foggy hum

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Young male pausing long enough to be photographed.

Hummingbirds in the fog. Could it be more fleeting?

And yes, in this case, the fog does hum.

Two cold fronts passed through in the past half week bringing rain, fog and lower temperatures. Still the fall migration of ruby-throated hummingbirds continues. 

Currently, I'm maintaining nine sugar-water feeders on my back second floor deck that is hardly big enough to park three cars: say a Toyota Prius and two Honda Civics, or the other way around. My Dad would bristle at the notion of such; we were a Ford family. So perhaps I should say, a Crown Vic and a Mustang. 

The hummingbirds come and go from the feeders, bluster and chase each other away, only to bluster again. Such speed and vigor, it's hard to count their numbers.

It is all so bittersweet knowing that in a few weeks, they will all be gone on their way to Mexico and Central America.

And my deck will be quiet again.


UPDATE: At Ijams this afternoon, we rescued a hummingbird that had flown into the Visitor Center. To hold one in your hand, is to hold one of the lightest miracles I can imagine. Only 3 grams, the same weight as two dimes. And in a month or so, it may be in Costa Rica. 

There are hummingbirds in these foggy photos but actually seeing them is another matter.

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jellies adieu

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Hardly bigger than the tips of my fingers, the jelly swims in a cup of water.

One last (? well perhaps) look at the freshwater jellyfish of 2015. With the temperatures predicted to drop to more fall like conditions this weekend, I expect the adult medusae will all but disappear. Studies have shown that they prefer water temps from 77 to 82 degrees. 

With this in mind, I held a peanut butter and jellyfish social last Sunday at the nature center. After a brief talk about the life history of Craspedacusta sowerbii—with accompanying peanut butter and jelly sandwiches—we walked the short distance to the quarry lake in the heat of the late summer day.

The people on rented paddleboards, kayaks and canoes were reporting "oodles" of jellies on the north end of the lake. We quickly filled our jar for all to see them up close, one last time.

They float, they undulate, they flutter like eyelashes. They are ever changing amorphic shapes like clouds or raindrops, highly mutable. Yet, unlike the other two, these have life; these have genders. And this is the part of their short lives when the males and females find each other.   

And since their lives run in a two year cycle, it will be 2017 before their offspring may return in such numbers.

Props to WBIR's Jim Matheny who first discovered this bloom of jellies and reported them to me three weeks ago. His report and jelly video deserves a second look: Matheny.

Jellies, adieu. 

With a name like Craspedacusta sowerbii it has to be good.

Jellyfishers

Noel and Brian from California, in town to visit their grandkids 
and share the fun of all things jelly

On the lookout

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today at Ijams

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Ijams educator Sammi Stoklosa with a jar of jellies

Celebrate Labor Day Weekend with a visit to Ijams. Here's my schedule today.

1 PM Meet the red-tailed hawk
Free to public.

2 PM Meet a friendly albino snake
Free to public.

3 PM Jellyfish Quarry History Hike
Let’s go jellyfishin’! Join me as I talk about freshwater jellyfish at the quarry lake. We'll enjoy peanut butter and JELLY sandwiches and then stroll from the nature center to the lake. With luck, we'll have captive jellyfish for all to see. This program is free for Ijams members and $5 for non-members. Please call (865) 577-4717, ext. 110 to register.

Red-tailed hawk. Photo by Chuck Cooper.

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jellies on WVLT

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The freshwater jellyfish @ Ijams made WVLT Local 8's 6 o'clock news last night. And who doesn't prefer a nice miniature aqueous critter story to a convenience store robbery or home break in?

News anchor, 30-year veteran Alan Williams, has worked for all three local TV news departments: WBIR, WATE and now WVLT. He's also from Knoxville, so he knows a good local story when he hears one.

Alan and photo journalist Keith Smith met me at Mead's Quarry Lake yesterday and we talked jelly, i.e. gelatinous umbrella-shaped bell cnidarian with trailing stinging tentacles and with adult medusa that pulsate for locomotion. So what could be more interesting than that?

