August means Ijams Summer Camps are over (boo hoo)

All the area children are gearing up for back-to-school and a return to formal classes. This means Ijams Summer Day Camps are over. (Our loss.)

The adventurous, go-anywhere kids will be missed by the entire Ijams camp education staff—Jen, Peg, Sabrina, Lauren, Sarah, moi. 

It was a great—albeit exhausting—two months, but one photo is worth a thousand words. So, I'll end the latter and feature the former. Below is the equivalent of 25,000 words!

(Special thanks to this year's counselors and volunteers: Ruddy Duck, Turtle T, Rocky, Shamrock and Kiwi!)

- Stephen Lyn Bales

 

 

 

And adieu campers
for another year.

See you next June!

Wonder of Hummingbirds Festival set for August 24

Smooth sumac in bloom along Universal Trail

The only species of shrub or tree that’s native to all 48 contiguous states (and most of southern Canada), smooth sumac is now in bloom in the Tennessee Valley.

At Ijams Nature Center look for it along the Universal Trail near the solar panels, although, most people hardly notice the dense shrub until fall when it develops bright red leaves.

Its name “sumac” can be traced back to the Syrian word “summaq,” which means red.

The flowers are tiny, borne in dense erect panicles. They are followed by large clusters of hairy (yes, hairy) crimson berries that remain throughout the winter, much to the delight of mockingbirds.

- Stephen Lyn Bales

What's the buzz? Ijams hosts first ever Cicada-A-Raid-A

Cidada-A-Raiders! Photo by Allison von Gruenigen

 Teaching urban children (and their parents) about the wonders of nature is one of the cornerstones of our nature center. It's a cornerstone laid down over 70 years ago by H.P. and Alice Ijams while raising their four daughters on the site.

Raider holding an exuvium, the last
shed exoskeleton of a cicada larva.
Photo by Allison von Gruenigen

So here's the buzz: Summer is a time of insects—large, loud, loquacious insects. To celebrate the season, Ijams recently hosted a Cicada-A-Raid-A! 

We learned about the large green insects of summer in the order Hemiptera and about the five species that call Ijams home: swamp, Robinson's, scissor-grinder, lyric and Linne's cicada. They can be heard at different times of the day from early July to Labor Day buzzing from the treetops.

It's the males that produce the pulsating buzzy songs and although the adjective loquacious suggests a vocalization, the buzz is actually created by rapidly popping the sides of their abdomens in and out, thus creating a clicking sound.

Four of the five cicada species found at Ijams

After enjoying a short talk refreshed by cicada cookies and cicada juice on the back terrace (with a swamp cicada serenading us overhead) we explored the Homesite listening for other species, descendants of the cicadas the Ijams daughters heard many decades ago.  

Such fun! A buzzing good time. 

- Stephen Lyn Bales

New fish added to the exhibit hall display

Logperch (Percina caprodes) 

If you have ever visited the Ijams exhibit hall, you know that there is one aquarium displaying several small active local fishes.

Gilt darter

The mix varies but all that occupy the tank are donated by Pat Rakes of Conservation Fisheries, Inc. a local non-profit fish hatchery dedicated to propagating and returning native imperiled fishes to area streams. The fishes remain small and include such groups as darters, shiners, madtoms, etc.


This week Pat brought by 52 sawfin shiners, 7 gilt darters and 2 logperch.

- Thanks, Pat

Alice and Peg work the crowd as well as Abbott and Costello

How do you have a party and get everyone to attend? Invite an opossum.

Educator Peg Beute brought out Alice the Ijams education 'possum last Saturday at 2 o'clock and before you could say "Who's on first?" she had a good size party.

Every Saturday at 2 and 3:30 p.m. there are free animal shows at the Visitor Center, and if you are very, very lucky, it might even be Alice on first!

Or it could be that nature boy with da bird.

- Photo and story by that Nature Boy

Meadowlark Music Festival wooed and boogied for 9 hours

Photo by Stephen Lyn Bales

Special thanks to all who attended this year's Meadowlark Music Festival last Saturday. The weather was mild-summery. The music was oh so sweet and the festiveness flowed like a mountain stream through the Blue Ridge. 

Ijams Nature Center and WDVX 89.9/102.9 FM thank this year's sponsors: New Belgium Brewing, TERI Productions, kmt, Shoney's, Three Rivers Market, Fagan Jewelers, Elizabeth Eason Architecture, Toyota Knoxville and WBIR TV Channel 10;   

and thank all the bands—Della Mae, Cutthroat Shamrock, Robinella, Blue Mother Tupelo, The Lonetones, The Barefoot Movement, Kevin Abernathy & Mic Harrison, WestWend—who performed from 2 to 11 p.m.

