Animal abodes
This edition of Smoky Mountain Living is all about home. That makes it the perfect place to talk about the homes of some of the creatures that share this marvelous landscape with us. Some animals that we know well don’t construct any kind of home. White-tailed deer...
Punxsutawney Phil was right
I think the shrewd rodent hedges his bet a bit. I mean if you think about it, the difference between Feb. 2 and March 20, first day of spring, is about six weeks. So to say there will be six more weeks of winter is a pretty safe bet. But what will those six weeks...
Slip-sliding away
Dateline 1999: David Kullivan a forestry/wildlife student at Louisiana State University tells faculty that while turkey hunting in the Pearl River Wildlife Management Area, a pair of ivory-billed woodpeckers foraged in trees as close as 10-yards from him. Soon after,...
Cold-weather wimps
No, I’m not talking about those of us who stay in the warm confines at Cataloochee, nursing Ninja porters, while the kids hit the slopes. These cold-weather wimps are ruby-throated hummingbirds. As most of you hummer-watchers know, our ruby-throats, basically the only...
Northern Pintail
Thanks to a head’s up from Tim Carstens last Sunday morning (1/15) I saw a drake northern pintail, Anas acuta, at Lake Junaluska. This “nomad of the sky” is cosmopolitan in distribution, breeding in northern Europe, Asia and North America. Its range has been estimated...
Of whoopers and hoodeds
Cranes are fly. These big beautiful graceful birds jolt the souls of non-birders and birders alike. At five feet tall, the snow-white adult whooping crane is the tallest bird in North America. The whooper has a red patch on its face and the top of its head. The...