For Alan's story click: Jellyfish found in East Tennessee.

WVLT News Anchor Alan Williams with co-anchor Amanda Hara

WVLT Photo Journalist Keith Smith

Paddleboarders on Mead's Quarry Lake.

The adult jellyfish medusa will be gone soon, so this weekend is a good time to rent a canoe, kayak or paddleboard from River Sports at Ijams and see them for yourself. But keep in mind, you're looking for penny-sized transparent jellies in a 25-acre lake. Patience and sharp eyes required.

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let's go jellyfish' !!

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Penny-sized freshwater jellyfish.  Photo by Chuck Cooper.

Sunday, September 6, 3 p.m.

Jellyfish Quarry History Hike at Ijams

Let’s go jellyfishin’! Join me for a talk about freshwater jellyfish at the quarry lake. We'll meet at the nature center and enjoy peanut butter and JELLY sandwiches and then stroll to the lake. With luck, we'll have captive jellyfish for all to see. This program is free for Ijams members and $5 for non-members. Please call (865) 577-4717, ext. 110 to register.
 
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freshwater jellies

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Penny-sized freshwater jellyfish.  Photo by Chuck Cooper.

WBIR's Jim Matheny is a good TV multimedia journalist. And like any good reporter, he's always searching for his next story.

On a recent day off, he rented a paddleboard from River Sports to explore Mead's Quarry Lake at Ijams. Spotting something odd and small swimming in the water, Jim had one of those "What the heck?" moments. 

The next day, a phone call or two, led him to me. And luckily, I knew "What the heck" he was talking about: Craspedacusta sowerbii, or freshwater jellyfish.

Transparent and the size of a penny, the little beasties are hard to notice and hard not to notice at the same time. They're 99 percent water and one percent simple cellular construct that somehow holds the creature together. And, yet...Pow!, the miracle of life! 

But finding them in a 25-acre lake is serendipitous, like finding a Leprechaun's pot of gold or the car keys I once lost for my 1971 Toyota Celica.  

Jim's lively jellyfish report aired this afternoon on WBIR. It's perhaps one of the smallest living things the venerable NBC affiliate has ever showcased. Watching the account, it looks like I'm the only one paddling around the lake chasing the Lilliputian invertebrates. Did I say "ephemeral"? I should. Yet, always nearby, off camera, was a red canoe that contained the story's reporter, producer, writer, editor and videographer, an entire TV crew, all housed in Jim.

He had also figured out how to get his GoPro video camera to glide smoothly underwater behind his canoe using a combination of an empty water bottle for buoyancy and wrenches for ballast. His cobbled together creation should be forever known as the "Matheny Rig." His jellyfish footage is matchless. 

To see his report, click: WBIR jellyfish

Thanks, Jim.

Jim holding his recently created "Matheny Rig" for underwater video

WBIR TV News crew

Searching for jellies.

Photos by Jim Matheny (Who else was out there?)

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mantid mating

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Praying mantises are the largest insects found in the Tennessee Valley and this is their mating season. (They already know this; I'm just letting you in on their secret.)

Once mated, the females can lay as many as 400 eggs depending on the species, perhaps even more. Who has time to count things as small as mantid eggs? The hardened egg case is called an ootheca. (Great Scrabble word! Four vowels, use it sometime.)


Praying mantises are also predators. Sometime next spring, the eggs hatch and the tiny mantids begin to prey on whatever insects they can find including their brethren and sistren.


- Photo taken at Ijams Nature Center

Mantid ootheca

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Today: mindfulness

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The Ijams Sanctuary Series is a new program at the nature center, designed to help visitors slow down and appreciate the beauty in their surroundings. 

"Shinrin-Yoku," or forest bathing, is the slow, meditative exploration of the forest using all five senses. Join me for some quiet time at 4 p.m. today. The fee for this program is $7 for Ijams members and $10 for non-members. Recommended for adults.
 
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Beth & Russell

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WBIR's Beth Haynes and Russell Biven. Photo by Eric Foxx.

