by don | Apr 10, 2020
No one knows what Western North Carolina will look like post COVID-19, but these mountains have seen much over their millions of years – ice ages, civil war, pandemics, etc. and they are still here. Spring will come with its ephemerals and migrants; summer will flush...
by don | Feb 20, 2020
Bobolinks are regular migrants through Western NC and their numbers have declined by more than 60 percent since 1966 – Don Hendershot photo Emily Dickinson wrote of that feathered hope in 1861: “Hope is the thing with feathers – That perches in the soul...
by don | Jul 12, 2019
Soaring adult red-tail Don Hendershot photo A red-tail by any other name and there are several “named” red-tails. But I dare say for we sons and daughters of the South, simply the word hawk conjures up mental images of Buteo jamaicensis either scanning its...
by don | Jun 30, 2019
My bride and I spent a few days in Chicago last week. She was there for a business seminar and I was there for moral support. But, alas, I also had work to do so after walking with her to the 737 Building on N. Michigan Ave. I returned to our room and began recording...
by don | Mar 9, 2019
Cooper’s hawks like all raptors exhibit sexual dimorphism — the male is on the left, female on right. USF&W photo I find it comforting that the Cooper’s is patrolling the skies over Waynesville — that there is something wild among us. I had to...
by don | Feb 16, 2019
The Naturalist’s Corner has been in print since 1994 when I began the weekly outdoors column for Scott McLeod, then editor at Waynesville North Carolina’s Enterprise Mountaineer. When Scott left the Enterprise Mountaineer in 1999 to start his own regional weekly...
by don | Jan 30, 2019
It appears the eagles that nested unsuccessfully last year at Lake Junaluska are back for another go at it. There have been reports of a pair doing a bit of remodeling at the nest and a pair (presumably the same one) has been seen interacting at the nest and in flight...
by don | Nov 21, 2018
Lake Junaluska is an amazing resource. It is home to the Lake Junaluska Conference and Retreat Center, the World Methodist Council and Intentional Growth Center and attracts visitors and guests from all around the world. Area residents flock to the wonderful walking...
by don | Nov 8, 2018
It wasn’t long after we crossed the Mississippi River at Vicksburg, headed west into Louisiana, that we began to see the occasional just-picked field of cotton. We exited I-20 at Rayville, Louisiana, and hit the two-lane highways of my youth into Morehouse Parish...
by don | Oct 12, 2018
I’m sure many can remember what our president Donald J. Trump, a legend in his own mind, has had to say about climate change, i.e. anthropocentric global warming. In case your recollection is failing you – a couple of quotes – “NBC News just called it the great freeze...