tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-45979430018648078162024-03-13T00:29:27.992-07:00ghost birdsUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger29125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4597943001864807816.post-18880490183010892932013-07-04T07:35:00.002-07:002013-07-05T07:27:16.369-07:00Heavy hearted after Nancy Tanner passes<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span">I first met <b style="color: #cc0000;">Nancy Tanner</b>
in the early 1990s. We were both members of the local bird club: the
Knoxville Chapter of the Tennessee Ornithological Society. She was also a
regular at Ijams Nature Center where I work. </span></i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span">In time, I became an invited guest for lunches at her home in South Knoxville. </span></i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span">Nancy
had a nimble mind and needed to exercise it. A race horse has to run.
She loved to converse, tell stories, jokes, unleash a sharp repartee.
We'd talk birds, books, magazine articles recently read, current events
and sports. And, of course, her Jim. </span></i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></i></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span">It
was at one of those lunches in October of 2005 that a topic for a book
came up. I was just finishing the manuscript for my first book "Natural
Histories" published by the University of Tennessee Press. We were
talking, as we often did, about her late husband Jim and his Cornell
fieldwork in the 1930s on the ivory-billed woodpecker, when I said,
"Someone needs to write a book." And after a short pause, I said, "That
someone should be me." </span></i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span">Thus a project was born.</span></i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></i></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span">Nancy
was the last living person to have a universally accepted sighting of
an ivory-billed woodpecker. That happened in December 1941. She was with
her late husband Jim (James T. Tanner) in the Singer Tract in northeast Louisiana.</span></i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span">Over
the past six years, Nancy and I became good friends. For most of that
time, I would see or at least talk to her almost weekly.</span></i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></i></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span">The
first three years: 2006-09, we met to discuss and assembly the piles of
reference I needed to copy, absorb. Over time, I assembled three-ring
binders of material, not knowing exacting what I would need when I
actually sat down to write. Pulling together a book is like putting
together a jigsaw puzzle except all the pieces do not come in one box.
They are scattered helter-skelter. But, in time, the pieces just slowly
fall into place. </span></i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span"><b style="color: #cc0000;">Ghost Birds: Jim Tanner and the Quest for the Ivory-billed Woodpecker, 1935-1941</b><span style="color: #cc0000;"> </span>was <span style="color: #fce5cd;">published by UT in the fall of 2010. It was followed by an article in </span><a href="http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/A-Close-Encounter-With-the-Rarest-Bird.html" style="color: #cc0000;"><b>Smithsonian</b></a><span style="color: #cc0000;"> </span><span style="color: #fce5cd;">magazine about our research which I penned. </span></span></i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span">For the next two years Nancy and I worked to promote the book locally, doing numerous talks and book signings. We developed a playful banter, because she loved to laugh and make me laugh. </span></i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span">She
called me her "young friend" and never wanted to talk about health,
aches and pains or even aging in general. Those topics were for old
people. When you were with Nancy, you were in a match of playful minds. </span></i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span">And she used wit the way a fencer uses a foil. En garde. </span></i></span><span style="font-size: large;"><i>Prêt. Allez</i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span">. Oh, yes. So true. Touché.</span></i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span"> </span></i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span">Or
the way Oscar Wilde used a well turned phrase like a craving knife:
"Always forgive your enemies, nothing annoys them more." At times we
both were laughing so hard, all conversation ceased. I always left her
feeling better than before I arrived, her vitality and good humor were
so contagious. </span></i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span">Her beloved Jim passed away 22 years ago. </span></i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span">She couldn't understand divorce because losing her husband had been so painful. </span></i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span">Nancy
once told me that for five years after he died, she wanted to die too,
but when she didn't, she decided she might as well go on living. </span></i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span">That
she did, to the fullest, ten decades of indomitable determination to
live each day as a quest. Like the Energizer bunny, she just kept going
and going and going.</span></i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span">A
week ago, I visited her in a local hospice facility. Her frail body was
