nature calling: Hopi

"excellent writer, very humorous speaker"

- Crossville Chronicle

• Fifth generation Smoky
Mountain hillbilly

(Caleb to Jim to Homer to Russell to moi with a lot of help from Elizabeth, Emma, Pearl and Mary Helen)

• Pi Beta Phi Elementary School, Gatlinburg-Pittman High School, East Tennessee State University & the University of Tennessee

• Author of three books for the University of Tennessee Press: Natural Histories and Ghost Birds (Jim Tanner and the ivorybills), plus the new Ephemeral by Nature. In the works: Bad Dads/Good Fathers and Gatlinburg: Timber Town to Mountain Resort.

Book Talks & other

2015
Sun. Jan 25, 12:00 PM
Hawks of the Smokies @ WWW Pigeon Forge
Tues. Jan 27, 12:15 PM
IDing Local Birds of Prey @ WWW Pigeon Forge
Wed. Jan 28, 12:00 PM
Audubon's "Birds of America" @ WWW Pigeon Forge
Thurs, Jan 29, 2 PM
Ghost Birds: Tanner & the Ivorybill @ WWW Pigeon Forge
Thurs. Jan 29, 4:30 PM
Secrets of Backyard Birds @ WWW Pigeon Forge
Sat. Feb 28
Audubon's "Birds of America" @ Rose Glen Literary Festival, Sevierville
Thurs. Apr 23 Audubon's "Birds of America" @ Wildflower Pilgrimage, Gatlinburg
Sat. May 9
Secrets of Backyard Birds @ Tremont

2014
Sat. Jan 25, 2:30 PM
TN Owls & Woodpeckers @ WWW Pigeon Forge
Mon. Jan 27, 1:30 PM
Audubon's "Birds of America" @ WWW Pigeon Forge
Wed. Jan 29, 2:30 PM
Secrets of Backyard Birds @ WWW Pigeon Forge
Thurs, Jan 30, 3 PM
Ghost Birds: Tanner & the Ivorybill @ WWW Pigeon Forge
Fri. Jan 31, 12:30 PM
IDing Local Birds of Prey @ WWW Pigeon Forge
Sat. Feb 22
Rose Glen Literary Festival @ Sevierville
Sat. May 10
Secrets of Backyard Birds @ Tremont
Thurs, May 29, 6 PM
Audubon's "Birds of America"
Keynote Speaker: Friends of the Library Annual Meeting @ Sevierville Library
Tues. Dec. 16, Noon
Ghost Birds @ Knoxville Writers' Group

2013
Sun. Jan 13, 12:30 PM

Cherokee Plants & Animals
@ WWW Pigeon Forge
Mon. Jan 14, 2:30 PM

Audubon's "Birds of America"

@ WWW Pigeon Forge
Tues. Jan 15, 3 PM

IDing Local Birds of Prey

@ WWW Pigeon Forge
Sat. Feb 16, 4 PM
Attracting 20 Common Birds @ Dogwood Arts House & Garden Show
Sat. Feb 23: 10 AM
Rose Glen Literary Fest, Sevierville
Thurs, Mar 14: 7 PM
Ghost Birds for Atlanta Audubon Society @ Chattahoochee Nature Center
Tue. Apr 9: 7:15 PM
Ghost Birds @ Institute at Tremont Great Smokies
Fri. Apr 19: 6 PM
Ghost Birds @ Herndon Chapter TOS Johnson City

2012
Thurs. May 24
Keynote Speaker @ Annual Cumberland County Friends of the Library Author Luncheon: Crossville Arts Circle Library
Fri. June 1, 6-8 PM
Foothills Land Conservancy-Land Trust Day @ Mast General Store
Sun. July 8: 2 PM
Ghost Birds @ UT McClung Museum
Tue. Dec. 18: 6 PM
Ghost Birds • Foothills Land Conservancy

E-mail me for bookings

Natural Histories References

Science books: my favorites to look for

•

The Evolution of Beauty

by Richard Prum

The Song of the Dodo

by David Quammen

In the Shadow of Man

by Jane Goodall

People of the Lake

by Richard Leakey

The Wauchula Woods Accord
by Charles Siebert
The Invention of Clouds
by Richard Hamblyn
Lucy: The Beginnings of Humankind
by Donald Johanson
A Gap in Nature
by Flannery & Schouten

