Stalked by a not so wild elk

An old friend from Mer Rouge, La., George Bowe, was passing through a couple of weeks ago so we decided to take a ride down to Cataloochee and see if the elk were out. We got down to the valley around 3 p.m. and before we got to the Palmer Chapel we spotted elk, grazing and generally lounging around in the fields. It was apparent that the large bulls had already dropped their massive antlers but the young bulls with spikes and small 4-point racks still had antlers.

The elk were brought to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in two groups in early 2001. The first batch of 25 elk from Land Between the Lakes on the Tennessee-Kentucky border was released in 2001. In 2002, another 27 elk from Elk Island National Park in Alberta, Canada were released into the valley. Original reintroduction plans called for a third release, but North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission decided that was too risky (they feared chronic wasting and/or other diseases might be transferred to local deer and/or cattle populations) and the Park Service nixed the last release.

Biologists in neighboring states don’t appear gripped by the same fears. Kentucky estimates its elk population at nearly 10,000 now. About 1,500 elk were released in Kentucky between 1997 and 2002. Tennessee has seen its 200 reintroduced elk (between 2000 and 2008) double in population and Virginia has plans to release hundreds of elk into the southwestern corner of the state this year.

The original reintroduction in the Smokies was billed as a 5-year experimental release during which time the impacts “on” the elk and “of” the elk would be studied and a determination would be made regarding the herd’s status. Because of the inability to release more elk, the study period was extended for three years. The Park Service changed the status of the elk in Cataloochee, early in 2010, from experimental to an official reintroduction. The herd has grown to between 130 and 140 animals at this point.

I was fortunate enough to get to go to Land Between the Lakes back in 2000 when the original elk were rounded up for the trip to the Park. Kim Delozier and his crew were quite professional and the capture went smoothly. However, it was apparent that these elk that lived in a 700-acre fenced-in enclosure were not the wild and wily beasts of the forests and prairies of the West, alert to every movement and/or scent that came their way; prepared to bolt for safety at a moment’s notice.

And the elk George and I found the other day at Cataloochee appeared to have a healthy dose of those genes. After we passed the Palmer Chapel we saw elk again in the front yard of the old Caldwell house. We drove on down to the end of the road and upon seeing no more elk in the fields, we returned to the Caldwell house.

There were a couple of elk (looked like a cow and calf) still grazing in the yard. We got out to get some photos and more elk came from behind the house.

I wanted to show George the old house so we started across the footbridge figuring the elk would mosey on. Well, they moseyed — only toward us, not away, so we returned to the road. Then about four young bulls came out of the woods and into the yard. A couple decided to practice their sparring moves.

Next, the whole group waded into the stream for a drink. And a really curious cow and calf started towards us. We didn’t want to run afoul of any of the Park’s elk protocol, so we retreated to the truck. The cow and calf came right up and started nosing the back hatch of my white Montero. Made me wonder if the Park Service had done any supplemental feeding during the snow and nasty weather this winter from white, Park Service vehicles or if maybe unthinking visitors have actually been feeding them.

Whatever the reason, it’s certainly not good to have 1,000-pound animals that acclimated to humans — they could present a danger to unsuspecting visitors. But more sadly, fed elk can be just as dead as fed bears.

Don Hendershot can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

The Naturalist's Corner: Time to shift gears

Environmentalism across the U.S. and around the world was spawned from the sludge of greed, industrialization and indifference. Some of the earliest environmental writings in the world date back at least to the 10th century and the Arab Agricultural Revolution. Arab “conservationists” were concerned about air and water contamination and the mishandling of animal waste. In 1272 King Edward I of England banned the burning of sea-coal because of air pollution. Benjamin Franklin led other concerned Philadelphia citizens to petition the Pennsylvania Assembly to remove tanneries from and stop waste dumping in Philadelphia’s commercial district.

And environmentalists in the U.S. continued to react to events such as the extirpation of the passenger pigeon and the near loss of the American Bison. Three-Mile Island, Love Canal and other environmental catastrophes have helped galvanize the image of American environmental groups as those champions who go around righting wrongs.