betraying her strong will. After my lunchtime visit—our last—as I got
up to leave, I reached out. She took my hand and clasping it with both
of hers, looked deep into my eyes. And with a tone as tender as the
moment deemed due, she said, "Good bye love." </span></i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span">We both knew it was just that. Good bye.</span></i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span">To
paraphrase the Belle of Amherst, "Because she did not stop for death,
it kindly stopped for her, the carriage held but the two, and
immortality." </span></i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span">After a short illness, Nancy died last Sunday, June 30 just sixteen days after her 96th birthday. </span></i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span">As
a writer, you're taught to avoid clichés, nothing slows down a
narrative like a worn out phrase. It's like the gritty build-up on the
bottom of a snow ski. But in this case, I hope you forgive me. When God
made Nancy, he broke the mold. </span></i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span">I will miss, miss, miss her dearly.</span></i></span></div>
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4597943001864807816.post-88860816679898749022013-06-06T06:23:00.003-07:002013-06-06T06:36:09.232-07:00Nancy Tanner celebrates birthday at Ijams<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhE7LSgdS7nMtF_-NYqtx6jL4Hn4xVOS8DqhMETna3nZlt1P_Z45HWmw_j6ymqTs_rde1xPPiEcyWnVtsy07fsmGAfdyqVv45V0dUkyDeEve54cQq8DzlGZmoULVnPtZo7Qddx0z7e3-Ss/s1600/Nancy+Tanner+is+96.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="290" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhE7LSgdS7nMtF_-NYqtx6jL4Hn4xVOS8DqhMETna3nZlt1P_Z45HWmw_j6ymqTs_rde1xPPiEcyWnVtsy07fsmGAfdyqVv45V0dUkyDeEve54cQq8DzlGZmoULVnPtZo7Qddx0z7e3-Ss/s400/Nancy+Tanner+is+96.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i style="color: #f9cb9c;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Photos by Vickie Henderson</span></i></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i>Nancy Tanner celebrated her 96th birthday a few days early at last evening's meeting of the Knoxville Chapter of the Tennessee Ornithological Society. The meeting was held at Ijams Nature Center.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Nancy is the widow of Jim Tanner. She last saw an ivory-billed woodpecker in December 1941 while with her late husband on a trip to the Singer Track.</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="color: #f9cb9c; font-size: large;"><i><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Happy Birthday, Nancy! </span></i></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4597943001864807816.post-66988821689605334572013-05-19T06:25:00.001-07:002013-05-23T05:04:43.005-07:00French journal Alauda reviews Ghost Birds<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4HFvNO8SDJ1dkfNZYi7Zx1tqoq8QT9SZStsJXnOm-FTRbah5JSM4fnBgus1zJfMl4XnQL4WVMct8rE-JAby3Ico5xABXgkajyhMvjSb_7dH33i5ARR-osZOHtGqDJZVhS2CTIttJrdag/s1600/bfdbc0_0cffe0abdc0379f250d3f970eab879b0.jpg_srz_335_485_75_22_0.50_1.20_0.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4HFvNO8SDJ1dkfNZYi7Zx1tqoq8QT9SZStsJXnOm-FTRbah5JSM4fnBgus1zJfMl4XnQL4WVMct8rE-JAby3Ico5xABXgkajyhMvjSb_7dH33i5ARR-osZOHtGqDJZVhS2CTIttJrdag/s320/bfdbc0_0cffe0abdc0379f250d3f970eab879b0.jpg_srz_335_485_75_22_0.50_1.20_0.jpg" width="221" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i style="color: #f6b26b; font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Vol. 81, #1, 2013</i></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i>Alauda</i> is the journal of the Ornithological Society of France. </span><span style="font-size: large;"><i>Here's an excerpt:</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i>"Cet ouvrage est écrit dans un style très vivant. Il relate avec moult détails la vic? quotidienne et la quête scientifique d'un ornithologue conscient des le début de son entreprise que l'espèce charismatique qu'il a choisi de connaitre est vouée a disparaitre sous ses yeux.<br />
Ses efforts pour alerter les autorities et tenter de sauver l'espèce n'ont pu aboutir dans le contexte difficile de la second querre mondiale et a un moment ou il etuit sans doute déjà trop tard. Voila un récit a lire et méditer sur l'itinéraire d'un ornithologue de XX siècle captive pur une espèce dont lu disparition récente témoigne de la brutalité avec laquelle notre propre espèce truite la nature." - Jean-Marc Pons</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i>Karen Sue translates, "</i><i><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">This book is written in a lively style.</span><br style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