For over 15 years, I've had regular chats with Beth Haynes and Russell Biven, co-hosts of WBIR's Live@5@4. Probably over 200 chats, all like any such chats between folks who have known each other that long, except our chats have been on live TV.

During that time I've brought along from Ijams, live owls, hawks, falcons, snakes, spiders, frogs, toads, opossums, beetles, spittle bugs, walkingstick bugs, caterpillars, turtles, bird nests and kids in bat suits. (Couldn't find a live bat.)

I've cooked bird suet in their kitchen. Dressed as a pirate squirrel for Halloween. Talked about feeding hummingbirds, chickadees, wrens on their porch. Once dragged on a recently de-decorated Christmas tree into the studio to talk about recycling used trees. I've chatted from a canoe, a cliff, a creek, a cave, a field, a forest, a lake. And, heck, one time we all even ate crunchy Peg cooked cicadas! (May 2004. Deep fried. It's in my first book, page 102.) 

But most of the time, we chatted in comfortable chairs in their studio living room and there is always something good to watch on the TV. It's all very homey except for the bright lights.

My first chat was in March 2000—we talked about Ijams river clean-up. This week we chatted about my Mindfulness Walk coming up this Sunday at Ijams. And the thing is, the warmth and friendliness you see on camera, is the same warmth and friendliness you feel off camera. They're like family.

Thank you producer Lee Ann Bowman for arranging all those chats and Eric Foxx for wiring me for sound and to perky reporter Emily Stroud for chatting with me on location now and again too.
 
Here's a link to our last chat: Mindfulness Walk.

Russell on set

With WBIR's Emily Stroud and owl

With Emily overlooking the city

 

And in two canoes that kept drifting off camera on Mead's Quarry Lake

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strangling weed

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Dodder. Could there be a spookier plant?

Also known as devil's guts, devil's hair, golden thread, hair weed, hellbine, strangleweed or witch's hair—now, there’s a collection of memorable names that H. P. Lovecraft would have loved—dodder is a parasitic plant. Its orange tendrils slowly reach out and attach themselves to healthy, green plants. At first, it's like a gentle caress.

But here’s what happens next. Are you sitting down?

After a dodder attaches itself to a plant, it wraps around it tighter and tighter. If the host contains food beneficial to the dodder, it produces haustoria (essentially roots) that insert themselves into the vascular system of the host. The original root of the dodder in the soil then dies. It’s no longer needed. The dodder can grow yards and yards long, latching itself onto even more plants. In this way, the dodder slowly spreads in all directions, feeding on the plants it has entwined.

Devil's guts! It's out there; creeping in all directions.

Wait a minute! Did I just hear something gently scratching on my window?

-Photo taken along Clingman’s Dome Road in the Great Smokies.

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Cicada-Tomat-Uh!

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Perfect South Knoxville cuisine for August

Cicada-Tomat-Uh! Oh, yeah! 

What better way to celebrate the closing days of August than with an homage to cicadas and tomatoes?

Indoors, we sipped “green cicada juice” a.k.a. lemonade and enjoyed fresh tomato sandwiches—Sunbeam bread with Duke's mayonnaise—of course. (It was B.Y.O.B.—Bring your own bologna.) We also learned the different species of local cicada and their unique buzzy calls.  Then we went on a bug hunt.

For more info click cicada-tomat-uh!

Cicada/bug hunters 

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hummer hoopla

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Photo by Warren Hamlin

Thank you to all who attended the KTOS Wonder of Hummingbirds Festival held at Ijams last Saturday and to all who stopped by my author's table to say hello.

All that hoopla for such a tiny little thing as a bird that will easily fit into the palm of your hand.

For the complete story click: hummer fest.

He is so old school. He writes every book in longhand.
Photo by Susan Baumgardner

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thank you WBIR Channel 10

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Hummingbird artwork by my friend Vickie Henderson

 
Did you know that a ruby-throated hummingbird only weighs...

3 grams?