And, trust me, there have been; there are; and there will be enough “wrongs” to validate this “watchdog” mentality among environmental organizations. But there is also a great opportunity for a different pro-active mindset.

I wrote about the U.S. Forest Service’s stewardship contracts for The Smoky Mountain News on Jan. 19: www.smokymountainnews.com/news/item/3072-logging-for-cash-versus-long-range-forest-health.

The article points out many of the differences between stewardship contracting and traditional timber bids. Here are some of the main ones. The focus of the project is forest restoration not dollars for board feet. The money received for timber harvested pays for the restoration. Plus, most of the money stays in the region rather than going to the U.S. Treasury and can be used for other restoration projects across the forest.

Another difference, according to Dale Remington, sales forester for the National Forests in North Carolina, is that stewardship contracting is a collaborative effort from the start, bringing together loggers, environmental groups, the public and other interested parties at the beginning of the process to try and shape the goals and outcomes of the project.

Stewardship contracting also allows the forest service to enter into Master Stewardship Agreements with nonprofits and/or other agencies giving those organizations or agencies the responsibility of overseeing the project on the ground and ensuring that stewardship goals are met.

N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission just signed a Master Stewardship Agreement with the forest service in North Carolina, making it the first state agency in the nation to do so. According to Mallory Martin, deputy director of NCWRC, “This agreement will allow our two agencies to collaborate early on to explore the best possible use of funds to benefit North Carolina’s wildlife resources.” Other groups the Forest Service has worked with in North Carolina include the National Wild Turkey Federation, the Ruffed Grouse Society and Quail Unlimited. When I saw NCWRC added to this list, I thought, “Is this forest management or game management?”

So I called Remington to ask him how the forest service felt about stewardship contracting with environmental groups such as The Nature Conservancy or the Sierra Club.

“Actually, I’m meeting with David Ray of The Nature Conservancy [in North Carolina], Thursday [2/17],” Remington said. He said the forest service welcomed all partners with the resources and expertise to help administer stewardship contracts.

“I would love to be the first to sit down and hash out a stewardship agreement with an organization like, say, Wild South,” Remington said.

Now, for those watchdog groups out there, stewardship contracting doesn’t bypass the NEPA (National Environmental Policy Act) process and all the old avenues are still open if there is something untoward going on. But for those groups with the vision, the resources and the will to restore and help shape America’s forested landscape, now’s the time to shift gears.

(Don Hendershot can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..)

The Naturalist's Corner: A bog of dreams

The Carolina Mountain Land Conservancy (CMLC) and partners are literally moving the earth over in Flat Rock to help restore the Ochlawaha bog.

Excavators are stripping about a foot of fill dirt from an old tomato field in hopes of exposing the natural wetland soils that lie beneath. Next, they will encourage the channeled Mud Creek, which borders one side of the old field, to meander through the wetlands the way infrared imaging shows it used to. Ochlawaha is a Native American name meaning “slowly moving muddy waters” and was once applied to the creek itself.

CMLC and the N.C. Plant Conservation Program obtained a small forested area of the bog in 1998. With the help of the N.C. Natural Heritage Trust Fund, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife, the Natural Resources Conservation Service, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the N.C. Clean Water Management Trust Fund, they are now working to restore at least 30 acres of bog habitat.

Southern Appalachian mountain bogs are one of the rarest ecosystems on the planet. Biologists estimate that only 500 acres or so of bog remain. Many scientists believe the area around Ochlawaha bog, fed by Mud Creek, could have contained the largest expanse of wetlands in the Southern Appalachians. Volunteers have worked planting native trees and the Western North Carolina Alliance has assisted with invasive exotic plant control.

Unfortunately for bogs and the critters and plants that call them home, they occupy/occupied what, in today’s market would be classified as “prime real estate.” So for settlers looking for a place to build a home, grow a crop or pasture domestic animals – flat was good. And while it was labor intensive, early settlers were pretty adept at draining wetlands. Then with the industrial revolution and ever-increasing mechanical capabilities, draining wetlands became easy and, even, filling depressions was just another day at work.