- Stephen Lyn Bales

Robinella

Blue Mother Tupelo

The Barefoot Movement

The Lonetones

Kevin Abernathy

WestWend

Mic Harrison

Cutthroat Shamrock

Band photos by Sabrina DeVault

TN Naturalist Program holds sixth workshop at Ijams

Under the shade of a sycamore, Jen Roder talks trees

The Tennessee Naturalist Program at Ijams is an ongoing series that introduces participants to the wonder of the state’s amazing natural resources. A total of 16 sessions, each either two, three or four hours long, will be held during 2013. 

Last Saturday was class number 6: "Tennessee Trees and Forest" taught by Jennifer Roder. By the end of the year the attendees will be Certified Tennessee Naturalists. This year's classes are all full, but we are already taking enrollment for 2014 classes. Call Jen at (865) 577-4717, ext. 130 to learn more or sign up.

For more information about the Tennessee Naturalist Program, visit our website at Ijams TN Naturalists. 

TN Naturalist Program Ijams 2013 Schedule

Sat., April 13, 10 a.m.–1 p.m. Introduction, followed by lunch

Sat., May 4, 9 a.m.–12 p.m. Birding I: Spring Birds

Sat., May 18, 10 a.m.–2 p.m. Forbs, Ferns, Fungi and More

Sat., June 1, 10 a.m.–12 p.m. Amphibians

Sat., June 8, 10 a.m.–12 p.m. Reptiles

Sat., June 22, 1 p.m.–5 p.m. Tennessee Trees and Forests

Sat., July 13, 10 a.m.–2 p.m. Aquatic Systems

Sat., Aug. 10, 2 p.m.–4 p.m. Insects and Creepy Crawlies

Sat., Aug. 24, Time TBD, Birding II: Hummingbird Festival

Sat., Sept. 7, 10 a.m.–2 p.m. Fungus Among Us

Sat., Sept. 21, 7 p.m.–9 p.m. Nocturnal Naturalist I: Ijams Nightlife

Sat., Oct. 5, 7 pm–9 p.m. Nocturnal Naturalist II: Seven Islands

Sat., Oct. 19, 10 a.m.– 2 p.m. Mammals and Furry Friends

Sat., Nov. 9, 1 p.m.–5 p.m. Geology of East Tennessee

Sat., Nov. 23, 9 a.m.–12 p.m., Birding III: Winter Birds

Sat., Dec. 7, 10 a.m.–2 p.m. Closing Social and Class Projects

Wonder of Hummingbirds Festival set for Saturday, August 24

The third annual Wonder of Hummingbirds Festival is Saturday, August 24, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.  Admission: $5, children under six are admitted free.

Presented by the Knoxville Chapter of the Tennessee Ornithological Society and Ijams Nature Center, visitors will have the opportunity to see ruby-throated hummingbirds up-close at a banding demonstration by Mark Armstrong, a certified Master Bander.

Hummingbirds will be harmlessly captured, weighed, measured and banded before being sent on their way.

Banding provides a way to document hummingbird movement during migration. August and September are busy migration months in Tennessee with thousands of hummingbirds moving south on their way to wintering grounds in Central America and southern Mexico.

The festival will also feature speakers on nature topics, wildlife educational demonstrations, guided walks and vendors selling food and drinks, plants, locally made arts and crafts, bird feeders and supplies, garden items and a “Bargain Barn” selling new and gently used merchandise with nature themes.

Speakers include:

• T. David Pitts, Professor of Biology, UT Martin will talk about “The Hummingbirds that Nest in your Yard”.

• Marcia Davis, Birdlife Columnist for the Knoxville News Sentinel

• David Unger, Professor of Biology, Maryville College

• Steve McGaffin, Naturalist and Educator for the Knoxville Zoo.

• Lynne McCoy, a local wildlife rehabilitator

Festival sponsors: Wild Birds Unlimited, Perky Pet, Prism Pools and Visionary Horizons Wealth Management.

- Art and photo by Vickie Henderson

Visiting Northern bobwhite, a first for Ijams

Wayward Northern Bobwhite photo by Kristy Keel

If you grew up on a farm or spent lazy Sunday afternoons visiting your grandparents on theirs, you know the sound.