The author recounts in great detail the everyday and scientific</span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"> pursuit of a conscious ornithologist from the beginning of his</span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"> adventure as the cherished species he has chosen to study is doomed to</span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"> disappear before his eyes. His efforts to alert authorities and try to</span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"> save the species were not successful in the difficult context of the</span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"> second world war and at a time when it was probably already too late.</span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"> Here is a story to read and meditate on the route of an ornithologist</span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"> in the twentieth century and the inability of one man to save this</span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"> species. The Ivory-billed's recent disappearance reflects the</span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"> brutality with which our own species treats nature."</span></i></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"> </span></i></span><span style="font-size: large;"><i> </i></span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4597943001864807816.post-57457383444992782762013-03-10T08:19:00.000-07:002013-05-16T18:49:52.097-07:00Bird Life of Louisiana 1938<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQRvcXuXkATvN9HxETMxbEXXm4QDgSBCXvUkGK9ShcP-QyjAi69IWLvfZook65Z0fGEXVJlEpsTBAZKPd65_WQd2pwNnXgV1TMix6p_A1XSPTTeJ5kALGcod-_OojJ2Bdfd1y8igEMH5g/s1600/Bird-Life-LA.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQRvcXuXkATvN9HxETMxbEXXm4QDgSBCXvUkGK9ShcP-QyjAi69IWLvfZook65Z0fGEXVJlEpsTBAZKPd65_WQd2pwNnXgV1TMix6p_A1XSPTTeJ5kALGcod-_OojJ2Bdfd1y8igEMH5g/s400/Bird-Life-LA.jpg" width="263" /></a></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><i><b style="color: #cc0000;">The Bird Life of Louisiana</b><span style="color: #cc0000;">, </span>Bulletin 28, produced by the Department of Conservation of the State of Louisiana in 1938 obviously had copies of Tanner's photographs. An unknown artist used them as reference for the cover illustration. </i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><i>Inside, the text reads, "Few birds in Louisiana have had so much attention during the past few years as has the Ivory-billed Woodpecker...It formally occupied the bottomland forests of all the southern states, extending then as far north as southern Indiana and North Carolina, but at the present time its numbers have been so greatly reduced that it is confined to a few restricted areas in the wilder parts of a few of the southern states. It is a bird of heavy bottomland forests, and is not so frequently seen on the uplands. Owing to its retiring habits, and the fact that it is dependent on the deep forests for a home, it naturally disappears from areas when the forests are cleared or otherwise destroyed. This accounts for the great contraction of its range during the past 100 years." </i></span></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9mFB6qiOrVMSUo3h9pA0UWu7uWOzocgE_bFjkryYWA8s35zvIqGWfzcFjMXXu6gUyqKkH3TJx76aHcd9w1EEd4aNKy8bWPRjAOuNSjxYkO1v8THL9Hs60XVnJLDJbpZDGRN6ZU9n3pCY/s1600/Frontsp.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="307" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9mFB6qiOrVMSUo3h9pA0UWu7uWOzocgE_bFjkryYWA8s35zvIqGWfzcFjMXXu6gUyqKkH3TJx76aHcd9w1EEd4aNKy8bWPRjAOuNSjxYkO1v8THL9Hs60XVnJLDJbpZDGRN6ZU9n3pCY/s400/Frontsp.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr style="color: #f9cb9c; font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The frontispiece for the book was the same illustration by<br />
George Misch Sutton that Jim Tanner used in his book. </td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4597943001864807816.post-9090250660161633482012-05-23T06:33:00.000-07:002012-05-23T07:08:09.530-07:00Well written account of another tragic disaster<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9cb9c;">You’ve authored another wonderful book. I thoroughly enjoyed</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #fce5cd;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #e06666;">Ghost Birds</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9cb9c;">—a well written account of another tragic disaster thanks to our lovely myopic species. I have never read Tanner’s notes or journals but as I read your book I wondered if he wrote with such an engaging style.<br /><br />Thank you for writing this book and I eagerly await your next one.<br /><br />Sam Moore<br /><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">(Thank you Sam! And I am currently working on the "next one.")</span></span></i></span></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4597943001864807816.post-27246692589466786802012-05-18T04:36:00.000-07:002013-03-06T09:01:19.697-08:00It made me cry at the end of the Afterward.<div class="widget-content" style="color: #f9cb9c; font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
<div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>Ghost Birds, a review</i></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>I did a post recently on this amazing book. I had only begun reading it
at that time. At its conclusion I have to tell you, it is a fascinating
and enjoyable way to spend your reading time! I learned so much about
the Ivory-bill but also about other birds and I was swept away by the
discovery aspect of Jim Tanner's quest. </i></span></div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>Each trip into swamps and deep
forested areas of Arkansas, Louisiana, Georgia, Florida, South Carolina
and elsewhere kept me on edge about the possibilities of finding the
ghost birds. I was saddened by the widespread deforestation and the
lack of understanding that fashion isn't the driving force in our
planet! I was saddened by all the specimens that were collected even by
experts. </i></span></div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>But, there was so much
more to the story, and I loved every page of this well-written and
beautiful account! Overall, it was an uplifting and hopeful rendering
of an important education and conservation effort told by a wonderful