The vast majority of Southern Appalachian bogs are now homes, farms, subdivisions, strip malls, football fields, etc. And the vast majority of endemic Southern Appalachian bog flora and fauna is extinct, endangered and or threatened. At least 90 mountain wetland species in North Carolina are considered rare, threatened or endangered. They include the bog turtle, mountain sweet pitcher plant, swamp pink, Gray’s lily, green pitcher plant and bunched arrowhead.

The endangered bunch arrowhead, Sagittaria fasciculata, is known from only about a dozen sites, all in either Henderson County or Greenville County, S.C. It has been recorded from the area of Ochlawaha bog and CMLC and U.S. Fish & Wildlife and partners hope that by enhancing the site it will provide the opportunity to re-establish bunched arrowhead plus create habitat for other wetland plants and animals.

Mountain bogs not only produce habitat for wetland flora and fauna, they also assist in flood control by slowing floodwaters down and allowing them to soak into the ground. Bogs also work as great water filters taking sediment and contaminants out of the water.

Some other notable wetland-preservation efforts around Western North Carolina include the Rough Creek watershed in Canton, Flat Laurel Creek and Tallulah Bog.

I believe CMLC is on the right track — just build it and they will come, they being the bunched arrowhead and other endemic bog species.

Don Hendershot can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

The Naturalist's Corner: Take this book outside

Don’t put this book on your bookshelf, mounted there like some hunter’s head of a deer, to prove you can read. Don’t put this book on the coffee table, turned slightly askance — to be noticeable, so people will know you read poetry. Don’t even take this book to your reading chair where you riffle through Crichton, Frazier or Rash when you can steal a moment. No, take this book outside.

Crack Light is Thomas Rain Crowe’s newest book of poetry, just published by Wind Publishers. Crowe, who lives on John’s Creek in Jackson County in a home that he helped build, is a poet, a translator of poetry, an author of at least 30 books of original and translated works, an editor and publisher (New Native Press) and, more importantly with regards to Crack Light, one who lives in nature. One who admires and respects the natural world and understands the thread that runs through rock and dirt, through trunk and limb, to leaf and sky – through our very essence and connects us all as the umbilical connects the unborn to life.

Take this book to Judaculla Rock or any other petroglyph site and read from “The First Poem:”

 

“And after the voice of God stopped shouting and began to

sing, words became colors as a form of light —

blue, green, white — even the energy in matter cut loose and

ran for the woods that no one ever went near for fear  

of speaking His name and forever being banished from  

innocence and awe uttered in praise.  

‘Why would anyone want to be a bard?’  

And after he had asked, he went to the woods and  

wrote on the backs of trees and on the heads of rocks  

every shape he knew and could carve with his knife  

now that he had invented words that with his own voice

could sing!”

 

Take this book to Elkmont in the Smokies on an early June night and read “Fireflies:”

 

“Like eyes at the edge of the woods:  

the fireflies dance.

Like lonely cabin lamps  

on a ship at sea  

they ride the tide of night  

’round our old mountain homes  

near sleep.  

Who are these little lighthouses in  

the alleys of night?

They are tipis of fire on torches  

where faeries feast and sing.  

Wandering the wood.  

Where wili is Queen.  

Darkness the Fool.  

And moon the mystic King.”

 

Take this book to Black Balsam Knob at sunrise and read from “Dawn” (for Thomas Berry):

 

“Even in the evening she dreams of morning  

in her sleep. Of that quiet moment before love  

when creation paused  

at the thought of dawn flooding his face.

When hands become legs and  

bodies become the moving water of sheets  

covering the darkness before the birth of stars.  

Before even the breath of truth  

became flames dancing from the dream  

on fire in a poet’s heart.  

And there was light.”

 

Crowe collaborated with photographer Simone Lipscome to create Crack Light and her images sing in harmony with the poet’s voice. The poems span decades but, according to Crowe, they all have one thing in common — they’re about place. They’re about this place — the Southern Appalachians, her beauty; her culture; her customs; her people; her poetry.

