Florida, and westward along the Gulf of Mexico. Whether it may ever betake itself to fresh water I cannot say, but I never found one in such a situation. It is a more plump bird for its size than most other Herons, and in this respect resembles the Night Heron and the Yellow-crowned species, but possesses all the gracefulness of the tribe to which it belongs.

The remarkable circumstance of this bird's changing from white to purple, will no doubt have some tendency to disconcert the systematists, who, it seems, pronounce all the birds which they name Egrets to be always white.”

In this case, he got it a bit wrong. There's two morphs: some reddish egrets are that color, while other reddish egrets are indeed white.

By Audubon the naturalist, from his Ornithological Biography.

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6 more Audubon's

2012-01-22T10:57:00.000-05:00

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....my favorite Audubon's:

Nuttall's short-billed marsh wren, (today, sedge wren)

What the heck. I still have a few more favorite Audubon's I want to share. In the case of the sedge wren, what a beautifully constructed nest. Audubon writes:

"The nest of the Short-billed Marsh Wren is made wholly of dry or partly green sedge, bent usually from the top of the grassy tuft in which the fabric is situated. With much ingenuity and labour these simple materials are loosely entwined together into a spherical form, with a small and rather obscure entrance left on the side. A thin lining is sometimes added to the whole, of the linty fibres of the silk-weed, or some other similar material. The eggs, pure white, and destitute of spots, are probably from six to eight.”

By Audubon the naturalist, from his Ornithological Biography.

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7 more Audubon's

2012-01-21T08:08:00.002-05:00

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....my favorite Audubon's:

Yellow bird, (today, American goldfinch)

What the heck. I still have a few more favorite Audubon's I want to share. In the case of the goldfinch, he accurately portrayed the species of the plant it's most closely associated with, the thistle. Audubon writes about its flight pattern:

" The flight of the yellow bird is performed in deep curved lines, alternately rising and falling, after each propelling motion of its wings…uttering two or three notes whilst ascending.”

By Audubon the naturalist, from his Ornithological Biography.

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Such a deal!

2012-01-20T17:44:00.003-05:00

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A few hours ago, an American collector
bidding by phone bought a first edition Audubon The Birds of America
from Christie's auction house for

$7.9 million

something of a surprise since in 2010, a first edition sold for
$11.5 million.

Such a deal.

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Today: Audubon Auction

2012-01-20T07:09:00.003-05:00

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....my favorite Audubon's:

Virginia partridge, (today, Northern bobwhite quail)

Sometime later today, a first edition of this intense action print—a red-shouldered hawk going after a covey of quail—will change hands. It's one of the 435 hand-colored engravings at auction today at Christie's in New York. Bound in one of four volumes, it's a rare and unique achievement in natural history and art, the product of John James Audubon, a Haitian-French-born American naturalist/artist, and an English engraver: Robert Havell plus a team of colorists and other artists.

Owned by the heirs of the Fourth Duke of Portland, this evening their copy of The Birds of America (circa. 1838) will have a new owner. Let's hope he/she has a party inviting all their friends and one lone blogger from Tennessee.

Stay tuned for an update.

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1 day until Audubon

2012-01-19T05:32:00.001-05:00

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....my favorite Audubon's:

Blue heron, (today, great blue heron)

A single Havell engraved, hand water-colored great blue heron print from the first edition can sell for $100,000. Audubon found this species widespread throughout the East. He writes:

"The manners of this Heron are exceedingly interesting at the approach of the breeding season, when the males begin to look for partners. About sunrise you see a number arrive and alight either on the margin of a broad sand-bar or on a savannah. They come from different quarters, one after another, for several hours; and when you see forty or fifty before you, it is difficult for you to imagine that half the number could have resided in the same district.”

By Audubon the naturalist, from his Ornithological Biography.

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2 days until Audubon

2012-01-18T06:01:00.007-05:00

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....my favorite Audubon's:

Florida jay, (today, scrub jay)

This species is becoming scarce in the Sunshine State because of habitat loss. I have seen only one Florida scrub jay in my life, along a railroad track at the back of Oscar Scherer State Park south of Sarasota. Audubon writes:

"The flight of the Florida Jay is generally performed at a short distance from the ground, and consists either of a single sailing sweep, as it shifts from one tree or bush to another, or of continuous flappings, with a slightly undulated motion, in the manner of the Magpie (Pica melanoleuca) or of the Canada Jay (Garrulus canadensis). Its notes are softer than those of its relative the Blue Jay (Garrulus cristatus), and are more frequently uttered.”

"I have represented a pair of Florida Jays on a branch of the persimmon tree, ornamented with its richly coloured fruits. This tree grows to a moderate height as well as girth. The wood is hard and compact. The leaves drop off at an early period. The fruit, when fully ripe, is grateful to the palate. The persimmon occurs in all parts of the United States, but abounds in the low lands of Florida and Louisiana, probably more than in any other portion of the Union."

By Audubon the naturalist, from his Ornithological Biography.

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3 days until Audubon

2012-01-17T06:00:00.004-05:00

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my favorite Audubon's:

Barn swallow

Adobe: a natural building material made of sand, clay or mud mixed with a natural fiber like grass or straw. Long before Native Americans built their homes with it, barn swallows had perfected the technique. Audubon writes:

"The nest is attached to the side of a beam or rafter in a barn or shed, under a bridge, or sometimes even in an old well, or in a sink hole, such as those found in the Kentucky barrens. Whenever the situation is convenient and affords sufficient room, you find several nests together, and in some instances I have seen seven or eight within a few inches of each other; nay, in some large barns I have counted forty, fifty, or more.

"The male and the female both betake themselves to the borders of creeks, rivers, ponds, or lakes, where they form small pellets of mud or moist earth, which they carry in their bill to the chosen spot, and place against the wood, the wall, or the rock, as it may chance to be. They dispose of these pellets in regular lays, mixing, especially with the lower, a considerable quantity of long slender grasses, which often dangle for several inches beneath the bottom of the nest.”

By Audubon the naturalist, from his Ornithological Biography.

On January 20, a complete first edition boxed-set of Audubon's The Birds of America including his five-volume Ornithological Biography will be auctioned in New York at Christie's. There are only 120 known copies of this huge work. As big as a coffee table, weighing over 200 pounds, it contains 435 hand-colored engravings (depicting 497 species) printed on handmade paper measuring 29.5 X 39.5 inches. Assembled into four volumes, it's massive.

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4 days until Audubon

2012-01-16T06:37:00.002-05:00

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my favorite Audubon's:

Snowy heron (today, snowy egret)

In my book Ghost Birds, I write about snowy egrets. By the early 1900s, like the roseate spoonbill, they were almost lost due to plume-hunting. E.A. McIlhenny, the heir to, of all things, the Tabasco Sauce empire is credited with single-handedly bringing snowy egrets back to Louisiana and a man-made rookery/wildlife sanctuary he created called "Bird City." One hundred years before that Audubon writes:

"This beautiful species is a constant resident in Florida and Louisiana, where thousands are seen during winter, and where many remain during the breeding season.

"While migrating, they fly both by night and by day, in loose flocks of from twenty to a hundred individuals, sometimes arranging themselves in a broad front, then forming lines, and again proceeding in a straggling manner. They keep perfectly silent, and move at a height seldom exceeding a hundred yards. Their flight is light, undetermined as it were, yet well sustained, and performed by regular flappings, as in other birds of the tribe.”

By Audubon the naturalist, from his Ornithological Biography.

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5 days until Audubon

2012-01-15T06:32:00.012-05:00

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my favorite Audubon's:

The Raven

A bird not perched upon a pallid bust of Pallas above a chamber door but a hickory tree. This portrait came 12 years before the famous poem by Poe. Audubon knew better where to find them, he writes:

"Their usual places of resort are the mountains, the abrupt banks of rivers, the rocky shores of lakes, and the cliffs of thinly-peopled or deserted islands ... There, through the clear and rarefied atmosphere, the Raven spreads his glossy wings and tail, and, as he onward sails, rises higher and higher each bold sweep that he makes, as if conscious that the nearer he approaches the sun, the more splendent will become the tints of his plumage.”

By Audubon the naturalist, from his Ornithological Biography.

Why is Audubon relevant? Because in addition to his artistic talent, perseverance and derring-do, he was a d--- good naturalist. A lot of what we know today about birds, the audacious, yet often farouche, John James Audubon was the first to put in print.

