One would think swans would probably be a sure bet in such a scenario. After all, they are bigger and stronger. But these aren’t your average hornets. These are Navy F/A-18 Super Hornet jet fighters.

Bamboo is the common name applied to a wide and varied group of woody grasses from all around the world. There are more than 1,000 species of bamboo. Bamboo grows in temperate and tropical climates in the Americas and throughout Asia with the greatest diversity occurring in tropical areas.

When I read the notice about a new book — The Fishes Gathered in Cherokee Country — in the Nov. 16 edition of the Smoky Mountain News, it piqued my curiosity. I contacted the book’s author, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist Mark Cantrell, who graciously mailed me a copy.

The front that passed through the week before Thanksgiving brought the first waterfowl fallout of the season to Lake Junaluska. I passed by on Thursday afternoon (11/17) and observed one snow goose with a small group of Canadian geese. Friday afternoon I returned for a longer look and found one gadwall in the back of the lake near the newly designed wetlands; a number of hooded mergansers in the same area; numerous American coots there and all around the lake; a double-crested cormorant sunning itself on the little island beneath the osprey platform; and a wood duck near the entrance road off US 19. There were a couple of pied-billed grebes around the lake. A small raft in the middle of the lake contained American wigeon, ring-billed ducks and lesser scaup. A group of bufflehead were also out in the middle of the lake along with one horned grebe.

Chickadee #1: Chick-a-DEE!-DEE!-DEE!-DEE!-DEE!-DEE!-DEE!

Translation: There’s a sharp-shinned hawk behind you!

Here’s a riddle for you. If the leaves turn in the mountains and there are no tourists to see them, are they still beautiful?

Endangered Species Act Threatened

A California cowboy is trying to hobble the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Congressman Richard Pombo (R-Calif.), head of the House Resources Committee has herded his Threatened and Endangered Species Recovery Act of 2005 through the US House of Representatives. The act passed, largely along party lines, by a 229 193 vote.

By the time this column hits the streets (11/2), the results from two public meetings regarding the Great Smoky Mountains National Park’s experimental elk release will be known. The park is proposing extending the experiment for two years and bringing in additional elk. The first meeting was Tuesday, Oct. 25, in Cherokee and the second was Thursday, Oct. 27, in Fletcher.