WBIR morning news anchor, Katie Roach

Thank you WBIR Channel 10 producer Sarah Ferraro. Early this morning (6:40) I was on their Saturday morning show to talk with news anchor Katie Roach about today's KTOS Wonder of Hummingbirds Festival at Ijams.

And two hours later, we are welcoming hundreds of people. All to celebrate the absolute wonder of those tiny feathered miracles that only weigh 3 grams. That's the same as two dimes. And heart rates up to 1200 beats a minute.

Thank you my friend Billie Cantwell for your months of hard work as event planner and organizer.

   

Visitors in line to see a hummingbird up-close being banded

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thank you WATE TV

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Photo by Wayne Mallinger

WATE's Bo Williams

Thank you to local ABC affiliate WATE 6 and morning producer Shelby Miller for inviting me on this morning to talk with news anchor Bo Williams about hummingbirds and the KTOS Wonder of Hummingbird Festival at Ijams Nature Center. 

The festival runs from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. tomorrow (Saturday, August 22, bright and early so go to bed now!) with walks and talks and special close-up looks at those tiny dynamos: ruby-throated hummingbirds!

I will speak at 1 p.m. on the Secrets of Backyard Birds, all the juicy gossip about cardinals and their neighbors. 

And special thanks to my friend Billie Cantwell for the months of hard work organizing the event.

Love you Billie!

To view this morning's segment (7:20 a.m. Are my eyes even open?), click: WATE

The offices and studios of WATE 6 are located in Greystone, one of the grandest historic buildings in Knoxville. 

For more about the wonderful building, click Greystone. 


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little cabin

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Jackie and Mike Harbin are crafty. They lead a lot of the craft classes at Ijams plus the Family Drum Circle gatherings on some Sundays on the plaza.

One of Mike's specialties is making replicas of the Smoky Mountain historic cabins out of recycled items: Popsicle sticks, matches, cardboard, gravel. 

Recently he duplicated the Ephraim Bales cabin on the Roaring Fork Motor Nature Trail and gave it to me. Woohoo.

Ephraim was my great-great grand uncle. Granddad Homer Bales was born in Uncle Ephraim's cabin on January 5, 1899.

Many thanks, Mike. You've created a family heirloom I'll treasure forever.

- Photos by Rex McDaniel

Ephraim Bales home place

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a mile a minute?

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Often called the “vine that ate the South,” Kudzu (Pueraria lobata) is actually native to Japan. There it's call kuzu. In China, the fast-grower is called gé gēn. It's also widely eaten — roots, leaves, flowers — throughout both countries, so its zealous nature isn't a problem in that part of the world, it's a bonanza, a boon for anyone feeling a bit peckish. The more it grows, the bigger the buffet.

The ambitious plant was first introduced into this country in 1876 at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition. The fast, fast growing vine was promoted as a forage crop for livestock and an ornamental plant like wisteria for arbors. And it did just fine in controlled settings. Back when Atticus was every one's hero, Harper Lee mentions kudzu growing on an arbor in her novel “To Kill a Mockingbird.”

But, as we all know, kudzu's story didn’t end there. Neither did Atticus'. (Or is it Atticus's?)

The Soil Conservation Service encouraged farmers to plant kudzu to control soil erosion. And they did just that from 1935 to the early 1950s. By the time everyone realized that kudzu was taken over vast stretches of southern countryside, roadside, hillside, wayside, dare I say, committing botanical genocide, it was too late.

Despite this government-sanctioned misstep — and it’s really our fault, not the plant’s — kudzu does produce a rather lovely flower. It’s currently in bloom, vast, vast, vast stretches of it, in a field somewhere near you. And instead of eating it, we curse it. 


And so it goes. (Forgive me Linda Ellerbee.)

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without mistakes

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Turk's cap lily. Great Smoky Mountains

"No snowflake ever falls in the wrong place."

"The flower grows without mistakes.

A man must grow himself, until he understands 

the intelligence of the flower."

- Deborah Love. Annaghkeen. 1970

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