The Diversity of Life
by E. O. Wilson

The Reluctant Mr. Darwin

by David Quammen

The Beak of the Finch

by Jonathan Weiner

The Ghost with Trembling Wings

by Scott Weidensaul

Unearthing the Dragon
by Mark Norell
Copernicus' Secret

by Jack Repcheck
The Map that Changed the World by Simon Winchester
The Measure of all Things by Ken Alder

Plus favorites about birds & birding

•

What the Robin Knows
by Jon Young
Atlas of Rare Birds

by Dominic Couzens

The Feather Quest

by Pete Dunne

Kingbird Highway
by Kenn Kaufman

The Bluebird Effect

by Julie Zickefoose
Living on the Wind

by Scott Weidensaul

The Wisdom of Birds

by T.R. Birkhead

The Grail Bird

by Tim Gallagher

Spix's Macaw

by Tony Juniper
Songbird Journeys

by Miyoko Coco Chu
The Carolina Parakeet

by Noel F.R. Snyder

Life in the Skies

by Jonathan Rosen

A Shadow and a Song

by Mark Jerome Walters
Return of the Osprey

by David Gessner

The Big Year

by Mark Obmascik

In Search of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker by Jerome Jackson

Red-Tails in Love

by Marie Winn

Recent visits from

• Klang, Malaysia
• Arica, Chile

• Tallinn, Estonia
• Bondy, France
• Zaventem, Belgium
• Bangalore, India
• Karachi, Pakistan
• Ryde, New South Wales
• Göteborg, Sweden
• Khabarovsk, Russia
• Bekasi, Indonesia
• Robilante, Italy
• Maastricht, Netherlands
• Smethwick, GB
• Brasília, Brazil
• Kiev, Ukraine
• Shanghai, China
• Istanbul, Turkey
• Zagreb, Croatia

• Vihtavuori, Finland
• Pazardjik, Bulgaria
• Taichung City, Taiwan
• Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
• Quezon City, Philippines
• São Paulo, Brazil
• St. John's, Newfoundland
• Luanda, Angola
• Phnom Penh, Cambodia
• Cebu, Philippines

Favorite quotes

•

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

•

The world, I have come to believe, is a very queer place, but we have been a part of the queerness for so long that we tend to take it for granted. We rush to and fro like Mad Hatters on our peculiar errands, all the time imaging our surroundings to be dull and ourselves quite ordinary creatures." Loren Eiseley from "The Star Thrower."

•
The naturalist's journey has only begun and for all intents and purposes will go on forever...as the exploration is pressed, it will engage more of the things close to the human heart and spirit.
- from Biophilia by E. O. Wilson (b 1929)

•
Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all. Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know. John Keats, "Ode on a Grecian Urn"

The good thing about science is that it's true whether or not you believe in it. - Neil deGrasse Tyson

Nature is the standard for truth and beauty. - Bernd Heinrich

"It's a strange fact about science that until an object or a phenomenon receives a name in some way it does not exist. Names really matter. They retrieve something from the endless chaos of anonymity into a world of lists, inventories and classification. The next stage is to understand their meaning." - Richard Fortey, Horseshoe Crabs and Velvet Worms: The story of the animals and plants that time has left behind.

Life is most precious when its unity and rarity are recognized, and we are among the rarest of things." - from "Written in Stone" by Brian Switek

"And some certain significance lurks in all things, else all things are little worth, and the round world itself but an empty cipher, except to sell by the cartload, as they do hills about Boston, to fill up some morass in the Milky Way." - Herman Melville, Moby-Dick

The naturalist's journey has only begun and for all intents and purposes will go on forever...as the exploration is pressed, it will engage more of the things close to the human heart and spirit.
- from Biophilia by E. O. Wilson (b 1929)
•
But I always think that the best way to know God is to love many things. - Vincent van Gogh
•
To the attentive eye, each moment of the year has its own beauty, and in the same field, it beholds, every hour, a picture which was never seen before, and which shall never be seen again. - from Nature by Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

•
Ecstasy is identity with all existence. - from The Snow Leopard by Peter Matthiessen (b 1927)
•
The unexamined life is not worth living. - Socrates

•
Find the good, and praise it. - Alex Hailey

•

Together, we resolved that a great nation must care for the vulnerable, and protect its people from life's worst hazards and misfortune. - President Barack Obama.

