You’ve noticed how old barns are recognized as special places? When a person says, “I’m going down to the barn,”…

Five skunk species are residents in the United States: hooded, hog-nosed, western spotted, eastern spotted, and striped. Only the last…

The economic destiny of a given region is ultimately determined by its geology, flora and climate. That’s certainly been the…

Junaluska waterfowl are plentiful, varied A quick turn around Lake Junaluska last Sunday revealed 13 species of waterfowl and/or wetland…

Each season has characteristic features that signal its arrival. Winter is no exception. Two of my winter favorites: mistletoe and…

For my wife, Elizabeth, and me, winter doesn’t arrive until the first of each year. From now until spring is…

We tend to hone in on the showy flowering phase of a plant’s life for observation, identification, and enjoyment. But…

One can still see why flatlanders started pouring into the Cashiers-Highlands region after the Civil War. The scenic ridge, valley…

Flowing water is as central to life here in Western North Carolina as the mountains themselves. You can’t have ancient…

Let us consider the relationship between grassy balds, Tom Alexander and the self-proclaimed “Potato and Rutabaga King of Haywood County.”…

Western Carolina University biologist Jim Costa traces his interest in insect societies to studies of social interactions of caterpillars made…

I have nothing to add to Gary Carden’s perceptive review of Horace Kephart’s posthumous novel Smoky Mountain Magic (Great Smoky…

Arthur Stupka (1905-1999) was the first naturalist in the National Park Service in the eastern United States. That was at…

Editor’s note: George Ellison is on sabbatical this week and will return next week. This is a previously published column.…

The sweltering heat this summer is restricting some outdoor activities, but it’s a prime time for lizard watching. Lizards don’t…

Each July since 1991, I’ve led field trips along the Blue Ridge Parkway offered as part of the Native Plants…

Like most commonly observed objects, crows flit across our field of vision unheeded. Caw-caw-cawing unmusically … flap-flap-flapping over the fields…

In the mid-1970s my primary writing interest was poetry. I was consumed night and day by poetry for perhaps five…

Many characters surface in stories related to Horace Kephart, regional author and one of the founders of the Great Smoky…

Editor’s note: This column first appeared in The Smoky Mountain News in June 2003. Honey was a primary sweetening agent…

I have always been struck by the sacred formulas (chants or incantations) that the Cherokee medicine men used to create…

Monday morning … 9:15 or so … suddenly the coyote was there … as if from out of nowhere ……

One doesn’t tire of certain places. Even though they inevitably change through the years, they become more than friends. The…

One of the handouts I use during natural history workshops is headed “Southern Blue Ridge Province: Geographic Location and Influences.”…

This past weekend marked the 26th annual Great Smokies Birding Expedition, a gathering of onrnithologically-inclined friends. On Saturdays, to get…

This past weekend marked the second annual Horace Kephart celebration in Bryson City. There was a terrific presentation of newly…

We’re been considering books and related matters like shelving, bookplates, home libraries, favorite books, and (last week’s topic) — “How…

We’re still at it—considering books and related matters like shelving strategies, bookplates, home libraries, favorite books, and “How do we…

Our consideration of “books and all things related” continues with a look at an instance when a well-known author (and…

Numerous non-native plants have been introduced into the southern mountains during the last century or so. Many are now classified…

It’s Saturday night as I write this .... going on toward midnight. I read the thermometer mounted outside the kitchen…

My weekly deadline is looming. I’m not sure how this is going to turn out. But I’ve been thinking about…

Several weeks ago, I devoted a column to the complicated science of book shelving. Not a few readers responded —…

The feedback (mostly email) from readers to recent columns regarding books in general, book shelving strategies, and bookplates has been…

Of late, we’ve been considering books. The feedback (mostly email) from readers to recent columns regarding books in general, book…

You can almost smell the word “evergreen.” The word is at once one of the most aptly descriptive and highly…

This past weekend was given over to reorganizing the books in my home library. In the process, I relocated a…

Saturday morning … sitting alone at the kitchen table … nothing much going on … looking out the window ……

I enjoy using variants on the phrase “lay of the land.” One can “get the lay of the land” in…

This marks my tenth year of writing a weekly Back Then column for The Smoky Mountain News. In all that…

The New Year has arrived and the great horned owls have commenced their annual “singing” along the dark ridges. These…

One of my favorite accounts of this region’s varied history is provided by John Preston Arthur, who published his 659-page…

The professional career of biologist Millard C. (“Bill”) Davis — who was born in 1930 in Utica, N.Y., and now…

Some readers might recall that three weeks ago — in a column about relocating my long lost inscribed copy of…

This is about a place, High Rocks, a lookout situated at just over 5,000 feet on Welch Ridge in the…

This past week, we took our 11-year-old granddaughter, Daisy, who is visiting from Colorado, to the Cherokee Indian Village. She…

Naturalist, photographer and writer Edwin Way Teale (1899-1980) was born in Joliet, Ill. American nature writing in descriptive prose inevitably…

Biologist and ecologist Robert Zahner (1923-2007) was born in Summerville, S.C., and grew up in Atlanta. But his adopted “spiritual…