I was on the ridge this morning admiring the autumn-red leaves of a gum tree, lit up by the rising sun, when a titmouse landed and, fixing his black eye on me, shouted a word in Bird I know — “Snake!” He shouted it so loud you could have heard him down in the yard. And every time he shouted it, he turned first one way on the branch, then the other. And with every turn, he fixed the eye on that side of his head on me. 

The Franklin Bird Club leads walks along the greenway on Wednesday mornings at 8 a.m. Walks start at alternating locations: Macon County Public Library, Big Bear Park and Salali Lane. 

Like some mountain man who’s happy in his holler, I’m happy to live up Moses Creek. It’s the right place to read, write and ramble in the woods around our house — the 3Rs of retirement for me. But sometimes, days having passed, and wondering how the water flows, I’ll drive down the creek to the Tuckasegee River, where the valley opens up and traffic rushes past, and looking around, I’ll think, “So, this is the world!” 

In a remarkable book that combines eco-poetry, poetic prose and personal and scientific information by award-winning African-American ornithologist and professor at Clemson University, J. Drew Lanham, birds are the major focus, with Lanham even giving us a semi-humorous list of rules for birders.

The Highlands Biological Foundation (HBF) invites the community to the next installment of its Zahner Conservation Lecture series at 6 p.m. on Thursday, July 18. 

Birders around the state are encouraged to grab their binoculars, guidebooks, hiking boots and best birding friends for a weekend of non-stop “atlasting” from June 28-30. 

The Franklin Bird Club will lead walks along the greenway on Wednesday mornings at 8 a.m. 

Finally, we can go out the back door again. For a month we made a front door detour around an unplanned construction project on the back porch. 

I recently experienced a visual about worrying. It was a mountain where the highest point is the peak of worry.

The Franklin Bird Club leads walks along the greenway on Wednesday mornings at 8 a.m. Walks start at alternating locations: Macon County Public Library, Big Bear Park and Salali Lane.