A not too shabby second
May 3rd and 4th were the dates for this year’s 30th annual edition of the Great Smoky Mountains Birding Expedition. This trip began in 1984 as the brainchild of George Ellison, Bryson City resident, author and naturalist, Rick Pyeritz M.D., who had a practice in...
Déjà vu in the woods
I was invited to help lead a bird walk, focusing on wood warblers at this year’s 64th annual Spring Wildflower Pilgrimage in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. I was invited to help by Dr. Patricia Blackwell-Cox. Pat, as I knew her wwwaaaayyyy back when, when we...
I see a blood moon rising
Actually we will be lucky if we get to see the blood moon in the wee hours of April 15. The extended forecasts I have looked at say that clouds will obscure 80 to 90 percent of the heavens at that time. And right there, lurking behind that cloud cover will be a total...
Believe it or not
Despite last week’s chill and blustery snow, we are in the throes of spring migration. Actually migration never stops. There is a bird somewhere on its way to somewhere else every month of the year. Purple martins have reached Florida by January. In June around the...
Somebody got some splainen to do
People say the corporate world has no soul. Corporations don’t give a rat’s behind about their employees especially after they’re gone. And the flip side is employees are just there to get a paycheck. They do what it takes and if they’re lucky they have a job that...
Will we extinguish another beautiful light
A river of burnt umber flows every year from southern Canada through the U.S. to the oyamel fir forests in the mountains west of Mexico City. This river tumbles along in a kind of bubbly joy reserved for kids, fairies, hermits, counterfeit curmudgeons and anyone whose...