On January 20, a complete first edition boxed-set of Audubon's The Birds of America including his five-volume Ornithological Biography will be auctioned in New York at Christie's. There are only 120 known copies of this huge work. As big as a coffee table, weighing over 200 pounds, it contains 435 hand-colored engravings (depicting 497 species) printed on handmade paper measuring 29.5 X 39.5 inches. Assembled into four volumes, it's massive.

From my books surcease of sorrow - sorrow for the lost Lenore /For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels named Lenore/Nameless here for evermore.

Speaking of the early 1800s, just in case you are a fan of the poem by Edgar Allan Poe as am I, here's a link to a reading by American actor Christopher Walken.

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6 days until Audubon

2012-01-14T06:49:00.016-05:00

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my favorite Audubon's:

Roseate spoonbill

A species we almost lost because of the plume hunters and the popularity of those pink feathers. Audubon writes:

"This beautiful and singular bird, although a constant resident in the southern extremities of the peninsula of Florida, seldom extends its journeys in an eastern direction beyond the State of North Carolina...The Roseate Spoonbill is found for the most part along the marshy and muddy borders of estuaries, the mouths of rivers, ponds, or sea islands or keys partially overgrown with bushes, and perhaps still more commonly along the shores of those singular salt-water bayous so abundant within a mile or so of the shores, where they can reside and breed in perfect security in the midst of an abundance of food.”

By John James Audubon the naturalist, from his Ornithological Biography.

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7 days until Audubon

2012-01-13T06:52:00.009-05:00

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my favorite Audubon's:

Ivory-billed woodpecker

A species near and dear to my heart since I spent four years writing a book about them. Audubon writes:

"The ivory-billed woodpecker confines its rambles to a comparatively very small portion of the United States, it never having been observed in the Middle States within the memory of any person now living there

I wish, kind reader, it were in my power to present to your mind's eye the favourite resort of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker. Would that I could describe the extent of those deep morasses, overshadowed by millions of gigantic dark cypresses, spreading their sturdy moss-covered branches, as if to admonish intruding man to pause and reflect on the many difficulties which he must encounter, should he persist in venturing farther into their almost inaccessible recesses, extending for miles before him, where he should be interrupted by huge projecting branches, here and there the massy trunk of a fallen and decaying tree, and thousands of creeping and twining plants of numberless species!”

By Audubon the naturalist, from his Ornithological Biography.

I'll be speaking at Wilderness Wildlife Week in Pigeon Forge today at 1 p.m. about my book "Ghost Birds: Jim Tanner and the Ivory-bill."

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8 days until Audubon

2012-01-12T07:14:00.010-05:00

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my favorite Audubon's:

Snowy owl

One of the species I have yet to add to my life list. Audubon writes:

"This beautiful bird is merely a winter visitor of the United States, where it is seldom seen before the month of November, and whence it retires as early as the beginning of February. It wanders at times along the sea coast, as far as Georgia. I have occasionally seen it in the lower parts of Kentucky, and in the State of Ohio. It is more frequently met with in Pennsylvania and the Jerseys; but in Massachusetts and Maine it is far more abundant than in any other parts of the Union...Scarcely is there a winter which does not bring several of these hardy natives of the north to the Falls of the Ohio at Louisville. At the break of day, one morning, when I lay hidden in a pile of drift logs, at that place, waiting for a shot at some wild geese, I had an opportunity of seeing this Owl secure fish.”

By Audubon the naturalist, from his Ornithological Biography.

I'll be speaking at Wilderness Wildlife Week in Pigeon Forge today at 1 p.m. about the "Making of Audubon's Birds of America," a most remarkable feat.

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9 days until Audubon

2012-01-11T06:42:00.013-05:00

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my favorite Audubon's:

Once known by the odd sobriquet aquatic wagtail (aquatic because it likes to be near water and wagtail because it bobs its tail), it was Audubon who gave this bird its more lyrical name still in use today:

Louisiana waterthrush

"Much and justly as the song of the Nightingale is admired, I am inclined, after having listened to it, to pronounce it in no degree superior to that of the Louisiana Water Thrush...I have taken the liberty of naming this first songster of our groves after the country which has afforded me my greatest pleasure...The Common Water Thrush is at all times and in every situation shy even to wildness. The Louisiana Water Thrush is so gentle and unsuspicious as to allow a person to approach within a few yards of it.”

By Audubon the naturalist, from his Ornithological Biography.

I'll be speaking at Wilderness Wildlife Week in Pigeon Forge tomorrow at 1 p.m. about the "Making of Audubon's Birds of America," a most remarkable feat.

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10 days until Audubon

2012-01-10T06:13:00.024-05:00

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my favorite Audubon's:

Louisiana heron, (today, Tricolored heron)

"Delicate in form, beautiful in plumage, and graceful in its movements, I never see this interesting Heron, without calling it the Lady of the Waters. Watch its motions, as it leisurely walks over the pure sand beaches of the coast of Florida, arrayed in the full beauty of its spring plumage. Its pendent crest exhibits its glossy tints, its train falls gracefully over a well defined tail, and the tempered hues of its back and wings contrast with those of its lower parts. Its measured steps are so light that they leave no impression on the sand, and with its keen eye it views every object around with the most perfect accuracy.”

By Audubon the naturalist, from his Ornithological Biography.

I'll be speaking at Wilderness Wildlife Week in Pigeon Forge on Thursday at 1 p.m. about the "Making of Audubon's Birds of America," a most remarkable feat.

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11 days until Audubon

2012-01-09T07:56:00.013-05:00

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my favorite Audubon's:

Indigo-bird, (today, bunting)

"The indigo bird is not a forest bird, but prefers the skirts of the woods, the little detached thickets in and along the fields, the meadows, the gardens, and orchards…they sing from the highest top of a detached tree.”

From Ornithological Biography by naturalist/artist John James Audubon.

Why is Audubon relevant? Because in addition to his artistic talent and perseverance, he was a d--- good naturalist. A lot of what we know today about birds, the audacious Audubon was the first to put in print.

On January 20, a complete first edition set of Audubon's The Birds of America including his five-volume Ornithological Biography will be auctioned in New York at Christie's. There are only 120 known copies of this huge work. As big as a coffee table, weighing over 200 pounds, it contains 435 hand-colored engravings printed on handmade paper measuring 29.5 X 39.5 inches. Assembled into four volumes, it's massive.

I'll be speaking at Wilderness Wildlife Week in Pigeon Forge on Thursday at 1 p.m. about the "Making of Audubon's Birds of America," a most remarkable feat.

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12 days until Audubon

2012-01-08T06:58:00.018-05:00

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my favorite Audubon's:

Yellow-billed cuckoo

"They resort to the deepest shades of the forests, and intimate their presence by the frequent repetition of their dull and unmusical notes, which are not unlike those of the young bull-frog. These notes may be represented by the word cow, cow, repeated eight or ten times with increasing rapidity. In fact, from the resemblance of its notes to that word, this Cuckoo is named Cow-bird in nearly every part of the Union. The Dutch farmers of Pennsylvania know it better by the name Rain Crow.”

From Ornithological Biography by naturalist/artist John James Audubon. (Today, the cowbird is an entirely different species but Aububon the naturalist, knew it was a cuckoo.)

On January 20, a complete first edition, four volume Audubon's The Birds of America including his five-volume Ornithological Biography will be auctioned in New York at Christie's. There are only 120 known copies of this huge work. As big as a coffee table, weighing over 200 pounds, it contains 435 hand-colored engravings each measuring 28X30 inches. Massive.

I'll be speaking at Wilderness Wildlife Week in Pigeon Forge on Thursday at 1 p.m. about the "Making of Audubon's Birds of America," a most remarkable feat.

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13 days until Audubon

2012-01-07T06:10:00.016-05:00

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my favorite Audubon's:

Red-shouldered buzzard, (today: hawk)

"The bird is one of the most noisy of its genus, during spring especially, when it would be difficult to approach the skirts of woods bordering a large plantation without hearing its discordant shrill notes, ka-hee, ka-hee."

From Ornithological Biography by naturalist/artist John James Audubon.

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14 days until Audubon auction

2012-01-06T06:17:00.024-05:00

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If you follow the world of art or books, you may already know that later this month a complete first edition of Audubon's The Birds of America will be auctioned in New York at Christie's.

There are only 120 known copies of this huge work. As big as a coffee table, weighing just shy of 200 pounds, it contains 435 hand-colored engravings each measuring 28X30 inches. As a bonus, there's a first edition five-volume set of Audubon's Ornithological Biography, containing pretty much all the backwoods naturalist knew about every species which was considerable, plus several tall tales thrown in for good measure.