•
Almost everything in nature is so much more awe-inspiring than it first appears. - Julie Zickefoose

• I'm never at a loss for things to study or topics to write about: everything in the natural world is fair game. If I'm not intrigued and excited every time I step outside, it just means I'm not paying attention. - from Feathers by Thor Hanson

•

“To live within limits, to want one thing, or a very few things, very much and love them dearly, cling to them, survey them from every angle, become one with them—that is what makes the poet, the artist, the human being.”
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832)

“We are not rich by what we possess but by what we can do without.” - Immanuel Kant, German philosopher (1724–1804)

“Rules for Happiness: something to do, someone to love, something to hope for.” - Immanuel Kant, German philosopher (1724–1804)

“To us also, through every star, through every blade of grass, is not God made visible if we will open our minds and our eyes.” - Thomas Carlyle

I am going to refresh, to rejuvenate myself in nature. - Vincent van Gogh

"I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey work of the stars, And the pismire is equally perfect, and a grain of sand, and the egg of the wren, And the tree-toad is a chef-d'oeuvre for the highest." - Walt Whitman

"If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion." - Dalai Lama

The history of beauty in nature is a vast never-ending story. -The Evolution of Beauty: Richard Prum

"Chase your dreams as long as they'll let you." Adam Vinatieri, NFL placekicker

“No man stands so tall as when he stoops to help a child.”

--Danny Thomas

Il s'agit de saisir ce qui ne passe pas, dans ce qui passe.

•

.

Tennessee Naturalist UT Press Author blog

•

Stephen Lyn Bales

"excellent writer, very humorous speaker"

•

"fantastic. Everyone loved it...best presentation yet."

Total pageviews

1,239 Subscribers

2018 CHOICE Award

Each chapter begins with one of his delightful drawings

"Each chapter is like a conversation with the author"

"This is one seriously fantastic book."

"Another great book of nature essays"

"a wildly entertaining read you'll want to pick up again and again"

an accomplished naturalist and master story teller

...akin to a field trip led by an engaging naturalist both passionate and erudite

Oak Ridge talk

Natural Histories

"This is THE best Tennessee natural history book I've read."

"excellently researched and written in a style that is enjoyable to read"

Ghost Birds

Ghost Birds talk

Nominated: Deep South Book Prize

Smithsonian article

Ghost Birds: Reviews

Sets Tanner for the first time firmly in the pantheon of America's leading ornithologists

Cornell Review

This is a tale of heartbreak

THQ Review

Bales's tale of adventure is a model for doing environmental or scientific history

French review

Alauda: Cet ouvrage est écrit dans un style très vivant

get a true feel for Jim's daily life, his work and adventures searching remote swamps

A compelling story

"beautifully written and ineffably sad"

It made me cry at the end of the Afterward.

"I was utterly absorbed in the story of Tanner's life."

"Combining nature, biography, history, and mythos"

Captures Tanner’s determined spirit as he tracked down ornithology’s Holy Grail.

I read it in two days. It was well written and I couldn’t put it down and was sad when it was over.

"Surprised to be so enchanted!"

"What a wonderfully documented experience"

Tribute to Mom

Smoky Mountain Roots

WBIR Channel 10

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Articles to look for

"A fascinating page-turner"

this book illustrates the hard work and frustration that goes into preserving endangered species

Well written account of another tragic disaster thanks to our lovely myopic species

"This book should be read by any serious birder who has an interest in history."

"a fantastic read! Tanner's determin- ation in the field was inspiring"

"a long over due book about a man of amazing tenacity"

It's about pursuing a nobel project through sacrifice, disappointment and dogged persistence

Other reviews

Articles