I have a field guide addiction. Upwards of a hundred of the gems adorn my shelves, although none are more impressive than my massive Gray’s Manual of Botany (1848). Great advances in botany have rendered it somewhat antiquated, but it…
Monthly Archives: April 2005
Appalachian Treasures Project Touring Nation to Protect Coalfield Communities
On a recent March morning, a group of community and business leaders from Ashtabula, Ohio sat riveted and astonished as they listened to the stories of three visitors from Appalachia. They learned about how the peaceful lives of the two…
Appalachian Voice Members: Hear Them Roar!
This spring, Appalachian Voices’ staff, members and volunteers worked together to achieve an enormous success for clean air in North Carolina and across the Southeast. As a result of those efforts, North Carolina is taking bipartisan strides to help keep…
Removing Barriers to Healthier Rivers
images/voice_uploads/DamCircle.gif As the splendor of another Appalachian spring unfolds, birds are not the only migrants returning to the mountains where they were born. Shad, a native fish once abundant in the mid Atlantic states, are moving up through the estuaries…
Best Birding Spots in the Southern Appalachians
Brasstown Bald, Georgia: Species sighted here include Canada warbler, black-throated blue warbler, rose-breasted grosbeak, blackburnian warbler, scarlet tanager, and blue-headed vireo, ravens, and winter wrens. Mount Mitchell, North Carolina: There has been massive and visible die-off of Fraser Fir here,…
Looking Out for Our Feathered Friends
images/voice_uploads/BirdCircle.gif They come here with names as rich as the velvety colors of their wings—scarlet tanager, rose-breasted grosbeak, belted kingfisher, golden-winged warbler, and yellow-bellied sapsucker. The year-round residents, the seasonal migrants, the sparsely spotted interlopers that have been driven here…
Supporting Their Farming “Habit”
“Know how to make a small fortune farming?” “Start out with a large fortune and pretty soon you’ll have a small one.” This sort of wry humor is standard among farmers when talking about their declining profession. It’s no secret…
New Life for Appalachian Homebuilding Tradition
images/voice_uploads/PoplarCircle.gif The passion in Chris McCurry’s voice can bring tears to your eyes. And she’s not talking about solving world peace or finding cures for childhood diseases. Chris is talking about using poplar bark as siding for homes and businesses.…
A Second Chance
For nearly fifty years, one of North America’s most magnificent bird species was thought to be extinct. But just a week before the printing of this paper, scientists confirmed that at least one ivory-billed woodpecker – and they suspect at…