writer and written about a man with a deep understanding and love of
birds and of scientific knowledge. It was about a time in our history
just prior to WWII when we were becoming more informed and aware of our
natural world. I recommend this book to everyone who loves nature!</i></span></div>
<div>
</div>
</div>
<span style="color: #f9cb9c; font-size: large;"><i><span class="widget-item-control" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
<span class="item-control blog-admin">
</span>
</span></i></span>
<br />
<div style="color: #f9cb9c; font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>I just want to tell you how much the book means to me! It made me
cry at the end of the Afterward. I felt my heart breaking over the
"Trees for Tea" and other aspects of the Ivory-bill's death-knell. And
yet there were those glimmers of beautiful hope. Sightings that may or
may not be really true. And I do believe with all my heart that we NEED
that hope as human beings. It allows all the negative things we have
ever done as a race to the plants and animals that surround us to
receive a shadow of possible absolution. </i></span>
</div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
<div style="color: #f9cb9c; font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>Your writing is wonderful...I can't tell you that
enough. You did indeed have much more of a story to tell than just
things about "a woodpecker." I came to love Jim Tanner. I would have
been so proud to have been one of his students. Please tell Nancy how
much I respect him as a person and as a scientist, and how much I
respect her for the person that she is as well</i></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>Marie from Tucson</i></span> <a href="http://daughterm.blogspot.com/"><span style="color: #f9cb9c; font-size: large;"><i><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">(Click here for her blog) </span></i></span></a></div>
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<br /></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4597943001864807816.post-28224763107219692472012-05-06T08:34:00.001-07:002012-05-06T08:46:48.810-07:00The ivory-bill remains regally beautiful<br />
<div style="color: #f9cb9c; font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
<i><span style="font-size: large;">Since Jim Tanner last saw a living ivory-bill, over 70 years ago, the bird has remained "regally beautiful" either dead or alive.</span></i><br />
<br />
<i><span style="font-size: large;">Yesterday, in an editorial titled</span><span style="font-size: large;"> "Science and Truth: We’re All in It Together" for <b>The New York Times</b>, Jack Hitt writes:</span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-size: large;">"THE greatest bird news of our lifetime occurred at the height of the
George W. Bush administration. In April 2005, amid a pageant of flags
and cabinet ministers in Washington, John Fitzpatrick, the director of
the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, announced that an ivory-billed
woodpecker had been spotted for the first time in more than half a
century in an Arkansas swamp. </span></i></div>
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<i><br /></i></div>
<div itemprop="articleBody" style="color: #f9cb9c; font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
<i><span style="font-size: large;">President Bush pledged millions for habitat restoration. This and hundreds of other papers heralded the news... </span></i></div>
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<i><br /></i></div>
<div itemprop="articleBody" style="color: #f9cb9c; font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
<i><span style="font-size: large;">"The weirdest part of the ivory-bill’s resurrection is that if you look
back through the past four decades, it turns out the bird has come back
to life many times before. The ivory-bill seems to rise like a phoenix
at times of environmental anxiety. And each time the sighting has been
debunked, and then afterward some great section of wilderness has been
declared protected and everyone feels better for a while. </span></i></div>
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<i><br /></i></div>
<div itemprop="articleBody" style="color: #f9cb9c; font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
<i><span style="font-size: large;">After a 1966 disputed sighting in Texas, 84,550 acres became the Big
Thicket National Preserve. When the ivory-bill was sighted/not sighted
in a South Carolina swamp in 1971, the outcome was the creation of
Congaree National Park. Alex Sanders, who as a member of South
Carolina’s House of Representatives fought to preserve the land, told me
that when people ask him where the ivory-bill is, he says, “I don’t
know where he is now, but I know where he was when we needed him.”</span></i></div>
<div itemprop="articleBody" style="color: #f9cb9c; font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div itemprop="articleBody" style="color: #f9cb9c; font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
<i><span style="font-size: large;">In short, "the ivory-bill is charismatic megafauna, regally beautiful and a natural mascot for fund-raising." Wherever it appears, habitat gets bought and protected. Perhaps remaining a ghost is the Ghost Bird's greatest legacy.</span><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></i></div>