This book is a must take.

 

Don Hendershot can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

The Naturalist's Corner: Godzilla meets Barbi

Pandemonium had engulfed Shoal Creek by the time authorities arrived. One fisherman sat, dazed, on a boulder, rocking back and forth, his head in his hands, mumbling, “It was big as a horse – and those pinchers, oh, those pinchers …” as rescue personnel and officers with automatic weapons splashed through the creek to a huge rock where a group of fishermen were splashing and shouting and apparently trying to move the rock.

“What’s going on here?” shouted the officer in charge.

“It’s Frank, here!” cried one of the fishermen, holding another man who was obviously in pain, both legs under the rock, nearly up to his waist. “That thing just grabbed him and started dragging him under the rock.”

Just then a van from Breaux Bridge, La., screeched to a stop along Shoal Creek Road. A group of drooling Cajuns jumped out and pulled a turkey fryer and huge pot out of the back. “Somebody done said dere was one big crawfish here, cher?” asked the driver, a dazed look in his eyes.

OK, OK, I’m exaggerating a little. It may not have been pandemonium but I bet hearts were thumping when University of Illinois biologist, Chris Taylor and Eastern Kentucky University biologist, Guenter Schuster turned over a large rock in Shoal Creek in southern Tennessee and discovered a crayfish twice the size of anything ever seen in the region before.

Serendipity wasn’t what brought Taylor and Schuster to Shoal Creek. Schuster had seen photos of the Shoal Creek monster in 2009. Schuster recognized the critter as a member of the genus Barbicambarus – thought, at the time, to be a monotypic genus – and forwarded the photos to Taylor, whom he had worked with before. A little investigation led them to a specimen that had been collected in Shoal Creek near where the photo had come from, by TVA scientist Jeffery Simmons.

 

Oh, for the expedition!

Taylor and Schuster thought they were looking for a wayward bottlebrush crayfish, Barbicambarus cornutus. The rare bottlebrush crayfish discovered in 1884, was known from an area in Kentucky, 134 miles away. The biologists figured the crayfish had likely made the trip in some fisherman’s bait bucket or had been moved by someone interested in commercially raising crayfish.

“That’s been going on for 50 years in the U.S., moving species around, so it would not be a surprise if that was the case,” Shuster said.

On the day of the find, Taylor, Schuster and two other biologists had been turning rocks and kicking mud for at least two hours, to no avail and had decided to pack it in when they spied a large flat rock under a bridge. They decided to flip one last rock – and the rest is the beginning of one new chapter in crayfish history.

When they got their new prize back to the lab, they began to notice differences between it and the bottlebrush crayfish. They did DNA sampling and discovered they had an entirely new species of Barbicambarus. They named the crayfish Barbicambarus simmonsi in recognition of TVA scientist Jeffery Simmons, the first person to preserve a specimen of the new species.

The five-inch long B. simmonsi clearly dwarfs the other species of crayfish in Shoals Creek but it, itself, is dwarfed by the almost-lobster sized, nine-inch B. cornutus. Still, B. simmonsi is a creature that would have demanded a second look.

“This isn’t a crayfish that someone would have picked up and just said, ‘Oh, it’s another crayfish,’ and put it back. If you were an aquatic biologist and you had seen this thing, because of the size and the setae [hair-like bristles] on the antennae, you would have recognized it as something really, really different and you would have saved it.”

A sentiment we can empathize with Schuster noted, “We spend millions of dollars every year on federal grants to send biologists to the Amazon, to Southeast Asia – all over the world looking for and studying the biodiversity of those regions. But the irony is that there’s very little money that is actually spent in our own country to do the same thing. And there are still lots of areas right here in the U.S. that need to be explored.”

We here in Western North Carolina need only look to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and its All Taxa Biodiversity Inventory (ATBI) to understand what Schuster is saying. It’s getting harder and harder for scientists to get grant money to do studies in the park, despite the fact that scientist have discovered 6,582 species new to the Park and 907 species new to science – 26 of those new to science are crustaceans including crayfish.