The rare set is being sold by the heirs of the 4th Duke of Portland, so it's probably been in their possession since the 1830s.

Christie's expects the book (really multiply volumes) should go for between 7 and 10 million, but the last one that sold in London went for 11.5 million so I expect more, making it the most expensive book ever purchased. And it was created by a naturalist artist, one of the brother/sisterhood!

I'll be speaking at Ijams Nature Center tomorrow morning at 10 a.m. and again next week at Wilderness Wildlife Week in Pigeon Forge on Thursday at 1 p.m. about the "Making of Audubon's Birds of America," a most Herculean endeavor, the warp and weft of legend.

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soaring like a hawk

2012-01-04T06:20:00.003-05:00

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OK. Admit it. Haven't you often dreamed of soaring like a hawk?

Well, here's a photo bouncing around the Internet of a red-winged blackbird that figured out how to turn that dream into reality.

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who was Nutting?

2012-01-02T12:15:00.007-05:00

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Nutting's flycatcher

If you followed the blog of John Vanderpoel's attempt to break birding’s Big Year record of 745 species set by Sandy Komito in 1998, you perhaps already know that Vanderpoel finished 2011 a feather's weight shy of the mark.

His 744th bird of the calendar year was a Nutting's Flycatcher, (Myiarchus nuttingi) he and his brother found in Arizona on December 31.

Still 744 is a remarkable feat, second highest total ever.

You might wonder just who is the flycatcher normally found in Mexico and Costa Rica named to honor?

Charles Cleveland Nutting (1858 – 1927) or simply C.C. Nutting as he preferred, was an American zoologist who led various expeditions to Central America, Florida and Hawaii often taking his best students with him. He was professor of zoology and curator of the Museum of Natural History of the University of Iowa from 1886 to 1890. Noted for not only teaching his students a way to make a living but also a way to live, "soul values" he called it.

However, Nutting's most important papers deal with marine hydroids not flycatchers. He described 124 new species and beautifully illustrated his monograph on American hydroids. Hydrozoans are small, predatory animals related to jellyfish and corals. The most famous member of the group in my area are the freshwater jellyfish (Craspedacusta sowerbyi) found in Mead's Quarry at Ijams Nature Center.

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whooper second fiddle? never

2011-12-30T06:20:00.004-05:00

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I never, never, never, never, never to the power of 10 never, thought I'd ever be at Hiwassee Wildlife Refuge and a whooping crane—yes Grus americana, world’s rarest crane, only 500 in existence—would be forced to play second fiddle, noticed, observed but not gawked at. And a first year whooper at that, still sporting some of its cinnamon colored plumage of youth, a direct release colt, a young whooper that found its way to Tennessee by following an adoptive parent figure. Brave little cuss.

But, that has been the case this week. The exotic hooded crane from Asia has been garnering all the oohs and ahhs.

Here's an amateur video shot through a spotting scope from the viewing gazebo. It's a bit shaky in the beginning but bear with it. It's a wonderful testament of this week at Hiwassee.

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lost Asian crane in Tennessee

2011-12-28T06:46:00.056-05:00

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Hooded crane at Hiwassee photo by John Kuehnel.

The rare Asian hooded crane first reported at Hiwassee Wildlife Refuge the Tuesday before Christmas was still there the Monday after. A short 90-mile car trip added it to our life lists, whether it's an ABA-approved listing or not can be sorted out later.

The TWRA managed, 10,000 plus acre refuge shared by Meigs and Rhea counties in southeast Tennessee is already home to thousands of wintering sandhill cranes, a few reintroduced wintering whooping cranes and at least for now, one solo, lost, confused hooded crane, a species listed as endangered...in Asia and non-existent in the Americas. Non-existent in the wild except for this one. Do I hear the mournful strains of Roy Orbison's Only the Lonely?

Sandhill, whooping, hooded: three crane species at one time in North America. That's a day to remember! Historic.

Speculation and teeth chattered throughout Hiwassee's viewing gazebo and the Internet.

Is it truly a far-flung wild hooded on the wrong continent or an escaped captive on a lark from an American zoo or mac-zillionaire's secret menagerie? The species has only been reported THREE times in North America, all recent: 1) in 2010 at Carey Lake, Idaho, 2) last spring in Nebraska, and now, 3) the Hiwassee refuge in Tennessee Christmas 2011.

Could it be the same wayward crane going from place-to-place in the company of sandhills? Gallivanting like Gulliver. Meandering like Muir.

Backstory: The Hooded Crane (Grus monacha) is a small, dark crane with white head. It breeds in south-central and south-eastern Siberia and perhaps in Mongolia. (Yes. Siberia and Mongolia. So our Tennessee crane is perhaps most assuredly lost. The other side of the world lost, like me at Saks Fifth Avenue lost.)

Over 80 percent of its population overwinters in Izumi in southern Japan. Considered as environmentally vulnerable, the major threats to the hooded crane's survival are wetland loss throughout its range and the degradation of its other wintering grounds in China and South Korea as a result of reclamation for development and dam building.

As I post this, John Vanderpoel is headed to Hiwassee in hope of seeing the wayward crane. Vanderpoel is working on a Big Year, trying to break the record of finding 745 species in North America set by Sandy Komito in 1998. Vanderpoel currently has 741 with time running out in the calendar year. For the record, he needs five more species in four days, but in that rarefied air of the 700 Club, even in a field of play that stretches from sea to shining sea, that's a Mt. Everest kind of climb. We're cheering for you John.

For more details go to his blog: Big Year 2011.

Thanks Bill for giving me the heads up on the hooded at Hiwassee.

Sandhill cranes. Photo by Manjith Kainickara.

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remember the Furbies?

2011-12-26T07:48:00.005-05:00

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Pygmy tarsier rediscovered on a mountain near Sulawesi, Indonesia

Since I often write about species that are either very endangered or that have gone extinct, I've been asked are there any species once labeled extinct—either formally or informally—that have been rediscovered.

Yes, my book Ghost Birds is about one such species.

Although the list is short, here's a good article about seven or eight species that have been rediscovered. And just wouldn't you love to see a pygmy tarsier? It's a small, arboreal, nocturnal primate that looks a lot like the must have Christmas toy of the late 1990s: the Furby.

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Merry Christmas

2011-12-25T06:56:00.001-05:00

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My friend Wayne Mallinger sends Christmas tidings.

And what better bird to convey the sentiments

than the male cardinal.

Always dressed for the season.

Photo by Wayne Mallinger.

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seasoned greetings

2011-12-24T06:51:00.012-05:00

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Startled, they looked towards the flock of crows to the west
completely ignoring the man
with the camera hidden in the bushes behind them.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays.

Spend time with someone you love,
and/or go outside.
And if you are very lucky, you might encounter
a trio of well seasoned, ever-stoic log-deers.

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NS Birdlife review

2011-12-22T06:25:00.017-05:00

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"What an adventure. It started as a four-month, 15,000-mile road trip in 1935 to record bird songs. It led 20-year-old James T. Tanner, a graduate student at Cornell University at the time, on a multi-year quest to document the life history and habitat requirements of rare ivory-billed woodpeckers.

"Fortunately for the ornithological history of the ivory-bill — a species believed by many people to now be extinct — Jim Tanner kept meticulous scientific field notes. He also recorded his personal daily activities.

"Knoxville writer and naturalist Stephen Lyn Bales relied directly on Jim's field notes, diaries, and scientific publications along with the assistance and recollections of Jim's widow, Nancy Sheedy Tanner of Knoxville, to write "Ghost Birds: Jim Tanner and the Quest for the Ivory-billed Woodpecker, 1935-1941" ( University of Tennessee Press).

Marcia Davis

"Readers can curl up with Bales' book and get a true feel for Jim's daily life, his work, and his adventures as a woodpecker biologist searching remote southern swamps for signs and proof of ivory-bills."

For the rest of the Knoxville News Sentinel review go to: Marcia Davis.

Sagan: in memoriam

2011-12-20T06:08:00.045-05:00

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The book The Monsters is about writer Mary Shelley and the creation of her novel Frankenstein: The Modern Prometheus. Emphasis on the word modern. (What today seems Gothic and geriatric was then cutting-edge.)

First published in 1818, Shelley was only 19 years old when she began the manuscript and the collecting of body parts was a ghoulish topic of the day, but reassembling them to create an entire new human was rather shocking, even blasphemous, posing the question, “Can science go too far?”