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<i><br /></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: #f9cb9c;">For the rest of the editorial, go to:</span> <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/06/opinion/sunday/science-and-truth-were-all-in-it-together.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&ref=opinion" style="color: white;">Science and Truth</a>. </span></i><br />
<i><br /></i><br />
<div style="color: #f9cb9c;">
<i><span style="font-size: small;">Thanks, Gene. </span></i></div>
</div>
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<br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4597943001864807816.post-63816510506578181622012-03-01T05:35:00.001-08:002012-03-03T05:39:28.985-08:00Article highlights Tanner's career post-ivorybill<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi28SVoI7z_qcSeviH2QGS6WlypylZql25RncpAdu9Yn_-7qvQCe3xBUf2SJWHLFOgpUZKO11kjMZTFk_13fxMpq_q01rqz1ALRbjaIqqooS4FfOD7yTQh4nnTC00ROyYLjeDBiGs2riA4/s1600/Tanner-TnCon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="254" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi28SVoI7z_qcSeviH2QGS6WlypylZql25RncpAdu9Yn_-7qvQCe3xBUf2SJWHLFOgpUZKO11kjMZTFk_13fxMpq_q01rqz1ALRbjaIqqooS4FfOD7yTQh4nnTC00ROyYLjeDBiGs2riA4/s400/Tanner-TnCon.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><style>
@font-face {
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}p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Palatino; }table.MsoNormalTable { font-size: 10pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; }
</style> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #f9cb9c; font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; line-height: 200%;"><i><span style="font-size: large;">Bridging the Sciences</span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #f9cb9c; font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; line-height: 200%;"><i><span style="font-size: large;">Jim Tanner: birdman with a mind for math</span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #f9cb9c; font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; line-height: 200%;"><br />
</div><i><span style="color: #f9cb9c; font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"> </span></span></i><i><span style="font-size: large;"></span><span style="color: #f9cb9c; font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Young James T. Tanner arrived at East Tennessee State College (today: University) in September 1940. Nestled in the foothills of the Appalachians with Buffalo and Cherokee mountains to the south, Tanner must have felt at home on the wooded campus, it looked all the world like his homeland: western New York State. The new biology professor had just finished his PhD in ornithology at Cornell University and was ready for a new challenge. </span></span></i><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #f9cb9c; font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; line-height: 200%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #f9cb9c; font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; line-height: 200%;"><i><span style="font-size: large;">Dr. Tanner had also just completed a three year, ground-breaking study and follow-up dissertation on the ivory-billed woodpecker, the famed “Ghost Bird” of the Southern swamps. It was the first such detailed field study of a single species on the verge of extinction; and the first research fellowship funded by the National Audubon Society. With it Tanner set the gold-standard for others to follow. </span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #f9cb9c; font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; line-height: 200%;"><i><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #f9cb9c; font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; line-height: 200%;"><i><span style="font-size: large;">Shortly after arriving on the Johnson City campus, Tanner met a new assistant professor at the college, fellow New Yorker and Harvard-educated Nancy Sheedy. The two became inseparable, soon fell in love and were married in August one year later. Except for his four year stint in the U.S. Navy during World War II, Jim and Nancy Tanner lived the rest of their lives together in the Volunteer State. </span></i></div><i><span style="color: #f9cb9c; font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"> </span></span></i><br />
<div class="" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><i><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiluKO0uhIWpbczE0P0H7Ul4DUv5JfmG7htT2udYqyBfpOKLPujRjO03guzMm5YN1AAac7FilSvYQCe6lQLAsCdS8HXn9lw00QMkAL73Ufrm3xKQ8bacnxRT4aE8LJ01UbdIrzUgQcJng/s1600/MarAprTnCon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiluKO0uhIWpbczE0P0H7Ul4DUv5JfmG7htT2udYqyBfpOKLPujRjO03guzMm5YN1AAac7FilSvYQCe6lQLAsCdS8HXn9lw00QMkAL73Ufrm3xKQ8bacnxRT4aE8LJ01UbdIrzUgQcJng/s320/MarAprTnCon.jpg" width="244" /></a><span style="color: #f9cb9c; font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">In January 1947, Tanner joined the faculty of the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, becoming an assistant professor of zoology. At UT, Tanner’s fieldwork continued. One significant early study was a comparison of black-capped and Carolina chickadees, two closely related species that coexist in the Southern Appalachians. His findings were published in The Auk in 1952. In 1953, Tanner was promoted to associate professor at the university and full professor in 1963. After a visit to Mexico with his son David, Tanner published a report the following year in The Auk on the decline and status of the imperial woodpecker, native to the Sierra Madre from northern Sonora to northern Michoacán...</span></span></i></div><div class="" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><i><span style="color: #f9cb9c; font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">For he rest of my article look in the March/April 2012 issue of <span style="color: #e06666;">The Tennessee Conservationist. </span></span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="color: #e06666;"> </span> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br />