I’ve said it before: “With our ‘Star Trek’ mentality we are poised to go ‘where no man has ever gone.’ We think we are set to probe the nooks and crannies of space.

“Examining shovels full of mud from the GSMNP [or turning stones in Shoal Creek] may not sound as glamorous as going ‘boldly where no man has gone before,’ but the knowledge we stand to gain if the ATBI process is expanded worldwide may have a much more profound effect on human kind.”

Don Hendershot can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

The Naturalist's Corner: Triple play

Crawl out of your igloo and take a look around. We had kind of assumed a “snow” mentality here at the Hendershot household. A little sledding, a little snow play, then back into the house for hot chocolate, snacks and movies — wet snow clothes draped over a rack near the back door to hopefully dry before they’re donned again for another sortie outside.

We didn’t have it nearly as bad as some of our friends with steep drives on north-facing slopes and no four-wheel drive. We’re close to the four-lane, our road gets plowed and we have four-wheel drive so we were never really housebound.

But there’s something about when the snow starts piling up that turns your attention to the cave. Chores, like making sure the wood box is full, shoveling the sidewalk and shoveling a path to the birdfeeders on the deck take precedence. The veil of falling snow has a way of turning your thoughts inward – but hey, the world is still out there. The beautiful mountains, forests and streams that so many of us cherish are sparkling in their winter finery and the roads are cleared, so gear up and take a look. You’ll definitely want waterproof boots and dress in light but warm layers. A little slogging through the snow can heat you up quickly, but when you stop it’s still chilly out there.

We opted out of cave mode last Sunday for a trip down to DuPont State Forest, between Hendersonville and Brevard. It’s hard to believe that a decade has passed since the rancorous eminent domain battle that transferred the 2,223-acre heart of DuPont State Forest with its dozen or so waterfalls to public lands.

There are several spectacular waterfalls in the area that can be accessed along well-kept trails just minutes from large parking areas along Staton Road. We chose Triple Falls for our destination. Triple Falls can be accessed, even in the snow, with kids, in about 10 minutes from the Hooker Falls parking area. There are convenient steps that take you right to the base of the falls on Little River. There are three distinct cascades with a total vertical drop of 120 feet. The falls, in the snow complete with icicles and 30 feet of spray at the bottom, were stunning. The kids slid on ice, inspected icicles and basically romped in the snow at the bottom of the falls.

The steeper parts of the trail were a bit slippery and that, depending on your perspective (nimble, caution-to-the-wind kid’s or cautious, too-old-to-slide-20-feet-on-your-butt adult’s) was either the coolest thing ever or pause for concern. Dad didn’t have a choice on the descent, in tow by Maddie (5) as she raced her 9-year-old sister, Izzy, down, we “slip-slided” all the way. Mom preferred the tried and true “crab-on-a-tightrope” descent; short, often sideways steps with arms in a graceful arc for balance.

The cool air and exercise put everyone in a restful mood, and while I had company for a while as we traveled U.S. 276 back through the winter wonderland that was the Pisgah National Forest, it wasn’t long after we crested the Blue Ridge Parkway and started our decent to Bethel that I was left alone with my thoughts and three sleeping girls. All in all, it was a great afternoon.

Another debate regarding DuPont is steeping as North Carolina ponders putting the 2,000 or so acres and waterfalls added in 2000 under the jurisdiction of N.C. Division of Parks and Recreation while the remaining acreage will continues under the oversight of the N.C. Division of Forest Resources.

 

Don Hendershot can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

The Naturalist's Corner: Dead birds, dead fish, dead crabs, oh my!

If there was any lingering doubt that the apocalypse was, indeed, scheduled for 2012, it has been erased. The totally unprecedented death of thousands of birds, tens of thousand (or more) fish and tens of thousands of crabs has been universally accepted — at least by a few bloggers on the Internet — as a sign that now is the time to go ahead and run up those credit card debts.