In the 1800s there was a mad rush to collect items of natural history, as though if one could assemble one of everything, like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, the mystery of life could be solved into one giant picture. “Viola! But of course, now it all makes sense.”

The museums around the world started collecting. Behind the brightly lit areas open to the public—their dark archives filled drawers, shelves and cabinets with bones, skulls and soft tissues floating in formaldehyde.

In Broca’s Brain Carl Sagan writes, “Deeper in the room were more macabre and more disturbing collections. Two shrunken heads reposing on a cabinet, sneering and grimacing, their leathery lips curled to reveal rows of sharp, tiny teeth. Jar upon jar of human embryos and fetuses, pale white, bathed in a murky greenish fluid, each jar completely labeled. Most specimens were normal, but occasionally an anomaly could be glimpsed, a disconcerting teratology—Siamese twins joined at the sternum, say, or a fetus with two heads, the four eyes tightly shut.”

“There was more.” Sagan continues, “An array of large cylindrical bottles containing, to my astonishment, perfectly preserved human heads. A red-mustachioed man, perhaps in his early twenties, originating, so the label said, from Nouvelle Calédonie…his head involuntarily drafted in the cause of science. Except he was not being studied; he was only being neglected, among the other severed heads…Men and women and children of both sexes and many races, decapitated, their heads shipped to France only to moulder—perhaps after some brief initial study—in the Musée de l’Homme.” [Museum of Man in Paris].

A man named Paul Broca, who became quite renowned in the study of the human brain, started the collection. (He had many human brains in jars of formalin, which is where Broca’s own brain ended up after he died in 1880.)

In the end, had science gone too far? Too Victor Frankenstein-ish? We might say no, the pursuit of knowledge knows no bounds; the family of the red-mustachioed man, whose head still floats in formalin, might disagree.

Sagan the scientist queried Sagan the humanitarian. “All inquiries carry with them some element of risk…The best way to avoid abuses is for the populace in general to be scientifically literate, to understand the implications of such investigations,” Sagan concludes. This and other musings are found in Broca’s Brain, a collection of essays on the “romance of science,” Carl Sagan’s follow-up to his 1978 Pulitzer Prize winning The Dragons of Eden. During his time on this Pale Blue Dot, perhaps no one did more to popularize science to the television-watching world than the Brooklyn-born, astronomy professor.

Sagan wrote over 600 scientific papers and was author, co-author or editor of twenty books. He died on this date, 20 December 1996, 15 years ago today.

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all girl lizards

2011-12-18T06:34:00.011-05:00

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A lizard previously unknown and undescribed by science was recently discovered in a restaurant in South Vietnam.

Where? On the menu. The common reptile is a popular Vietnamese entrée but apparently no biologist had ever tried to figure out what he or she was eating. (I normally do not take my field guides into restaurants either.)

But, wait, there's more. It gets even more curious.

Newly named Leiolepis ngovantrii (in the Vietnamese: Nhông cát trinh sản, meaning "parthenogenic sand iguana") is all female. The specific name honors Vietnamese herpetologist Ngo Van Tri. The all-girl lizard reproduces by cloning and do not need males. If this strategy spreads, my gender is in trouble. Better clean up your act boys!

But how can this be?

In a paper titled "Who's your Mommy?" written by Jesse and Lee Grismer and published in the scientific journal Zootaxa, the Grismers speculate: "Two major pathways that have been proposed for the origin of this reproductive lifestyle within vertebrates are (1) a genetic mutation (usually within a single egg clutch) that creates individuals with the ability to clone themselves and (2) two species (either two sexual species or an asexual and a sexual species) hybridize to create a polyploidal [having more than twice the basic number of chromosomes], all-female population whose members have the ability to clone themselves."

Just so you know. Every daughter and all of her sisters are a carbon copies of their mother.

Photo by the paper's co-author Lee Grismer.

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my mountain, no really

2011-12-16T08:46:00.002-05:00

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Mt. LeConte

" One of the deeply satisfying things about a mountain—

almost any mountain—is the way it can at the same time

belong exclusively to so many people."

- From "A Thousand Mile Summer" by Colin Fletcher

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it likes to watch

2011-12-14T06:41:00.005-05:00

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Brown-marmorated stink bug (Halyomorpha halys)

Stink bugs invade county!

“The brown-marmorated stink bug is a native of Asia and was first collected in the United States in 1998 in Pennsylvania, according to Penn State University. It has caused severe damage to fruit crops like apples and peaches,” reported Rebecca Williams on knoxNews last year.

“But now the bugs are hitting hard in the suburbs of Knoxville, [Neal] Denton said. They have reproduced vigorously during the warm summer and are now looking for warm places to stay as the weather cools, including homes, garages and campers.”

Well they're back.

Now that the weather has turned colder, I’ve had a marmorated (it means having a marbled or streaked appearance) stink bug loitering about my bathroom sink this week. It watches me brush my teeth, dry my hair, trim my graying beard. Like Being There's Chance the gardener, "It likes to watch." A rather nonthreatening voyeur, that seems inordinately interested in me. Are they government drones, should I be paranoid? Although honestly, it's kind of nice having something that actually wants to share my morning curry. It's been rather lonely up to this point.

I wonder if it will be with me all winter?

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last Labrador duck

2011-12-12T06:40:00.018-05:00

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Pair of Labrador ducks:
painting by John Gerrand Keulemans

The Labrador duck (Camptorhynchus labradorius), was a black and white eider-like sea duck that was probably never common (a recipe for disaster). The rather handsome waterfowl is believed to be the first bird to become extinct in North America after 1500.

Since the duck itself was considered "bad tasting,"—a pretty good trait to have if you are an easy-to-shoot duck—it is believed that its eggs were over-harvested, which led to its ultimate demise. No eggs, no ducks to make more eggs.

On this dubious date: December 12, 133 years ago today, the last Labrador duck is believed to have been seen at Elmira, New York in 1878; the last preserved specimen was shot in 1875 on Long Island. It was thought to breed in Labrador, although no nests were ever described, and it wintered from Nova Scotia to as far south as Chesapeake Bay.

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a birthday remembered

2011-12-10T06:35:00.016-05:00

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Poems first edition
published posthumously in 1890
(note the Indian pipe
on the cover)

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"I hope you love birds too.

It is economical.
It saves going to heaven."

The Belle of Amherst,
American poet Emily Dickinson,

was born on this date
December 10, 1830

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turkeys do fly

2011-12-08T06:19:00.016-05:00

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Driving home the other day, three large, dark birds flew low over the road—hillside to hillside—in front of my car. What the heck? I first thought vultures but the girth wasn't right. Too chunky, too heavy in the stern. Their flight was labored, like me flapping my arms trying to get airborne.
-
As I passed the site, I discovered three wild turkeys strutting up the hill away from the road.
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Yes, Virginia, not only is there a Santa Claus, but turkeys indeed do fly, at least the wild ones, the domesticated gobblers can barely even walk, too heavy in the bulbous bow.
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- Photo by Cody Pope

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stone or water

2011-12-06T08:12:00.000-05:00

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"It is the nature of stone

to be satisfied.

It is the nature of water

to want to be somewhere else."

- From "The Leaf and the Cloud" by poet Mary Oliver

This begs the question: Are you made of stone or water?

-Photo taken in the West Prong of the Little Pigeon River in the Sugarlands. Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

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jack or jill frost

2011-12-04T07:07:00.005-05:00

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Not a huge fan of winter. Cold. Dark. Gray. More of a time to hibernate like a Smoky Mountain black bear, hit the snooze alarm and curl up with a good book and a cup of chamomile, that sort of thing.

And yet, the early morning tableaux of Jack or Jill frost — whichever gender you like to assign it — fill me with a certain élan that I cannot find indoors.

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sketches for sale

2011-12-02T06:14:00.004-05:00

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While working on the illustration that became the cover for my book Ghost Birds, I produced several sketches of a male ivory-bill. There's really no need for me to keep all of them, so if you'd like to buy one please contact me.

These are not color copies but real pen and ink drawings. I did a series of rough drafts in order to capture just the right Campephilus principalis expression. Intense and statuesque. Character studies, if you will. Not an easy thing to do since I have never seen a live one.

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Natural Histories: osage orange

2011-11-30T06:32:00.002-05:00

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As UT Press writes, Natural Histories "illuminates in surprising ways the complicated and often vexed relationships between humans and their neighbors in the natural world."

Perhaps the most vexing encounter in the book between humans and the natural world occurred when the boys in gray engaged a simple hedge planted due west of the Harpeth River n Middle Tennessee.

