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586 Search Results for "george ellison"
Some scarlet tanagers are orange
Published: 2013-05-07 20:42:53Last Saturday, I led a bird identification workshop for the Smoky Mountain Field School. We started out in the morning in a residential area (Minot Park) in Gatlinburg and worked our way into the higher elevations of the national park by late afternoon. ...
Read MoreA book every naturalist needs on his or her shelf
Published: 2013-05-01 02:12:04Naturalist Donald Culross Peattie (1898-1964) was born in Chicago. In his autobiography The Road of a Naturalist (1941), Peattie recalled his first extended visit to the North Carolina mountains in 1906 as a time when he “saw the world of people fall a...
Read MoreCliff swallows return
Published: 2013-04-24 02:05:19That’s the news. Our common breeding swallows have always been purple martins, barn swallows, and northern rough-winged swallows. To a lesser extent, tree swallows also breed here, where there are suitable tree cavities or boxes. Cliff swallows are ano...
Read MoreThe blue-grey gnatcatcher is a mighty mite
Published: 2013-04-17 13:48:24Elizabeth and I were sitting on the deck Monday evening when a tiny bird made an abbreviated appearance — apparently just to check us out — and disappeared. It took only a fleeting glimpse for us to know that our visitor had been a blue-gray gnatcatc...
Read MoreServiceberry is recurring harbinger of spring
Published: 2013-04-10 14:45:14I have two options when driving back and forth from home to town. One is along a river and the other isn’t. The choice is easy. I always follow the route along the north side of the Tuckaseigee west of Bryson City. If asked to name that section of road...
Read MoreTheir own way of fishing
Published: 2013-04-03 20:04:03I’m sometimes asked if the prehistoric Cherokees used any sort of poisons on their blowgun darts. These darts (slivers of black locust, hickory, or white oak) were from 10 to 20 inches long with thistledown tied at one end to form an air seal in the bl...
Read MoreGreen Oscars V
Published: 2013-03-27 13:56:33Wild South held its fifth annual Green Gala celebrating the 2012 Roosevelt-Ashe Society’s Conservation Award winners last Friday, March 22. Wild South is a regional nonprofit with offices in Asheville and Moulton, Ala., that works to protect, conserve ...
Read MoreSaved by the appearance of a tree swallow
Published: 2013-03-27 13:51:10Earlier this morning (Tuesday, March 26) I gazed wishfully through my office window here in Bryson City. About all I could see was the fire station across the street just off the town square. Blue-gray snowflakes were slanting down. I was waiting for som...
Read MoreMy wife knows good morels when she sees them
Published: 2013-03-20 13:44:27It’s just about morel time. By early April (if not sooner), the succulent spring-fruiting fungi that are the most sought after mushrooms in North America will be popping up in woodlands across Western North Carolina. . The only problem is spotting them...
Read MoreIn the land of water and rock
Published: 2013-03-13 22:40:50Like Old Esdras in the Bible, some live in a land of milk and honey. Here in the Blue Ridge, we live in the land of water and rock. Moving water and worn stone are the predominant features in our terrain. Landscapes here were not sculpted by wind. They h...
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