In fact, while I was waiting for the train from Waynesville to Asheville (man I’ve been waiting a long time) I overheard one guy say that his cousin heard someone say that Pat Robertson said it was evident that the mixed flock of birds falling from the sky in Arkansas was a message from above and that it was an abomination to find mixed species actually roosting together.

Of course, if religious explanations don’t work for you there’s always the gummint. Some enlightened bloggers attribute the deaths to:

“Just go do some research on HAARP [The High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program]. Might be the explanation for the bird and fish deaths reported in Arkansas, Louisiana, Kentucky, and Maryland. Also I read reports that Arkansas experienced tremors before the bird and fish deaths. Which supposedly is another side effect of the HAARP project. Also do some looking into Tesla and his death ray somewhat similar to the HAARP project.”

Or maybe: “There is also the possibility that recent volcanic activity around the globe may have been spewing harsh chemicals into the air that these birds breathed in and died from.”

The list goes on to chemical weapons, aliens and even terrorists:

“After all, we are supposedly at war, and our enemy has made it clear their intent to use biological and chemical weapons. If that is indeed a legitimate threat, doesn’t it make sense to know the truth before shrugging the events off to natural happenstance?” wrote Doug Hagmann in the Canada Free Press.

But if, like me, you’re just gonna stick your head in the sand and believe what scientists and biologists are saying this is all you’re left with.

In Beebe, Ark., on New Year’s Eve blackbirds began falling out of the sky, perhaps as many as 3,000 were found dead. The culprit: Loud explosions, likely associated with New Year’s Eve celebrations disturbed a mega roost of blackbirds and starlings. The birds took to the air, in the dark, where they collided with buildings, power lines, etc. and fell from the sky. All necropsies tested negative for poisons and trauma was the cause of death.

A similar situation occurred in Louisiana a couple of days later — blackbirds rousted from a roost in the dark and flew into structures — trauma was the cause of death.

In Sweden, a couple of days later — dead jackdaws were found in the street. Was it a sign from God? Not unless he drives a lorry (bus), because a lorry driver admitted to driving through a large flock of birds. They were in the road eating the salt and grit from the snowmelt.

Freshwater drum in the Arkansas River likely died from some type of pathogen because no other species of fish was affected. The fish die-offs in the Chesapeake Bay and the crabs in England were due to extremely cold temperatures.

Sadly it happens all the time for a myriad of reasons. Some human induced, some natural causes like when migrating Lapland Longspurs got caught in a storm in Minnesota in 1904 and more than 750,000 died.

I, personally, blame Al Gore for this debacle. If he hadn’t invented the Internet people would have never known about these disparate events.

Don Hendershot can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

The Naturalist's Corner: A soggy record

The twin banes of birding, wind and rain, combined to help set a new record low for the eighth annual Balsam Christmas Bird Count (CBC). The soggy but undaunted cadre of birders sloshed and slogged their way around Lake Logan, Lake Junaluska and the Waynesville watershed; mucked through the mud at the Test Farm and fields of Jonathan Creek; foraged the forests of Balsam Mountain Preserve and braved the brambles at Barber’s Orchard to eke out 65 species of birds. The previous low for the Balsam CBC was 69 species recorded each of the first two years – 2003 and 2004. The high count for the circle is 77 species, which has been achieved twice, and the average is around 73 species.

Woodland birds were especially hard to find this year. Notable misses included red-breasted nuthatch and winter wren. I’m sure these birds were hunkered down somewhere trying to stay dry, and with last Saturday’s conditions if you didn’t stumble right upon birds you weren’t about to hear or see them through the woods, at a distance.

The Lake Junaluska and Lake Logan sections produced the highest species counts in the circle with about 46 each. Lake Logan was essentially still iced, but I believe ring-necked ducks were found there. Only about seven species of waterfowl were recorded at Lake Junaluska. Canvasbacks were probably the best find at Lake J. The snow goose that had hung around for weeks departed just a couple of weeks before the count. A lone Bonaparte’s gull joined a group of ring-billed gulls at the lake late Saturday evening to add another tick on the species list. The Waynesville reservoir was totally devoid of waterfowl.