On November 30, 1864—147 years ago today—the horrific Battle of Franklin was fought south of Nashville. An osage orange hedge row played a key role in the outcome stopping one division of the advancing Southern army "dead" in their tracks. When the smoke cleared, the Confederate Army of Tennessee had lost almost 7,000 men in just five hours. (The Union army's dead and wounded numbered significantly less: only 2,326.) Here's a snippet from my book:

"The almost forgotten Battle of Franklin was a death knell. “This is where the Old South died,” says activist Robert Hicks, “and we were reborn as a nation.”

I visited the site on this date in 2004. Here's another passage from the book:

"Leaving Lewisburg Pike, I walked along the rain soaked streets and soon found the two aged osage orange trees still growing in the vicinity of the railroad line. Historian Cartwright had told me about the old trees just an hour before. Both were perhaps descendants of the hedgerow that stopped Loring and, as such, were living monuments. It was a circuitous chain of events that moved osage orange from its native Red River home to this historic point of all out chaos; turn back the clock and replay the era, day by day, and it would not have unfolded in exactly the same way. I paused just long enough to admire the towering presence of the elderly trees; and as the rain began to fall heavy once again, I zipped up my coat, turned and walked away."

Excerpts from my book Natural Histories published by the University of Tennessee Press.

The fruit of an osage orange looks like a green brain

and probably tastes like one too,

although, I must admit, I've sampled neither.

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drop of rain

2011-11-28T06:21:00.002-05:00

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Sometimes it’s funny how nature presents itself; it's often serendipitous as we stumble into insight at the most opportune moment.

Recently, I heard the soft warbler of a bluebird, but try as I might, I could not find it. I looked but the source of the call seemed to come from no place specific. It just floated on the breeze.

I'm not the first to be so puzzled. Within the hour I read a passage in 19th century naturalist John Burroughs' first book “Wake-Robin,” originally published in 1871.

“The [blue]bird at first seems a mere wandering voice in the air: one hears its call or carol...but is uncertain of its source or direction; it falls like a drop of rain when no cloud is visible; one looks and listens, but to no purpose."

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a towhee by any other name?

2011-11-26T07:08:00.006-05:00

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Eastern towhee (Pipilo erythrophthalmus)

A towhee by any other name would...the eastern towhee is a large New World sparrow. Yes, sparrow. It doesn't look like one but it certainly acts the part. Hides in the bushes, feeds on the ground, etc. etc. They are more closely related to Old World buntings than Old World sparrows but that is a can or worms, so we'll just talk about towhees.

If you have an older field guide, this bird was once called the rufous-sided towhee but several years ago it was split from the more western population and what emerged was two species: the eastern (Pipilo erythrophthalmus) and the spotted towhee (Pipilo maculatus). Apparently, they knew the difference all along, it just took us awhile to catch up.

Wayne's photo is of the male eastern, the female is brown in the places that he is black. But, they already know that. I wonder if they know the difference between the New World sparrows and Old World sparrows. Or does it even matter?

N'est-ce pas?

- Photo by Wayne Mallinger

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thankful for pumkin'

2011-11-24T06:05:00.007-05:00

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Pumpkins have always been a part of our Thanksgiving holiday. The first festival in 1621 brought together the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag, the Indian tribe who helped the Plymouth Colonists adapt to their harsh new land. The first feast was composed of fish, duck, geese, wild turkey, venison, cornbread with nuts, succotash—an Algonquian dish of shelled beans and green corn—and for dessert, pumpkin stewed in maple sap.

This last item interested me.

What would such a dish taste like? To find out, a few years ago, I bought a locally grown "cooking" pumpkin from a produce vendor. Since maple sap is a little hard to come by at this time of the year, I next purchased a jug of pure, organically grown maple syrup from the local Food Co-Op. To make sap, I diluted the syrup with water which is what producers of maple syrup do, except in reverse.

To be authentic, I built a fire in the fireplace and stewed chunks of pumpkin in the maple sap. After about a hour and half the dish was done. The pumpkin dessert had the look and consistency of spiced apples but its color was more orange. It was surprisingly good although somewhat smoky tasting.

Now, I wonder what kind of nuts the Pilgrims put in their holiday cornbread.

Happy Thanksgiving.

- Photo by Wayne Mallinger. Thanks.

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brown-headed anomaly

2011-11-22T05:55:00.029-05:00

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Pines at Louisville Point Park

You look for the anomalies. The things out of place.

Life's little mysteries.

Brown-headed nuthatches are not supposed to be in my part of the world. Check the range maps, most of the Southeast but not Tennessee. Not here, the pine forests to the south. They feed on pine nuts, the edible seeds from the genus Pinus. (Genus Pinus. You can write for a lifetime and never use that phrase more than thrice; I've already used it twice in this one post.)

The first time I saw the active brown-noggin pixies was in South Carolina north of Charleston. Yet, not far from my house as the crow flies, or even walks if it has a mind to, there's a small peninsula—Louisville Point Park—surrounded by Lake Loudoun that has a cluster of pines not that much larger than Uncle Buck's cornfield where you can routinely find the petite nuthatches. Why do they like it, who knows? They are certainly not talking. "No comment," they squeak.

Cayenne and I found them there on Sunday. Go figure.

Better yet, go see 'em.

Nuthatch food

Brown-headed Nuthatch. Photo by Ken Thomas

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stabilimenta?

2011-11-20T06:49:00.001-05:00

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I lucked out last week when I took this photo of an orb web; the individual strands of silk illuminated by the early morning sunlight. Normally an orb web is practically invisible. That’s why they are such effective traps.

But there’s one group of orb weavers—the writing spiders—that decorate their creations with highly visible patterns. These conspicuous silk structures are called “stabilimenta” or singular: stabilimentum, a great word to drop into any casual conversation.

Why go to so much trouble making a normally invisible web visible?

Why indeed?

Theories vary. And the weavers themselves are mute on the topic. Writing spiders like the ones in the genus Argiope tend to be brightly colored and they often position themselves in the center of the web. The stabilimenta may help camouflage the orb-weaver or make them look larger. The patterns also reflect UV light, which may serve as a lure to possible prey. Plus, the pattern may help keep birds from flying through the web, tearing it down.

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lone leaf

2011-11-18T06:22:00.005-05:00

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Cold. Cold. Wet and rainy. Dreary. Midnight deary. While I pondered weak and weary. The last of the autumn leaves are still clinging to the trees as the first taste of winter has come gently rapping at my chamber door.

And I’m not ready to let go of fall, but when am I ever? Breakin' up is hard to do, but you have to let go of one to welcome the joys of another. You move on, that is life on planet Earth. You simply move on, even when it hurts.

One of the most emotive parts of Stephen Altschuler’s book, Sacred Paths and Muddy Places, comes late.

“Millions of leaves had been falling, but never had I isolated in my awareness any one leaf’s leaving the twig to which it had clung. The importance of this sighting had to do with missing another of nature’s most significant events: the moment of the death of a leaf,” he writes.

“So the watching began, and it lasted a long time, focusing intently on one particular leaf, not knowing how long the release would take. An hour went by, then a second hour—a trance-like hour concentrating on that leaf. At times the distinction between leaf and self blurred. Scary stuff, losing boundaries, but the seeing provided the anchor to reality.”

“Finally, without fanfare, the leaf fell, swirling to the ground. I rose slowly, never losing sight of it, and picked it up: a maple leaf, crinkled and brown, drained of life, dead, but somehow a part of the part of me that sees—the part that understands what it sees not in words but in feelings. That part remained alive regardless of circumstance, for in nature, its death would lead to life.”

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fading colors

2011-11-16T06:39:00.001-05:00

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Skewered like a loggerhead shrike's grasshopper, this sweet gum leaf is impaled on a rose's thorn.

The sweet gums are some of the few trees that are still hanging onto a few of their leaves, their colors. But that will soon change.

After Thomas Jefferson made the Louisiana Purchase that, in effect, doubled the size of the United States, the new territory had to be surveyed. All of the territory east of the Mississippi River had been plotted and four meridians established. Surveyors Prospect K. Robbins and Joseph C. Brown were sent to establish the Fifth Meridian.

At a site located in a black water swamp that was ninety-one degrees, three minutes and forty-two seconds West of Greenwich at a latitude of thirty-four degrees they established a starting point. This spot originally marked by two sweet gums is the beginning for all lands in Arkansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Oklahoma, the Dakotas, Nebraska, and most of Kansas, Colorado, Montana and Minnesota.