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</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4597943001864807816.post-22953132415538661732012-01-28T13:40:00.000-08:002012-01-29T08:03:05.460-08:00Ghost Birds nominated for Deep South Book Prize<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjJgO40Q_iEkZJG1QHSNgzNCWo5OnjIoer630GuDUMhtcTQzpFNJfTZ2T58vD3_iiHm2fHuyHibiUjzTQw7JWC-dLouU8qp94HzPKa8UnEvnD66fD3i-dHdsJpuJD6E26U7bv7CeQvA1A/s1600/BALESGhostBirds.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjJgO40Q_iEkZJG1QHSNgzNCWo5OnjIoer630GuDUMhtcTQzpFNJfTZ2T58vD3_iiHm2fHuyHibiUjzTQw7JWC-dLouU8qp94HzPKa8UnEvnD66fD3i-dHdsJpuJD6E26U7bv7CeQvA1A/s320/BALESGhostBirds.jpg" width="205" /></a></div><div _mce_style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; text-align: left;" align="left" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;"><span _mce_style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Book Antiqua', Palatino, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 16px;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9cb9c;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Ghost Birds: Jim Tanner and the Quest for the Ivory-billed Woodpecker, 1935 - 1941</span></span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9cb9c;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> has been</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9cb9c;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> nominated for the </span></span></span></span><span _mce_style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Book Antiqua', Palatino, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 16px;"><b style="color: #e06666;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Deep South Book Prize</span></span></span></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9cb9c;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> presented by the </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9cb9c;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Frances S. Summersell Center for the Study of the South</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9cb9c;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> at the University of Alabama.</span></span></span></span></div><div _mce_style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; text-align: left;" align="left" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div _mce_style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; text-align: left;" align="left" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;"><span _mce_style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Book Antiqua', Palatino, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 16px;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9cb9c;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Ghost Birds</span></span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9cb9c;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> is available in the gift shop at Ijams Nature Center or online at sites listed on the right.</span></span></span></span></div><div><span _mce_style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', 'Book Antiqua', Palatino, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 16px;" style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px;"><br />
</span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4597943001864807816.post-9772150191533420672012-01-05T06:00:00.000-08:002012-01-19T12:16:58.272-08:00Two Ghost Birds talks scheduled for next week<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdNV-hy8WvI2svjyTlz1LW4JKq39V8MLLoDcIRkoiEPdbl9yt-vNfXaB_PBNL7O0P0DoohQmPXxe4Umu_UjsUh2okDl2K37Asnel5zImlp8_ORdmZdI1CNumSScFWA-wDqfuW9Vzxge0Y/s1600/GhostBirdsPOP+copy.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdNV-hy8WvI2svjyTlz1LW4JKq39V8MLLoDcIRkoiEPdbl9yt-vNfXaB_PBNL7O0P0DoohQmPXxe4Umu_UjsUh2okDl2K37Asnel5zImlp8_ORdmZdI1CNumSScFWA-wDqfuW9Vzxge0Y/s1600/GhostBirdsPOP+copy.jpeg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9cb9c; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9cb9c;">I'll be doing two </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #e06666;">Ghost Birds</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9cb9c;"> talks next week about Jim Tanner's search for the ivory-billed woodpecker in the 1930s.<br />
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1) Tuesday, January 10: 7 PM </span></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9cb9c;"> Knoxville Chapter of the Sierra Club<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9cb9c; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black; font-family: Times;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9cb9c;"> 2) Friday, January 13: 1 PM </span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9cb9c; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black; font-family: Times;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9cb9c;"> Wilderness Wildlife Week in Pigeon Forge.</span></span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9cb9c;">Stop by and say hello.</span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
