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RECOMMENDED
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The whole NCnatural site is a
beautiful one. Wildflowers, The
Blue
Ridge Parkway, NC Festivals
and Events, and everything is
addressed here. A labor of love, definitely.
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The National
Botany Information Infrastructure is a
resource of resources run by a government agency,
the NBII (Actually a federation of partners, headed
up by the already net-savvy USGS). It is a
great place to start to look for botanical
information online and references tons of
educational and organizational websites who's aim
is to supply information to the internet, and keep
the data side strong.
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NATURALISTS AND
THEIR HOMEPAGES
Nature
Close to Home: Signs, Season, and Stories. This is a
collection of thoughts and observations by the naturalist
only known as 'Jim'. His journal entries are more like poems
and his stories are moments of touching softly the world of
his beautiful meadows and mountains of Colorado. Jim loves
the spirit of the west, and, appropriately his voice is
rhythmic and sparse and perhaps a bit distant in its
ruggedness. Almost a "Mullein Award" winner.
The
Sonoran Desert Naturalist Homepage is a great collection of
nature observing and personal expansion by desert-lover
Michael J. Plagens. He organizes his journal entries into
various subjects where they can be explored collectively,
something i should learn to do. Interspersed are photos and
links to photos. Where he doesn't take the pictures himself
he gives proper credit and a link to wash it down. He has
helpful hints to bring nature home to you and you to nature,
all in his own direct style. A very friendly place to visit
and think, especially if you love the Southwest desert and
its spirit. A definite MULLEIN AWARD winning
site!
FLOWERING PLANTS
The USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service
maintains quite an extensive database of plants, and this is
a link to it's query
system. It contains current
information and usually a few pictures of each plant along
with state distributions.
Hasn't been updated in a while, but
Stein's
virtual herbararium. Kenneth Stein has pictures
of many of the same plants taken in SW Virginia and WV to
help get a better view. Not a lot of information, but some
pretty and instructive pictures.
Grandfather
Mountain, NC is a habitat- and
species-rich environment that also is a private park. They
have some nice wildflower and historic exhibits at this
site.
The Brooklyn
Metropolitan Plant Encyclopedia is an interesting
plant-guide that includes discussions of various aspects of
plants. Makes you wanna go visit the Brooklyn Botanic
Garden, too.
The State
Botanical Garden of Georgia, has some wonderful
stuff.
The American
Association of Botanical Gardens and
Arboreta is a place to locate
websites of your favorite gardens that might need a local
visit or support from you.
If you're up on your biological terms and want
to investigate the different families of plants, the Cornell
Universities Families
of Flowering Plants, is a must-see. However, if
you're unsure whether a plant is anomocytic, or anisocytic,
or paracytic it might just be gobbledygook, especially if
the whole idea of urticating hairs frightens you. They do
have some very good drawings of various plants.
TREES
While the work that the North Carolina State
University's Horticulture department has done is geared for
landscaping and in fact is called Urban
Tree Identification, it is worthwhile to use to
get to know trees, starting with the ones in your back yard.
Good pictures and information on habitat needs and general
characteristics.
FUNGI
One of the coolest and most fun
fungal website is Tom
Volk's Fungi, which is helped along by
the Department of Biology and Microbiology at the University
of Wisconsin-La Crosse. Tom is verbose about the darling
little things and even includes letters and questions about
them, a fungus of the month area, and lots of information
about his favorite, the incredible edible morel. He even has
a special "Life cycle of the Morel" and various pieces of
information that relates to eating various mushrooms. He has
a gopher site that has pictures of every form imaginable...
ok, well MANY forms. He also hosts the Mycological
Society of America webpage.
George
Barron's fungal website is good too. He, like
myself, has little interest in consuming the sex-parts of
fungi, but loves to photograph them. Some very good
information and even better pictures.
BIRDS
Similar in tone to this site, only for birds,
is The
Nest Box, a carefully crafted site of
backyard and field birding, nesting, gardening for birds and
butterflies, travelogues, and photo galleries. Very nicely
done by Arlene Ripley, whose love, i suspect is bluebirds
and for those reasons wages a territorial war against the
invasive 'house sparrow'. She even entertains questions
about anything to do with birds.