Today the location is marked by a rock in Louisiana Purchase State Park near Blackton, Arkansas.

- Photo at Ijams Nature Center.

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7 wonders

2011-11-14T06:34:00.001-05:00

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The on-line msnbc website has just posted a new 7 Wonders of Nature as voted on by millions of people from around the world. And surprise, surprise. I've never been to any of them, so I have a lot to look forward to in the next 30 years.

My bags are packed!

For the list go to: New7Wonders.

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bear jam?

2011-11-12T01:16:00.001-05:00

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Cades Cove in the Smokies

Growing up in the Great Smoky Mountains, I'm somewhat accustomed to bear jams—traffic moving as slowly as preserved fruit because someone up ahead has seen a black bear ambling near the road.

Last month my Mom and I were driving the one-way scenic loop around Cades Cove when the traffic came to a stop, we then proceeded inches at a time for the next hour. Inches. Bicyclists passed us on the right; a park ranger passed us on foot on the left. Still the traffic snail-paced along.

Ultimately, we reached the front of the line, and discovered what was causing the slow down: not a bear ambling by the road but three bears up an oak eating green acorns.

The ranger would not allow me to stop but I did manage to shoot one frame over my left shoulder.

It did occur to me that this was not a typical bear jam, it was much slower, thus prompting me to come up with a new set of nomenclature to describe the "sluggishness" of the traffic as it slows to look at a Smoky Mountain black bear.

No bear.....................35+ mph

Bear Beer..................35 mph

Bear Dark Ale.............25 mph

Bear Custard..............15 mph

Bear Jelly....................5 mph

Bear Jam....................3 mph

Bear Cheesecake......300 feet per hour

Bear Pâté................100 feet per hour

Bear Fruitcake...........50 feet per hour

Bear Aged Cheddar......Dead Stop

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salute

2011-11-11T11:11:00.006-05:00

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I would be remiss this Veterans Day not to salute the serviceman nearest and dearest to my own heart: my late father Russell Bales, part of what journalist Tom Brokaw calls "The Greatest Generation." And who would argue with him?

Near the end of World War II, Dad served in the U.S. Navy in the Pacific on the USS Yuma, an ocean-going tug.

The Yuma went to sea to tow damaged ships to port that could not return under their own power.

Dad was 16-years-old when this photo was taken; too young for service, too young to be so far from home, too young for battle. But wars are fought by young men and boys.

And for that, we salute all vets on this holiday that commemorates your courage and sacrifice.

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the charm of hummers

2011-11-08T06:25:00.005-05:00

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I spoke to Sandra Mouron from Greenback at the height of the hummingbird migration. Now that things have settled down, and the hummers are more or less gone for another year, Sandra had time to mail me a photo.

It shows the side of her house that had six feeders and, to my count, a charm of 21 ruby-throated hummingbirds. The opposite side of her house had four feeders and roughly the same amount of the feathered pixies.

The books say that for every one you see (or photograph) there are probably three waiting just out of sight. At the height of migration Sandra was using two gallons of sugar-water every day.

That's two gallons! Yes. It was a good year for hummers.

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at home LeConte

2011-11-06T06:42:00.005-05:00

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Mt LeConte in the Great Smoky Mountains

The seasons are beginning to mingle. For weeks, fall colors have flowed with slow restraint down the slopes like the tears of a geisha; while last week, a light snow dusted the higher elevations. The first kiss of winter, as soft as a lover's touch, covered Mt. LeConte above Gatlinburg, my hometown.

Thomas Wolfe wrote "you can't go home again." He meant that things change. After you leave, it's never the same. Yet, perhaps he was wrong, Asheville is on the other side of the mountains; here Mt. LeConte still looms.

I grew up in the foothills south of downtown Gatlinburg as did my father Russell, as did his father Homer, as did his father Jim, as did his father Caleb. I come from a long line of hillbillies, mountain men, and the mountain that has loomed over all those lives is Mt. LeConte.

Its silhouette is recognizable as the mountain with four peaks. At 6,593 feet, High Top, the second peak from the left, is the third highest point in the Smokies, topped only by Clingman's Dome at 6,643 and Mt. Guyot at 6,621.

Chet Raymo writes in The Path, "If we don't belong somewhere, we belong nowhere. If we are not attached to a particular landscape, we might as well be adrift in space...The place we learn to love can be a windowsill in a New York high-rise, a patch of woods on Walden Pond, or a million acres of the high Sierras. What's important is that we feel at home.

I feel at home at the base of this old mountain.

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golden drive

2011-11-04T06:41:00.018-04:00

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To every thing there is a season,

and a time to every purpose under the heaven:

A time to be born, and a time to die;

a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;

A time to kill, and a time to heal;

a time to break down, and a time to build up;

A time to weep, and a time to laugh;

a time to mourn, and a time to dance;

A time to cast away stones,

and a time to gather stones together;

a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;

A time to get, and a time to lose;

a time to keep, and a time to cast away;

A time to rend, and a time to sew;

a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;

A time to love, and a time to hate;

a time of war, and a time of peace.

And every year, there's a perfectly golden time

to drive through the Great Smokies.

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 with addendum

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sapsucker? yes

2011-11-02T06:56:00.016-04:00

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Yellow-bellied sapsucker

And speaking of woodpeckers:

Tiffiny Hamlin emails,"We were photographing a new family of blue birds at our bird bath when I saw something move in the magnolia tree about three feet from our back door. When I turned to look this is what I saw.

"I tried to reset my camera settings and get a picture of it but once we saw each other he only stuck around long enough for me to get two blurry shots. There have always woodpecker holes in the this tree but I have never actually seen a woodpecker in it! I think, based on the pattern of the holes, that they were made by a yellow-bellied sapsucker. Is that was this is? If so, is it odd for it to be so close to the house...and people? I always thought they were rather skittish birds."

Yep. That's a sapsucker. Rather scruffy, almost dirty looking—like Charlie Brown's friend Pigpen—although this one is probably a first year female just molting into her more snappy adult plumage she'll be sporting next spring. It's the vertical white stripe down the folded wing and overall yellowish tint that I look for. Tiffiny even managed to get a photo with a few sapsucker wells in it.

Yellow-bellied sapsuckers are the only woodpecker in our area solely in winter and the only one interested in living trees. They are also fairly common, even near our homes, and, to my mind, less skittish than hairy woodpeckers. They also revisit their active wells, keeping them open a oozing sap.

Thanks, Tiffiny.

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an imperial moment

2011-10-30T06:37:00.027-04:00

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Female imperial woodpecker and
Ijams executive director Paul James

And speaking of ghost birds, which I often do. Paul James and I visited the archives at the Smithsonian's Museum of Natural History in 2005.

We were there to see their ivory-billed woodpecker and passenger pigeon specimens. Chilling sight, so many study skins lying in wooden trays, most collected in the late 1800s and early 1900s when everyone wanted to own something rarer than St. Elmo's fire.

"Endangered species" wasn't a term in use yet, they were referred to as "vanishing species." They weren't endangered, they were disappearing, so let's get one. Wildlife conservation was decades away. And over the years the various collected dead things, preserved with toe tags, have been donated to the Smithsonian. There they lay in aeternum et semper.

Just before we left the archives, Paul asked curator James Dean, "Do you have an imperial woodpecker?"

"Sure," he said, "I'll go get it."

Native to the mountains of Mexico, the imperial (Campephilus imperialis) is closely related to the ivory-billed woodpecker (Campephilus principalis).

When Dean returned he had an amazing specimen of a female imperial mounted on a log.

Wow!

And now a historic home movie taken in 1956 by William Rhein, a dentist from Pennsylvania, has been discovered and released by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Perhaps the last or one of the last sightings of the lordly species on its home range.

Did I say "Wow!"?

Go to: imperial

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natural histories: feathers

2011-10-28T06:54:00.002-04:00

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"Her dark fingers worked nimbly with the innate accuracy that can only be achieved by doing the same highly skilled task over and over. Or perhaps it was cultural knowledge and her hands simply knew what to do. Beside her lay a pile of soft and wide contour feathers. A closer inspection of the heap would have also revealed a multitude of earth tones: bronze, gold, amber, rust, umber, copper, terra cotta; colors that looked good against the Native American’s burnt sienna skin.

Using strands of tree bark, she lashed the lower shaft of each feather—known as the calamus—to a network of plant fibers, an interwoven foundation that in itself took hours to weave…In the end, she stood up and wrapped her creation around her shoulders checking its length. She was pleased. "

Excerpt from Natural Histories published by the University of Tennessee Press

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fiery palette

2011-10-26T06:31:00.008-04:00

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Every year there's a debate about which tree produces the best fall color: sweet gum, sumac, sassafras, etc.