It springs from the fields: a sharply whistled, "bob, bob, whiiiiitttttteeeee."

The song of a Northern bobwhite quail is a part of our collective memory, what the French philosopher Maurice Halbwachs termed "la mémoire collective." Along with the taste of fresh lemonade and newly ripened watermelon warm from the garden, many of us seem to share this memory, or something like it.

We also seem to remember the bobwhite's exuberant call, but few of us have ever actually seen one. 

And, its getting harder to do just that! In 2007, the Audubon Society released a list of the 20 Common Bird Species in Decline. Complied from 40 years of data, the number one bird on the list was the bobwhite. The meadow loving gamebird has suffered a shocking 82 percent decline in overall population in the past four decades.

Why? 

As the Audubon article penned by Greg Butcher states,"The loss of suitable bobwhite habitat—from large-scale agriculture, intensive pine-plantation forestry, and development—is the most dominant threat to the long-term survival of these common grassland birds. Losses to nest predators, and even fire ants—competing for food, attacking nests, and prompting humans to spray pesticides—also seem to be contributing to the bobwhite's decline."

Documenting the documentor:
Kristy photographing the bobwhite

Imagine then the surprise when Saturday, June 15, former Ijams' AmeriCorps member Kristy Keel found a bobwhite at Ijams (to my knowledge a first, since we do not have proper habitat.) Ijams is mostly wooded with no sprawling meadows.

But there it was, wayward, at the Lower Overlook on the Homesite; more or less at the edge of the forest walking along a trail just like any other Saturday afternoon visitor.

Way to go Kristy for having the acumen to know that it was a very odd bird way out of place! 

- Photos by Kristy Keel. Story by Stephen Lyn Bales. 

Beautiful morning for a paddle-about

Special thanks to those who came out this morning for an Ijams Paddle-about Mead's Quarry Lake.

The sky was blue, the water was calm and the camaraderie was congenial.

The phoebes are still nesting and several indigo buntings were heard and seen around the quarry.

A good time was had by all.

The next Paddle-about will be Saturday, July 27.

- Stephen Lyn Bales 

Ijams/WDVX Meadowlark set for June 29

12-year-old celebrates birthday with tour of Ijams critters

Lilah and Abby learn about caring for a snake from Dr. Louise Conrad

Birthday celebrations come in all varieties.

Recently, Abby Garrett (on the right) was treated to a behind the scenes tour of our education animals by Dr. Louise Conrad, Ijams veterinarian. 

Abby learned how all the Ijams education animals from fish to snakes to turtles to owls to one bashful opossum are cared for and how each has special needs.

Abby loves animals and Ijams. Joining her for the birthday outing was her seven-year-old cousin Lilah Von Gruenigen.

- Story and photo by Stephen Lyn Bales

Tarantula celebrates 13th year at Ijams with a shed

Tarantula's molted skin

As a reasonably iron-clad rule, all of our education animals are native. But keeping spiders alive longer than a year is not easy so in the year 2000 we decided to make an exception and buy a Chilean rose-haired tarantula to show students when we talk about Arachnids. What I like to refer to as "spiderology."

Why? Well, tarantulas at easy to care for, they are large and easy to see and they live a long time.

Now, 13 years later our oldest tarantula is still alive. Plus, as spider grow, they have to periodically shed their old tight outer skin. Last week was a cause to celebrate at the nature center. Both of our tarantulas decided it was time to sloth off the old and unveil the new. A rare conjunction of events since we think the last time the older one went through the arduous process of molting was two years ago.

-Story and photo by Stephen Lyn Bales.

Rare spider lily blooms at nature center

Beauty Alert: A somewhat rare—certainly hard to find—and exquisitely beautiful native plant is now in bloom at the nature center near the Universal Pond.

Carolina spider lily (Hymenocallis caroliniana or in some books Hymenocallis occidentalis) is related to several other similar species found in swampy regions around the world. With daffodil-like flowers and outward-spreading, reflexed spurs this wetland loving perennial has the appearance of a white spider, albeit only has six not eight legs. Its stalk is thick like a succulent.

Carolina spider lily is found throughout the South, except Florida, and as far north as Indiana and Illinois. Tennessee is within its known range (mostly the western Mississippi River swampy part of the state) and a check of the UT Herbarium website reveals it hasn't been documented in Knox County. (Ours could have been planted by a long ago landscaper and may not be naturally occurring.)

So finding it is a bit of a challenge; seeing it at Ijams is an unexpected treat.

- Story and photo by Stephen Lyn Bales