Doug Johnston of Leicester, who oversees maintenance and construction at the Elisha Mitchell Audubon Chapter’s Beaver Lake Bird Sanctuary in Asheville, suffered through the soggy day with me in my section of the Balsam CBC circle.

My section runs from the Old Asheville Highway (east) to Balsam Mountain Preserve (west) and from the Waynesville watershed (south) to Mt. Lynn Lowry (north). The average number of species for my section is low to mid-40s. We turned up (barely) 37 species this year.

At the end of the day, Saturday, we were still missing house sparrow, so we took a turn through most of the fast food restaurants and the Wal-Mart parking lot on the way back to Doug’s vehicle – nothing, zip, nada. We were left with 36 species. Then, as I rounded the corner to the entrance at Bocelli’s, where we gathered for the count tally, I was greeted by a cacophony of house sparrow chirps and whistles emanating from the English ivy along the walls of the little patio there.

No new species were discovered for the circle this year. But we had high-count numbers for robins and probably cedar waxwings, two species we dipped on in 2007. Other notable misses besides red-breasted nuthatch and winter wren included blackbirds and common grackle.

The warm, cozy and dry confines of Bocelli’s were the antithesis of the cold, wet and uninviting conditions encountered in the field. And with warm food, cool libations and resuscitated brethren to commiserate with the after-count glow transcended the gloomy count-day blues.

The Balsam CBC whishes to thank all the die-hard participants as well as the staff and management at Bocelli’s, the Town of Waynesville, for access to the watershed, and Jim Francis and Glen Tolar for access to their private property.

 

Don Hendershot can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

The Naturalist's Corner: 2010 through the Naturalist’s Corner’s window

Correction: Last week’s story regarding the Balsam CBC stated that dinner after the count would be at the Sagebrush. Wrong! The fine people at Bocelli’s will graciously be putting up with a bunch of tired, noisy birders.

This year is winding up just like last year began — cold and snowy. An early Naturalist’s Corner from last January was “Birrrrrding the big chill.”

“The annual Balsam Christmas Bird Count was scheduled for last Saturday (Jan. 2). However, scary weather conditions — snow, high winds and temperatures in the low teens — especially in the northern count area, caused the count to be canceled.”

The weather for this year’s count on Jan. 1 looks to be much better — chance of rain but temps in the 50s.

Snow continued to be a theme through last winter with one of my favorite columns — learning about diamond dust — “A snowflake by any other name.” And February’s “Snow Day.”

March noted a mature bald eagle that spent a month or so hanging around Lake Junaluska plus a head’s up regarding White Nose Syndrome (a fungus that is decimating bat populations) inching closer to the state.

April’s Earth Day Naturalist’s Corner highlighted an article written by Waynesville half-timer Chuck Dayton. “It is a great read by one who was inspired by Earth Day and dedicated his career to the environment.”

The column is still online at www.conservationminnesota.org/news/?id=4729.

May found, “Murky waters — Louisiana in limbo.” “The giant oil slick (reported to be the size of Puerto Rico) sliding around in the Gulf of Mexico like bacon grease on a George Foreman grill tied to the back of an alligator is once again sliming its way toward a Louisiana landfall.”

June provided a great trip with my then 4-year-old daughter Maddie. We discovered “A kaleidoscope adventure” at Harmon’s Den. We found at least seven species of butterflies (in good numbers) all puddling together.

During our annual July Fourth trip to Rock Hill to visit my sister, my family and I stumbled onto Glencairn Gardens and prompted this column “Green spaces — good places.”

“When we entered Glencairn, we walked into a space that was clearly 6 to 8 degrees cooler than the heat that was building along the asphalt and concrete of downtown. The air was fresher — green plants are amazing air purifiers and there was even a calming noise reduction from the nearby thoroughfares. Some environmental benefits of urban green spaces include enhanced public health, wildlife sanctuary, pollution mitigation, storm runoff reduction, environmental education and community building.”

September brought mixed emotions with “North Carolina’s loss — Louisiana’s gain” as Chris Canfield, executive director of Audubon North Carolina stepped down to become Vice President, Gulf of Mexico Conservation and Restoration to help with the work of restoring and protecting Gulf of Mexico habitat and wildlife in the wake of BP’s massive oil spill.