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</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4597943001864807816.post-61939688385018908492011-12-29T08:04:00.000-08:002012-01-05T21:49:47.707-08:00Wilson's encounter with ivory-bills, swamps<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-muXN1icoOnQ/TvyPXWstUYI/AAAAAAAAEi0/sjthdZGAbgs/s1600/29b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-muXN1icoOnQ/TvyPXWstUYI/AAAAAAAAEi0/sjthdZGAbgs/s400/29b.jpg" width="305" /></a></div><div style="color: #f9cb9c; font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Perhaps the most infamous encounter with an ivory-bill before the 1900s was recorded by Alexander Wilson in February 1809. (I eluded to it in <i style="color: #ea9999;">Ghost Birds</i> but didn't have room to flesh it out.) </span></div><div style="color: #f9cb9c; font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="color: #f9cb9c; font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Wilson was in North Carolina at the time looking for birds to shoot and draw. He was working on his <i style="color: #ea9999;">American Ornithology</i>, a visual account of all the birds in this country and a precursor to Audubon's <i><span style="color: #ea9999;">The Birds of America</span>.</i></span></div><div style="color: #f9cb9c; font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="color: #f9cb9c; font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Wilson encountered three ivory-bills, shot at them killing two but only wounded the third. He promptly retrieved the disabled woodpecker, wrapped it in a cloth and rode to Wilmington where he booked a room for him and his squalling "baby." Inside the inn the feisty bird commenced to almost destroy the room, but Wilson did manage to draw the poor thing.</span></div><div style="color: #f9cb9c; font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="color: #f9cb9c; font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Wilson was not fond of the South, mainly its people who he described as "ignorant, debased and indolent." (Wilson himself once did time in jail for extortion so who was he to cast dispersions?)</span></div><div style="color: #f9cb9c; font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="color: #f9cb9c; font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Quoting here from <i style="color: #ea9999;">Under a Wild Sky</i>, Wilson added "White women stayed out of sight and white men stayed drunk on a vile apple brandy that they began drinking the moment they got out of bed each morning."</span></div><div style="color: #f9cb9c; font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="color: #f9cb9c; font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Wilson's description of the Carolina swamps was a little more hospitable, "Enormous cypress swamps, which, to a stranger, have a striking, desolate, and ruinous appearance. Picture yourself a forest of prodigious trees, rising, as thick as they can grow, from a vast flat and impenetrable morass, covered for ten feet from the ground with reeds. </span><br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-YbKvjEaCTCo/TvyTGGF5SNI/AAAAAAAAEjM/pA77PDjBoNg/s1600/409px-Wilson_Alexander_1766-1813.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-YbKvjEaCTCo/TvyTGGF5SNI/AAAAAAAAEjM/pA77PDjBoNg/s320/409px-Wilson_Alexander_1766-1813.jpg" width="218" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i style="color: #f9cb9c;">Alexander Wilson</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table><span style="font-size: large;">"The leafless limbs of the cypresses are clothed with an extraordinary kind of moss, from two to 10 feet long, in such quantities that 50 men might conceal themselves in one tree."*</span></div><div style="color: #f9cb9c; font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"> </span></div><div style="color: #f9cb9c; font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">*From <i style="color: #ea9999;">Under a Wild Sky</i> by William Souder. </span></div><div style="color: #f9cb9c; font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="color: #f9cb9c; font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">For Wilson's own account of the wounded ivory-bill go to: <a href="http://xroads.virginia.edu/%7EPUBLIC/wilson/29.html" style="color: #ea9999;">feisty baby</a>. </span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4597943001864807816.post-48368286059200653482011-12-10T07:08:00.000-08:002011-12-15T20:37:47.855-08:00Ivorybill pair find 'forever home' at Ijams<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqo_aAEMcxiE30NGmFD-Ilh29-lEAdZsf__OBaRQpHjqLgE6WA8Qp6t0DcH2pnxw6Twj8D1dKrmRTLOasphr6InAWlU7_JMCHJ2ePcfyq8uCvaJZZ7QnruYtHq1JilFfUxw-Y2RK-8bNA/s1600/Ivorybill-specimens.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqo_aAEMcxiE30NGmFD-Ilh29-lEAdZsf__OBaRQpHjqLgE6WA8Qp6t0DcH2pnxw6Twj8D1dKrmRTLOasphr6InAWlU7_JMCHJ2ePcfyq8uCvaJZZ7QnruYtHq1JilFfUxw-Y2RK-8bNA/s400/Ivorybill-specimens.jpg" width="233" /></a><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',sans-serif;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9cb9c;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">"Two stuffed and mounted ivory-billed woodpeckers (one a male and one a female) finally found a forever home as a part of Ijams Nature Center's lost species exhibit.<br />
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The amazing story of how they came to be donated involves a beautiful old picture frame, a lifelong friendship between two men who grew up together in Worcester County, Mass., two friends in a Knoxville book club, and a letter written by Ijams Director Paul James."<br />
