Nature-Deficit Disorder – NYTimes.com

N-DD is for real, but you can put it to work FOR you instead of just letting it work against you.   Just get out!

Nature-Deficit Disorder – NYTimes.com.

Sports News | The Daily Times – Sense of Place in East Tennessee

Sports News | The Daily Times – Sense of Place in East Tennessee.

If you look closely at this pileated woodpecker…

Incredible moment, holding a large woodpecker, who despite being held by me, maintained a high level of dignity and control over the situation.

…you might see a very small insect in the family Ischnocera, genus Philopteridae.  No denigration intended, but it’s a louse.  Not just any louse, but one that may never been recorded in Great Smoky Mountains National Park.  Yet, in all likelihood, here it is, on this large woodpecker, and it might never have been noticed, except for a bird-banding project at Great Smoky Mountains Institute at Tremont.  Josh Davis set up the nets early one March morning in 2010, to share the wonders of the bird world with dozens of college students from 5 universities  staying at Tremont for the week with their professors.

I couch this in a bit of uncertainty, because this louse species hasn’t been confirmed, but all indications show this to be not only a new species to the park, but an entirely new Genus.  It is apparently not very easy to positively identify a louse.

Philopteridae – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Lice and birds have a very close relationship – many of the lice parasites have evolved such that they are specialized to live only on one species of bird.  So every bird we catch during our banding dates has the possibility of yielding a new species of louse.

There is something about holding a live bird in your hand.  Especially a large one, like this woodpecker.  First, they are remarkably strong for their light weight.  That bill is both sharp and quick.   She jabbed my hand several times, but didn’t draw blood.  I think she could have, but for whatever reason, didn’t.

Then there’s the color.  Everyone knows birds are colorful and beautiful, but when you see one at arm’s length, you realize the colors are less like pigment, and more like a stained glass window.  They are luminous, and glow with reflected light.

And the eyes – this bird looked at me, and in it’s eyes there was knowing, a sharpness, a sense of wildness.  Although I was holding this bird, I felt that we were somehow equals, each with a right to be here and a life force that came from somewhere beyond us both.  Talk about connecting people with nature!

Dalai Lama and other spiritual leaders discuss Happiness

This is great fun.  It is enlightening to hear these gifted people share from the heart on some deeper truths in their faith.

Dalai Lama on Pursuing Happiness [On Being].

Freaky fungus in mom’s garden

Very interesting fungus in mom's garden

What fun to find fungal exotica in mom’s garden! Although she was less than thrilled, this is a noteworthy specimen. Never mind the smell…

These are the spongy ‘columns’ of the columned stinkhorn, (Clathrus columnatus) slathered underneath with the slimy green ‘gleba’ – that’s where the spores are.  Flies are attracted to the smell (oh yes, it stinks) and the slime ( and spores)  sticks to their little feet.  This thing was impressive.  It’s hard to describe without using embarrassing bodily terminology, but, well, just LOOK at the thing.  It grows from a whitish egg that is on the soil surface.  It is really quite pretty once you get over it.  If it were a flower with an exotic name and impossibly hard to grow, think how folks would fawn over it!

Several others came up during our visit with mom over Christmas – turns out they are common in mulch, as they need to grow on dead wood, or other substrate with high cellulose content.

A flock of robins

I went walking in the college woods with Thomas and Mario in our yearly search for mistletoe. “Look high,” I told them, “for green clumps in the trees.”
We wandered down paths and up to hidden koi ponds near the RT Lodge. It was as we returned to the neighborhood that I saw the red cedar tree. It was just off the road, so there was the noise of traffic, but the tree itself was moving. Branches were fluttering and swishing and it became clear that there were birds flying in and out of the tree. They were flying within the tree. They were robins. Upon closer examination, they were eating up the waxy purple berries as fast at they could. There must have been 3 dozen in this one tree!
I think of robins as sort of dignified birds, stately, if talkative, representatives of the bird world. They strut around lawns, territorially. They devour worms.
But this was different. Not festive exactly, but more needy. I would almost say desperate. No worms around this chilly December day, but there were cedar berries. These waxy purple fruits pass virtually undigested through birds and they end up accidental farmers, planting cedar trees wherever they roost.
Is there any message here?

In this Advent season as Christmas draws near, should I also be looking for something, taking something in, and planting seeds?

Archtop Guitars, New Yorker models, 1958, 1959 | Guitar Heroes | The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Dad had a D’Angelico guitar custom built by John D’Angelico back in the late 50′s.  Here’s a very similar New Yorker cut-away model in an exhibit at the MET.

Archtop Guitars, New Yorker models, 1958, 1959 | Guitar Heroes | The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

 

Thanksgiving on Wilson Avenue

We hosted some family in Maryville this year for Thanksgiving. THAT meant we had to get some work done on the house!

Family gathered on the porch

New effort

Why not a day like Veteran’s Day AND Corduroy Appreciation Day to start a blog?