The National
Audubon Society has designated the Highlands
Plateau as an IBA (Important Bird Area) and features
Olive-sided Flycatcher, Canada Warbler, Black-throated Blue
Warbler, and others. The area is particularly significant
for Peregrine Falcons, Blackburnian Warblers, Golden-crowned
Kinglets, Red-breasted Nuthatches, Least Flycatchers,
Rose-breasted Grosbeaks, and Brown Creepers, among many
others. The Highlands
Plateau Audibon Society has their own webpage on
this server.
INSECTS & SPIDERS
The self-proclaimed Arachnological
Hub of the World Wide Web, is a path to thoughtful and
some tedious spider sites across the web run by the
University of Antwerp, Belgium. They have arachnid
information sorted by Order, which includes the scorpions,
the mites and ticks and whatnot. These are very organized
links. I'm not sure how often the pages are checked, but i
didn't run across any broken links. Includes commercial
links as well as people's homepages and thesis and treatises
on these fascinating creatures. This really does seem to be
a great arachnid resource for browsing and doing reports and
just plain learning. It is personally maintained specialty
sites such as these that i hope, for the future, will make
the internet a real information resource and let Yahoo and
other search engines concentrate on commercial sites on a
'for profit' basis.
Randy Emmitt's great photography site
showcases his love for the 'bugs' of the world. He has other
nature shots, but a complete list of all 94 species
Butterflies
of North Carolina, is not to be missed (He
doesn't have pictures of them all, but MANY of them). He
graciously provides information about them, plus info on
where he took the picture. Sort of like a butterfly version
of what i'm trying to do with the plant id. Obstensibly,
he's out to sell some of his pictures, but he puts them up
on the web and gives you a reason for them. Plus, they are
crystal sharp and load fairly quickly. He also provides tips
on scanning that's both technical and enlightening.
HIKING
The trails of Macon county
are detailed by length on the Macon
County Webpage, has quite a few listed and
have good directions.
PLACES IN WNC
The Pisgah
Inn is an inn (and the only gas
station for many miles) along the Blue Ridge Parkway between
Asheville and Waynesville. Next to Pisgah Mountain it has a
restaurant and is a fine place to stay, though i never have.
Just heard nice things. Open April - October
The Blue Ride Parkway is a great place for
viewing wildflowers, and Roanoke.com has some of those
flowers marked by mileposts along its route. Great for going
to find exactly what you want to see when. Helpful
map
of the parkway, too, with places to see,
eat, gas up and stay.
Other Blue
Ridge Parkway sites:
COMMERCIAL SITES
I don't advertise here, but i really do like
Campmor's hiking stuff. They
offer the name brands like Kelty, Eureka, North Face,
Jansport etc. along with all kinza gizmos and outdoorsy
stuff. I've bought from them consistently, waiting for the
products i want to become last years models and buying them
on sale. Tell 'em zen sent ya!
Rent-A-Naturalist. Actually, they
don't call it that, but that's what they do and it's sort of
an interesting concept. It's for people who don't just want
to get out in the heart of Vermont, but to be able to learn
to observe and soak in what's around them. Soft versions of
hiking, picknicing, canoeing and winter snow-shoeing with
naturalist Elizabeth Cooper. If you're in Vermont and want
to soak up Vermont nature, try them.
MISC (I forget how to
spell it, and because it's last doesn't mean it's
least!)
Tom Brown Jr. is one of my personal
heroes. He has an
approach to nature that is connected, forgiving of man, and
wise. He has a truly deep understanding that has helped me
in many ways. He offers classes in Tracking, nature
appreciation, survival and related things at his farm in
upstate NJ. Worth checking out if you're serious.
His
website keeps track of what classes
are available and gives detailed course descriptions. If you
aren't up for a week-long immersion in nature, then at the
very least check out his Field Guides. If you're a
suburbanite, start with his Tom Brown's Field Guide - The
Forgotten Wilderness. If that doesn't get you appreciating
the nature of your own backyard, then you just don't have it
in ya.
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