Search
586 Search Results for "george ellison"
Top 100 in Smokies history named
Published: 2016-05-04 02:38:36Throughout its journey from concept to reality to regional treasure, the Great Smoky Mountains National Park has drawn the support of millions — but the Great Smoky Mountains Association has created a list naming the top 100 most influential people in ...
Read More32 years and counting for birding expedition
Published: 2016-05-04 02:24:26This past weekend marked the occasion of the 32nd annual Great Smokies Birding Expedition. Fred Alsop, the ornithologist at East Tennessee State University, Rick Pyeritz, the now-retired physician at UNCA, and I initiated the event in the fall of 1984. S...
Read MoreChanging a flat in a rising creek
Published: 2016-04-20 14:09:40Forty years ago this coming July 5, my wife, Elizabeth, and I and our three children moved into a small cove just west of Bryson City. The kids are grown up now and doing their own thing in Sylva, Asheville and Colorado Springs, Colorado. . But we’re s...
Read MoreGraceful ferns a fiddling
Published: 2016-04-06 15:01:19“Marvel for a moment at the fern fiddlehead. It stands like a watch spring coiled and ready to unwind … What many do not realize, however, is that the fiddlehead has some unusual mathematical properties. It represents one of two kinds of spirals comm...
Read MoreTime for spring migrants in the mountains
Published: 2016-03-23 16:29:05The cove we live in has been alive with birds for several weeks now. As alive with birds as it’s ever been — and we’ve lived at the same place for 40 years. . Most of these are common “residents”: goldfinches, cardinals, song sparrows, towhees,...
Read MoreAlways questions about the fiddlehead fern
Published: 2016-03-09 17:13:17In the early 1700s British astronomer and mathematician Edmund Hillary, of comet fame, called [the spiral formed by a fern’s fiddlehead] the proportional spiral because … [its] whorls are in continued proportion … The larger spirals are just expand...
Read MoreThis year’s flowers, last year’s berries
Published: 2016-02-10 16:56:31Last summer while I was walking along the creek below our home, small splotches of red and white at the base of a large hemlock caught my attention. Upon inspection, these proved to be the flowers (white) and fruit (red) of the dainty partridge berry vin...
Read MoreHogs have long been an Appalachian staple
Published: 2016-01-27 16:41:56Hog Holler, Hog Branch, Hog Camp Branch, Hog Cane Branch, Hog-eye Branch, Hogback Gap, Hogback Holler, Hogback Knob, Hogback Ridge, Hogback Township, Hogback Mountain, and Hogback Valley. In addition there are six sites in Western North Carolina named Ho...
Read MoreIronwood is piquing the interest of WNC residents
Published: 2016-01-13 16:27:03There seems to be an upsurge of interest in ironwood in Western North Carolina of late. It’s curious how reader interest in certain subjects will pop up all at once, after being non-existent for years or forever. Some sort of synchronicity, I suppose. ...
Read MorePlants and animals who choose to hunker down
Published: 2015-12-30 16:48:13The evergreen plants and birds that overwinter here in the Southern Appalachians have made fundamental “choices” in how their lives will be governed. Being aware of what those “choices” are provides a better understanding and appreciation of what...
Read More