November brought news of the impending protection of 8,000 acres in Transylvania County as the Carolina Mountain Land Conservancy and partners worked to broker a deal with former congressman Charles Taylor to purchase the East Fork Headwaters tract.

A December e-mail from Ida Phillips of Audubon North Carolina noted that a generous donation from Fred and Alice Stanback had made possible the protection of Lea Island, one of North Carolina’s barrier islands. That news prompted “a heartfelt thanks to the Stanbacks.”

“Fred and Alice Stanback have been instrumental in preserving tracts like Needmore, Mount Lyn Lowry, Lands Creek Watershed, Chimney Rock, Jocassee Gorges, the East Fork Headwaters tract and so many more. They have donated to organizations like Friends of The Smokies, the American Chestnut Foundation and National Parks and Conservation Association just to name a few.”

Now, let me close that window — the snow is blowing in again and who knows what will blow through in 2011?

Happy New Year!

(Don Hendershot is a writer and naturalist. He can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..)

The Naturalist's Corner: Invasion of the PUFIs

Don’t worry, PUFIs won’t harm you. They won’t even take you up to the mothership to probe and prod you and send you home with nothing but a vague recollection of bluish lights and otherworldly mutterings. PUFI is simply bird-nerd speak for purple finch.

This “sparrow dipped in raspberry juice,” as described by Roger Tory Peterson, nests primarily in coniferous and mixed woodlands across Canada from British Columbia to Newfoundland and down both coasts to California in the west and New England to Minnesota and West Virginia in the east.

The purple finch is an erratic short-distance migrant, generally following the availability of cone crops. Conventional thinking is that the finches that breed farther south like New England and California, etc. remain in the same region year round, while the more northerly nesters are the ones likely to show up at our feeders and feeders across the South to the Mexican border in the winter.

The PUFI is sparrow-sized (5 to 6 inches) and weighs about 1 to 1.5 ounces. The male is the raspberry dipped one. It has a reddish (raspberry) head and breast with red mixed with brown on the back. It also shows red along the sides of the breast with a whitish belly. The male shows a dark ear patch under the red and also a dark malar (throat) streak. Females are brown and white with dark coarse streaking on breast and flanks. They show a whitish eye stripe, dark ear patch and dark malar. Both sexes have deeply notched tails.

There are two subspecies of purple finches — eastern, Carpodacus purpureus and western, Carpodacus p. californicus. The primary measurable difference between the two is that the western PUFI has a longer tail and shorter wings. In the field, the eastern PUFI male is brighter (rosier) and the eastern female is crisply brown and white with distinct dark streaking on the breast while the western female has a greenish-yellow tinge and more faded-looking breast streaks. There are also slight differences in the vocalizations.

The bird in this area most likely to be confused with the purple finch is the house finch. The house finch, which was originally a western species, was introduced to the east in the 1940s when a few captive birds were released on Long Island. They are now quite common from Canada to Louisiana. And if you see a reddish finch at your feeders in the summer it almost certainly is a house finch, as they nest in the area.

The red of the male house finch ranges from orange to reddish-orange — it’s not the rosy (raspberry) of the purple finch. The red of the house finch is not as extensive on the back of the head as it is on the purple finch, plus the house finch lacks the dark face pattern of the purple finch and it has heavily streaked flanks not present on the male purple finch.

The female house finch has a plain brown or grayish-brown head, lacking the bold face pattern of the female purple finch. And it has blurry streaks on a dingy breast unlike the contrast of the dark streaks on the white breast of the purple finch.

House finches appear to supplant purple finches where the two species are found together. Purple finch populations don’t appear to be in peril but their numbers do appear to be dropping in the East as house finch numbers increase.

There are “murders” of crows and “gaggles” of geese and a group of finches is known as a “charm,” “company” or “trembling.” My charm of around 20 PUFIs really set my feeders trembling with all their company.

Don Hendershot can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

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