Most seem to agree it's one the maples, and I concur, at least at this moment in time. If you ask me tomorrow, my answer may have changed.

During yesterday's drive home, the sugar maples along Woodlawn Pike were awash with green to red to orange to gold to yellow, as the green chlorophylls begin to break down unveiling the carotenoid and anthocyanin pigments that lie hidden underneath. A fiery, impressionist palette. Painterly like the plein-air landscapes of Monet, too bold in color to be real. But real, indeed they are.

I wonder: Do sugar maples grow in Monet's Garden at Giverny in France? Should I send them one?

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confidence

2011-10-24T06:20:00.000-04:00

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“I land at Pinxter Swamp. The leaves of the azaleas are falling, mostly fallen, and revealing the large blossom-buds, so prepared are they for another year. With man all is uncertainty. He does not confidently look forward to another spring. But examine the root of the savory-leaved aster, and you will find the new shoots, fair purple shoots, which are to curve upward and bear the next year’s flowers, already grown half an inch or more in earth. Nature is confident.”

Even if sometimes we are not.

- Henry David Thoreau, journal entry dated October 12, 1858

- Photo taken at Ijams Nature Center

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home turf

2011-10-18T08:30:00.015-04:00

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Carolina wren

I poise this question: Is there anything harsher sounding and/or more fussy than a scolding Carolina wren? I have two—one on each side, in stereophonic sound—scolding me on MY front porch for being an intruder as I write this dispatch.

They seem to think of it as their front porch, yet, I pay the mortgage. Of course, these may be two of the clutch that were hatched and raised in a nestbox on my front porch six feet from where I'm sitting.

You think they think of it as their front porch? Territory they want to defend.

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trip to bountiful

2011-10-16T19:44:00.000-04:00

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Flowering dogwood gets a lot of attention around these parts every April. Heck, we even have an art festival named in its honor.

But, for my money, it’s the fall when these trees put on their grandest display.

Recently I watched a group of white-throated sparrows and a female Eastern towhee take particular delight in the bright red dogwood berries. Many of the trees I’ve encountered this fall have been loaded, it seems to be a good year for soft mast.

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orphaned

2011-10-14T06:38:00.025-04:00

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I just heard from Lynne Davis.

Get this: Her husband Bob found an abandoned orphan and just had to bring it home. We have all been in similar situations.

What was it? A potted prickly pear cactus, sitting by the side of the road, as lonesome and forlorn as Oliver Twist...Dickens writes, "even they, with the hand of death upon them, have been known to yearn at last for one short glimpse of Nature’s face, and, carried far from the scenes of their old pains and pleasures, have seemed to pass at once into a new state of being."

Makes you wonder: Who would cast out a cactus? Deliver it to the hand of death? And take the time to drive somewhere else to do it like it's an unwanted bluetick. Granted a cacti doesn't have an agreeable temperament, they can be sort of prickly.

Although there are several species of prickly pear, only one occurs naturally in my part of the world, the only native cactus in the Southeast: Eastern prickly pear, Opuntia humifusa. The red fruits, commonly called cactus figs, are edible although they have to be peeled carefully to remove the small spines on the outer skin before consumption.

Lynne also writes, "Yeah, we're big adopters of orphans. I have an asparagus fern I rescued from the church dumpster. The asparagus fern has survived several years now, and spent the summer on the back porch, where it bloomed and even set fruit, little pea-sized red berries."

Thanks, Lynne.

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zombie juice

2011-10-12T06:31:00.011-04:00

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Angel's trumpet

Continuing our series of plants to keep off your buffet, this one may not drop you dead in your tracks but it could render you senseless: out-of-it, zombie-fied.

Often found on lists of the world's Ten Most Dangerous Plants, angel's trumpet is no heavenly agent.

To paraphrase the Popular Mechanics website, the droopy, gorgeous angel trumpet (genus: Brugmansia, multiple species), native to regions of South America, packs a powerful punch of toxins containing atropine, hyoscyamine and scopolamine, [yielding a potent cocktail] that leaves victims unaware of what they are doing but entirely conscious. (I haven't been in such a state since college.)

Scopolamine can be absorbed through the skin and mucous membranes, allowing evil-doers to simply blow the powdered plant into a victim's face. There is apparently one documented account of a zombie-fied man moving all of his possessions out of his apartment (and into the hands of his robbers) without remembering any of it. Does that make him an accomplice to the crime? Let's ask Judge Judy.

Yep. It's zombie juice. Stay away!

- Photo taken at an undisclosed location for fear zombies may overrun my part of town and what with the baseball playoffs, I really don't want to deal with it.

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Amphibians of Tennessee

2011-10-10T07:03:00.017-04:00

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Thursday, October 13

Ijams Nature Center and the University of Tennessee Press will host a book signing to celebrate the release of The Amphibians of Tennessee ($39.95, University of Tennessee Press).

The book was written by University of Tennessee doctoral candidates Matthew Niemiller and R. Graham Reynolds.

The book signing and reception begins at 4 pm in the Ijams Visitor Center. For more information about the book go to: www.utpress.org.

Check out the book website at http://www.amphibiansoftn.com

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kitty mama

2011-10-08T06:57:00.018-04:00

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Young birds imprinting on other animals (even humans) and following them around as though they were their parents is a common story you often read about, but what about babies that imprint on other babies?

Debbie Cavanaugh's email read:

I had unexpected overnight guests last night:

At about 6:45 last night, an orange tabby kitten walked into my front yard, followed by...a duck! I know, I know, a cat, a duck and a rabbi walked into a.... no I'm getting sidetracked.

The little duck is imprinted on the cat and follows him everywhere. You should have seen it running across the yard with its little wing stubs flapping like mad, trying to catch up with the cat. It peeps like crazy if kitty isn't in sight and cleans him up after eating.

Both are very friendly and enjoy being held and petted. Kitty is about four months old? Duck is of unknown parentage—but I have learned after talking to several wildlife people that it is wild. They enjoyed an evening in my garage. After a big plate of cat food, plus a cricket for the duck, they immediately fell asleep and slept all night. The duck peeps in his sleep (peep-snoring)! After breakfast this morning, they settled in again and were napping when I left the house.

I haven't found any "missing cat and duck" listings, and after many, many phone calls and web searches this morning, I found a home for the duck with a wildlife rehabilitator. She thinks ducky will be OK without the cat and she and her husband will love on it a lot tonight to make sure it doesn't pine for its companion.

We'll keep in touch in case someone reports them missing. I'll keep the kitty for a while to make sure he isn't lost, [Debbie has named it Ginger Baker. Those alive in the '60s will understand the reference.] then I will vet him and find him a home. [I'm not sure if the original Ginger Baker received such kindnesses, although the cream of drummers is still very much alive so perhaps he did.]

I feel honored to have been their temporary guardian!

Thanks, Debbie.

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Union Ave book signing

2011-10-06T07:54:00.025-04:00

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Help me celebrate being in Audubon magazine. (The same issue has an interview with Steve Martin. So perhaps the issue is laying on Steverino's coffee table right now.) What a thrill! Perhaps, he's even using it as a coaster. Nah. Steve doesn't seem to be the kind of guy who would tolerate unsightly rings on his magazine covers. (Stephen Glenn, Stephen Lyn. Notice the similarities? Two wild and crazy guys. Well, Steve is actually wild and crazy. I'm sort of mild and hazy like the weather forecast.)

Join me at Union Ave Books. I'll be talking about Ghost Birds: Jim Tanner and the Ivorybill: the book about ghostly birds is a fitting topic for October—movie rights are still available Steve; Jim Tanner went prematurely gray as well—and other lost birds plus signing my books about such naturey things this Friday from 6 to 8 PM. Stop by and say hello. If Steve happens to be at your house, bring him along.

Union Ave Books is located at 517 Union Avenue in downtown Knoxville. For more information, call 865-951-2180.

Thanks, Flossie!

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potato time

2011-10-04T07:31:00.008-04:00

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Shan yao (Dioscorea oppositifolia)

I've blogged about air potato—a.k.a. Chinese yam, a.k.a. Shan yao, a.k.a tater vine—before, when the plants were just starting to leaf out: small, heart-shaped, full of youth and vigor.

Now, the leaves are beginning to fade, and it's air potato time; tiny, little tater time.The fruits are actually called bulbils. (Don't you love that word?) I wonder if you could make small potato chips from these pea-sized spuds.

