Nature Day Camp Week 2: Finding the Super Hero within

Our Super Hero Nature Day Camp featured a week of specialized training so the campers could find the super hero skills they had within.

Each of the young campers had their own inner talents, we helped them find them. 

The camp was for kindergarten-aged and first graders. 

- Stephen Lyn Bales

Squeezing through tight fits. Easy!

Karate chopping! Got it!

Minimization? Watch out Antman!

Hula Hooping. Better than Wonder Woman!

Faster than the speed of light. No problem

Leaping tall buildings. Yep!

Invisibility! Oh yeah!

Wrestling giant insects. OK!

Mental telepathy. She's in your head!! 


And there were Super Villains!

Battling Super Villains with wet sponges on a hot day!

They're going down!

Bombs away!

And the villains are vanquished!

Martial arts training!

Meet our super heroes!

Fort Craig Boys & Girls Club visits Ijams for nature walk

Ijams welcomed the Fort Craig Boys & Girls Club from Maryville for a nature walk last week. We explored two ponds at the Homesite, finding tadpoles and red-spotted newts.

- Stephen Lyn Bales

Nature Day Camp Week 1: Monster! Monster! Are they real?

Are monsters real? Or just products of our overactive imagination? Or to paraphrase Pogo, "I have met the monster and he is us!"

With creepy crawly

Our Monster! Monster! Nature Day Camp had a week of fun with not so monstrous monsters. We also made many explorations along the trails and ponds looking for things we might normally be afraid of—snakes, spiders, creepy crawlers—to see if they were really all that scary.

The day-campers also found a hapless runaway werewolf named Max (temper issues), took a giant green Frankenstein named Bob on a nature walk (he only needed a friend), visited Sad Vlad, a vegetarian vampire, in his darkened crypt (he only drinks the blood of trees, poor sap) and went searching for giant millipedes because a full-of-himself Martian ruler named Vol-Ték demanded it. 

Jeez! Those Martians and their angry red planet. Lighten up!

Summer is for having fun and a little pretend. 

- Stephen Lyn Bales

Birds on top of Old Smoky, Jay leads hike to find them

The melodious winter wrens nest high in the Smokies

Many thanks to all who attended our Birding & Brunch last Saturday. Our workshop titled On Top of Old Smoky, covered the birds to look for in the Smokies that nest above 4,000 feet.

If the class got you excited, join Jay Sturner for a KTOS field trip to look for winter wrens and the others. Here are some details. 

Where: Alum Cave Trail, Great Smoky Mountains National Park

When: Sunday June 14, 2015, 7:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Leaders: Jay Sturner, (865) 244-7819, flowerpetalsonthecreek@yahoo.com, and Keith Watson

Join Jay and Keith for a very exciting field trip to the Smoky Mountains to experience one of the most beautiful sounds of the spruce-fir forest, the unforgettable song of the Winter Wren!*

They will hike 2.2 miles to Alum Cave Bluffs and find many high altitude species including Winter Wren. After we reach the bluffs we will look for Peregrine Falcons before turning back. At a birder’s pace it will take about three hours to get there, about two coming down, and will be moderately difficult. Other species we may encounter include black-capped chickadee; red-breasted nuthatch; chestnut-sided, black-throated blue and Canada warblers; brown creeper; veery; and possibly common raven, hermit thrush and red crossbill. Just to name a few!

Meet at the Sugarlands Visitor Center in the first parking lot (the one farthest from the bus lot) no later than 7:30 a.m. From there we will carpool to the Alum Cave Trail. The hike itself will last roughly five hours, so bring plenty of water, food, rain gear, maybe a walking stick, and sunblock.

*Special note: This hike was inspired by a wonderful article written by Ijams naturalist Stephen Lyn Bales called “The Smokies’ Winter Wren: Operatic Pixie of the Highlands,” which is featured in the current issue of Smokies Life Magazine. For a write-up on this article, which includes a short, poetic passage from the piece, visit Stephen’s blog at http://stephenlynbales.blogspot.com/2015/05/smokies-life-winter-wren.html

See you there!

Sugarlands Visitor Center

1420 Little River Gorge Rd

Gatlinburg, TN 37738

35°41'08.0"N 83°32'12.1"W or 35.685562, -83.536691

Alum Cave Bluffs: http://www.hikinginthesmokys.com/alumcave.htm

Birds on top of Old Smoky workshop at Ijams