The Naturalist's Corner: Beach bump

Friends and followers of “The Naturalist’s Corner” know I’m keeping a year-list of birds I see/hear this year. As I wrote in an earlier column, “I was just curious about how many different species of birds I normally run into throughout the year.” And I have a great core of birding activities that provide a good nucleus for a list including Christmas Bird Count, George Ellison’s Great Smoky Mountains Birding Expedition, my annual point count contract with the Forest Service and other opportunities such as leading a trip for the Franklin Bird Club, generally leading birding trips during the annual Wildflower Pilgrimage (which, regrettably, I missed this year due to a scheduling conflict with spring break) and an annual summer trip to Isle of Palms. The Isle of Palms trip is the one I was counting on for a list boost.

The Naturalist's Corner: Rock Hill on the river

My family and I were in the Rock Hill, S.C.-Charlotte area a few weeks back to visit my sister and catch my niece, Haley Barfield (one of the triplets, yeah, as in three, Allison and Jess round out the trifecta) in Shakespeare Carolina’s production of Macbeth. We also got to enjoy a birthday dinner with Matt, the triplets’ older brother.

The Naturalist's Corner: MOU – MIA

Issues surrounding the management of the country’s national forests have always been thorny. It’s easy to see why — there are numerous user groups that, on the face, often appear to be at odds regarding how national forests should be managed. The USDA Forest Service is charged with the stewardship of these national forests and it is, by and large, a thankless task.

The Naturalist's Corner: Escargot — no

There was much concern regarding the noonday globe snail, Petera clarkia nantahala, after the Tellico Fire burned through the Nantahala Gorge last fall. The noonday globe is a federally endangered species known only from a small region of calcareous cliffs in the Nantahala Gorge in Swain County.

The Naturalist's Corner: That’s a wrap

Another spring, another season of bird points in the can. Each spring brings its own unique set of adventures, dilemmas and logistical challenges.

Flagged

I was in Morganton over the Memorial Day Holiday chasing birdies in the Grandfather District of the Pisgah National Forest per my annual Forest Service point count contract. I was headed to my motel room after coming out of the woods when I began to notice trees showing dead leaves at the ends of the branches. The first two I noticed were hickories and I began to wonder if there was maybe some kind of insect pest that targeted hickories — kinda like the locust leaf-miner that turns our locust trees brown in summer. But soon I began to see oaks and other species exhibiting the same symptoms. I noticed them in town, so there weren’t a whole lot of trees and the brown tipped ones really stood out.

The bugs are back in to-own, the bugs are back in town

The weather hasn’t been too cooperative this spring with regards to my Forest Service bird point count. First weekend in May was cold and rainy, it rained half of the next weekend and after getting some points in Saturday, last Sunday (5/21) was looking bleak again.

The Naturalist's Corner: Overwhelmed

There are bucket lists and then there are bucket lists. As parents, the bucket lists we envision for our kids do not necessarily conform to their own bucket list. But this spring break we stood our ground and imposed, gasp, D.C. and the Smithsonian for our annual trip.

EPA — the Eviscerated Protection Agency

Our new denier-in-chief believes “The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.”

The Naturalist's Corner: It really is spring

I was reconnoitering the Buck Creek Serpentine Barrens on Monday March 27, with Brent Martin, Southern Appalachian regional director at The Wilderness Society, for an upcoming field trip with the Franklin Bird club on April 24. The Serpentine Barrens is located along Buck Creek in Clay County, off U.S. 64 about 17 miles west of Franklin. The barrens is a botanically distinct area created by the dominant serpentinized rock types — dunite and olivine. The area is home to many rare and/or endemic plants because of the rare soils created by the serpentinized rock and two decades of prescribed burning by the Forest Service.

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