by don | Aug 22, 2015
perseids falling perseids burning white hot perseids flame out I made sure to keep an eye out for falling stars last week on my pre-dawn delivery route since it was during the peak of the annual Perseids meteor shower. One morning was pretty socked in with clouds...
by don | Aug 7, 2015
Due to the generosity of great friends, Bill and Elaine Cave of Asheville, my family has enjoyed a summer respite on Isle of Palms in South Carolina for a decade or so. We made it down around 5 p.m. on Sunday (8/2) – still enough time for the girls to hit the beach...
by don | Jul 22, 2015
My family and I made a quick run up to Waterrock Knob on the Blue Ridge Parkway around dusk last Sunday (July 19) to get a peek at some celestial luminaries. Venus and Jupiter joined the waxing crescent moon on the western horizon. They danced and played hide and seek...
by don | Jun 24, 2015
I occasionally see Smoky Mountain New’s Garrett K. Woodward’s Facebook posts about hitting the trails around WNC for a mind-clearing run and my knees twinge with the memories of similar sorties and the sad recognition that without surgery those days are lost. But,...
by don | May 28, 2015
Neotropical migrants can be flashy things – think scarlet tanager, Baltimore oriole, rose-breasted grosbeak or those tiny butterflies of the bird world like American redstart, blackburnian warbler, hooded warbler and northern parula, just to name a few. And...
by don | May 14, 2015
What better way to spring into the season than chasing migrants across Western North Carolina? I was with the Franklin Bird Club at Kituwah on April 27 and we had beautiful weather and good birding. I had teased that trip by noting that Kituwah is one of the most...
by don | Apr 19, 2015
Nothing stirs tales of “wild” Appalachia quite like the mention of “painters.” This article was written before a DNA study of cougars – that may change the way biologists think – in terms of race and/or subspecies of Puma concolor. We will catch up with the catamount...
by don | Apr 15, 2015
Yay! Spring Break! That special time to be sequestered with adolescents and/or pre-adolescents in about 50 square feet while hurtling down the highway at 70 m.p.h. “What?” “Take the ear buds out.” “What?” “He said you have ear bugs.” “I do not have ear bugs, and...
by don | Mar 4, 2015
There is one winter visitor to our North Carolina Mountains that is probably happy the Blue ridge Parkway is closed and is not burgeoning with sightseers and thrill seekers like it is the rest of the year. That visitor would be Aquila chrysaetos canadensis, the North...
by don | Jan 23, 2015
The best way I know of to get a rare bird to fly the coop is to write about it. So by the time you see this article the two drake common goldeneyes that have been hanging out at Lake Junaluska for the past week or so will likely have vanished. But they have been...
