Testifying
I just wanted to shout an amen to brother George Ellison’s August 10, 2011 Back Then column, “Late summer is an awesome time to botanize.” I am a big fan of a couple of those late summer beauties – cardinal flower and ironweed. When it comes to red, few plants can...
Rankin Bottoms
I can always count on Rankin Bottoms Wildlife Refuge when I need a Loosiana Delta fix. This musky backwater with its willow groves, bald cypress, cottonwoods and buttonbush is the antithesis of the cool clear, swift mountain streams common to the Western Carolina...
OK, this polar bear walks into a Scottish bar…
That’s probably not the exact scenario but a recent article in Current Biology claims that most if not all of today’s living polar bears are descended from one Scottish brown bear. Mama bear lived in Ireland near the peak of the last Ice Age 20,000 to 50,000 years...
Feeling dumb – go take a hike
A recently published study in Proceedings, an online medical journal of the National Academy of Sciences suggests that regular aerobic exercise like walking or hiking can improve the brain’s memory function and perhaps lessen the risk of dementia. As humans age, the...
Man vs. nature
Unless you are of a philosophical bent you might want to skip this last installment of the spotted owl trilogy. I have been intrigued by the dichotomy of man vs. nature for a long time. I can’t remember exactly what I saw while researching the spotted owl dilemma –...
More owl pellets
I mentioned in last week’s Naturalist’s Corner that I found the decision by US Fish & Wildlife to kill barred owls in an effort to save spotted owls intriguing on many levels. I will use this week’s and next week’s columns to outline a couple of those intrigues....