-Photo taken along Will Skelton Greenway near the Tennessee River in Knoxville

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seen from above

2011-10-02T05:13:00.003-04:00

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"A dead beetle lies on the path through the field.

Three pairs of legs folded neatly on its belly.

Instead of death's confusion, tidiness and order.

The horror of this sight is moderate,

its scope is strictly local, from the wheat grass to the mint.

The grief is quarantined.

The sky is blue.

To preserve our peace of mind, animals die
more shallowly: they aren't deceased, they're dead.
They leave behind, we'd like to think, less feeling and less world,
departing, we suppose, from a stage less tragic.
Their meek souls never haunt us in the dark,
they know their place,
they show respect."

I've posted from this poem once before, but added another verse, simply because all around me, I see the signs of the approaching winter. Death.

- From the poem "Seen From Above" by Nobel Prize winning poet Wislawa Szymborska

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good ruby year

2011-09-30T06:41:00.008-04:00

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Ruby-throated Hummingbird (Archilochus colubris)

From the heaviest bird routinely found in my area (see yesterday's post) to the lightest...

I have had several phone calls and e-mails this year about ruby-throated hummingbirds. Apparently, it's been a good year for them. Large flocks—called charms, isn't that wonderful?—are appearing in backyards on their migration to their winter range in Central and South America. It's a long way to fly if you only weigh three grams.

Beautiful, dynamic, Lilliputian creatures.

I especially like the e-mails that come with pictures. These two were taken by Tiffiny Hamlin, who has sent me photos before.

Thanks, Tiffiny!

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Oh Canada

2011-09-28T07:48:00.005-04:00

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Canada Goose (Branta canadensis)

"'OH CANADA, WE STAND ON GUARD FOR THEE'.......like offering a stranger a drink of water, and they never leave. It's fall and the pond is filling up with guests," writes my friend Wayne Mallinger.

Once upon a midnight dreary, Canada geese only passed through our state in the spring and fall migrating to warmer climes in the South to spend their winters. But, somewhere along the line they realized the middle latitudes were commodious year round.

When I was a child, the first BIG book on birds we had in our home, Pearson's Birds of America originally published in 1917, states, "The great breeding grounds of this Goose are in the British provinces, few, if any, of the eastern flight pausing in spring south of the Canadian border."

Today, they have become ubiquitous in Tennessee and we tend to look past them, but Wayne's photo shows how big and powerful they truly are.

Depending on which book you consult, there are six or seven separate sub-species or populations only varying in size and location. The ones farther north are bigger. Sibley lists six groups: Aleutian, Richardson's, cackling, lesser, dusky and the widespread "common."

As Wayne's photo illustrates, they are so large, when they take off from land or water, Canada geese have to run a step or two before they can lift off. This makes them look like they are walking on water. Impressive either here or in Canada.

- Photo by Wayne Mallinger

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to just flutter by

2011-09-26T06:51:00.047-04:00

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Tiger swallowtail

Also, this time of the year, the tiger swallowtails start to look somewhat ragged. Scales thin, wings tattered, yellow faded. Such delicate creatures. Tissue paper origami braving the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. The rain. The sun. The hungry jays.

My God, what a scant existence.

But, yet, to be a butterfly for a week or even two, from blossom to blossom, sweet joy to sweet joy. Such pleasure. Such freedom.

"Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away."

So, in the end, isn't all life fleeting on this rocky planet four billion years old? At least the happy moments, fleeting? The moments of pure, fervent joy? The moments we feel truly alive? So few and far between. So hard to hold onto, as vaporous as a flutter-bys life.

Isn't it all of life just a flutter-by?

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the torch doth burn

2011-09-24T06:17:00.026-04:00

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Margined soldier beetles (Chauliognathus marginatus)

Before the weather turns harsh, there seems to be a rush to mate, lay eggs and die. A scene fitting of Shakespeare, "Oh, happy dagger! This is thy sheath; there rust, and let me die!"

Everywhere I looked the other day, margined soldier beetles seemed to be coupling, especially on the blooming white frostweed.

Was it tawdry of me to take photos?

Well, yes, it probably was since I'm now posting their intimate moment for the world to see.

So, forget you saw this and move on but remember "This is the place; there, where the torch doth burn."

And with this, Juliet dies. But she laid no eggs.

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it's a birdfeeder!

2011-09-22T06:24:00.033-04:00

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American pokeweed (Phytolacca americana)

Call me crazy. Say I’m lost in left field. Say some checkers have fallen off my board, the par has gone from my cheesi but American pokeweed makes a wonderful addition to your backyard landscaping.

Yes, I know most people think of it as a weed and yank it up in the spring or cook its tender young leaves before they develop their mid-life toxicity—and yes, most parts of the plant are toxic to humans so if you have young children I'd avoid it—but this time of the year it’s decked out in autumnal splendor: yellow leaves, bright magenta stems and, if that weren’t enough, burgundy berries the color of red wine festoon off the plant like holiday decorations.

Nurtured and loved, it can grow to a height of ten feet and simply become a stunningly beautiful plant.

Plus, birds love the berries. Love. Love. Love. The other day I watched a normally secretive gray catbird, present itself and eat as many berries as it could gobble down. The merlot-colored fruits are also eaten by cardinals, thrashers and mockingbirds.

So, if you get my drift, don’t think of it as a weed; it’s a colorful birdfeeder!

Gray catbird

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fresh jellies

2011-09-20T06:45:00.007-04:00

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On an Ijams canoe trip on Mead's Quarry Lake that I led last Saturday we found an unexpected curiosity: ghostly freshwater jellyfish! (Craspedacusta sowerbyi)

First reported in the South Knoxville quarry lake in 1997, I didn't expect to find them so late in the season. I associate the coin-sized medusas (ma-DOO-zuhs, say it slow, don't you just love the sound of that word?) with the hot days of late summer.

For the complete story go to: jellies.

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hearts a-bustin

2011-09-18T10:26:00.001-04:00

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The common name of this shrub refers to the plant's seed pods which are now ripe and a-bustin'. Once the seeds have matured, the red capsules burst, scattering the orange seeds up to 15 feet. Bam!

Known in the Smoky Mountains by the folk name hearts a-bustin', Euonymus americanus is now doing just that: bustin'. A quick shower this week only added to the plant's apparent pathos.

If you know anything about the lives of the mountaineers who lived in the hollows of the Great Smokies before the coming of the national park, you know their hearts were often broken, mostly by the early deaths of loved ones. Their lives were hard, insular; their cemeteries are filled with tombstones of people who died much too young. Mourning was a routine facet of their lives. They wore black. They grieved. They buried their dead. Finding a photograph of one of them smiling is impossible.

But who hasn't felt such heartbreak? Such a-bustin'?

I know of their hardships. The cemeteries at the foot of Mt. LeConte are filled with my ancestors. One, near the Rolling Fork Motor Nature Trail, is actually named the Bales Cemetery. I had an uncle named Maferd I never met who is buried there. He died the same day he was born: November 22, 1923.

Short life, but at least his hardship was brief. Broke his parents hearts. Homer and Pearl. Their first child.

Yes, hearts a-bustin'.

- photo taken about twelve feet from my front porch.

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horses beware

2011-09-16T09:59:00.019-04:00

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Margined blister beetle, Epicauta pestifera

Cantharidin. Can-thar-i-din.

It's a poisonous chemical, a bitter crystalline compound that causes blistering of the skin and is often used medially to remove warts. Should you need to mix up a batch of the blistering agent in your basement, it's C10H12O4 or ten parts carbon, twelve parts hydrogen and four parts oxygen, hold the mayo.

Naturally occurring, cantharidin is a toxic oily liquid secreted by blister beetles when they are threatened, picked up or forced to watch a movie like any of the Smokey and the Bandit offerings. Sally, what were you thinking?

There are approximately 7,500 known species worldwide, so there's a lot of blistering going on out there. The one I encountered and photographed was ash gray, but other species are brightly colored, announcing their toxicity to would-be predators.

The blister beetle genus Epicauta—and the one I found with Rikki Hall and a group from Ijams is perhaps Epicauta pestifera, the margined blister beetle—is generally found in farm fields. Their larvae feed on the eggs of grasshoppers, which I would imagine are enormously hard to find but I'm not a blister beetle larva. I have trouble finding my keys every morning.

As adults, blister beetles are highly toxic to horses. A few consumed in a single feeding of alfalfa hay may be lethal. So if you follow this blog and are fond of eating alfalfa, beware.

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