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For the rest of the story, go the Birdlife column by Marcia Davis at<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: white;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: white;"> </span><a href="http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2011/dec/03/marcia-davis-ivory-bills-journey-to-ijams-many"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: white;">ivory-bills' journey</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: white;">.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br />
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- Photo by Stephen Lyn Bales</span></span> </span></i></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4597943001864807816.post-61875819096355572502011-05-18T05:22:00.000-07:002011-12-29T08:28:33.888-08:00Phillip Hoose spoke at Ijams Nature Center<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHX3HZNsiZCeODRbhsDGkZyvfvj5lLRgFMpgXsOK74avrmEDVm8niLDwIYlYOwv7ZL0jbmWn6lPAMq1x5xM3UM27PCCUVxGJ1cOzHiYnNeQp16o0SMR4PQIJZkSTZgFLh_a1NJO-bOsgw/s1600/TannerHooseBales.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5549538440024144578" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHX3HZNsiZCeODRbhsDGkZyvfvj5lLRgFMpgXsOK74avrmEDVm8niLDwIYlYOwv7ZL0jbmWn6lPAMq1x5xM3UM27PCCUVxGJ1cOzHiYnNeQp16o0SMR4PQIJZkSTZgFLh_a1NJO-bOsgw/s400/TannerHooseBales.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; float: left; height: 277px; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; width: 400px;" /></a><br />
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<span style="color: #f9cb9c; font-family: trebuchet ms; font-size: 130%;">Oddly, when you write a book, one of the first things you have to decide is when to begin the story.</span><span style="color: #f9cb9c; font-size: 130%;"><br />
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</span><span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0" style="color: #f9cb9c; font-family: trebuchet ms; font-size: 130%;">Tradition</span><span style="color: #f9cb9c; font-family: trebuchet ms; font-size: 130%;"> would have it that I should start with Jim Tanner in his youth, his background and why he went to Cornell.</span><span style="color: #f9cb9c; font-size: 130%;"><br />
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</span><span style="color: #f9cb9c; font-family: trebuchet ms; font-size: 130%;">Instead, I chose to jump into the Tanner/</span><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1" style="color: #f9cb9c; font-family: trebuchet ms; font-size: 130%;">ivorybill</span><span style="color: #f9cb9c; font-family: trebuchet ms; font-size: 130%;"> story quickly, opening with Mason Spencer's shooting a Ghost Bird in 1932, thus proving it was not an apparition. I had a big story to tell and precious little space to waste. My contract called for a 300-page manuscript, no more but it could be less.</span><span style="color: #f9cb9c; font-size: 130%;"><br />
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</span><span style="color: #f9cb9c; font-family: trebuchet ms; font-size: 130%;">Originally, I decided to cover Tanner's early years as a flashback somewhere later in the book until I realized that Phillip </span><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2" style="color: #f9cb9c; font-family: trebuchet ms; font-size: 130%;">Hoose</span><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms; font-size: 130%;"><span style="color: #f9cb9c;"> had already done a good job of recording Jim's childhood in his wonderful book,</span> </span><span style="color: #cc9933; font-family: trebuchet ms; font-size: 130%; font-style: italic;">The Race to Save the Lord God Bird</span><span style="color: #cc9933; font-family: trebuchet ms; font-size: 130%;">.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms',serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br />
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</span></span></div><div style="color: #f9cb9c;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms; font-size: 130%;">In September 2006, I met </span><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3" style="font-family: trebuchet ms; font-size: 130%;">Hoose</span><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms; font-size: 130%;"> when he spoke at </span><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4" style="font-family: trebuchet ms; font-size: 130%;">Ijams</span><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms; font-size: 130%;"> Nature Center where I work. At the time, Nancy and I were beginning to pull together the initial research on my book. UT Press had just given me the go ahead to begin.</span></div><div style="color: #f9cb9c;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms',serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></span></div><div><span style="font-size: 130%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms',serif;"><span style="color: #f9cb9c;">I did travel to Homer, New York and locate</span> <a href="http://ivorybillwoodpecker.blogspot.com/2010/09/jim-tanners-childhood.html" style="color: #ea9999;">Tanner's childhood home</a> <span style="color: #f9cb9c;">to get a true sense of his roots but it turned out to be more for me than you the reader. </span></span></span></div><div style="color: #f9cb9c;"><span style="font-size: 130%;"><br />
</span><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms; font-size: 130%;">Pictured above: Nancy Tanner, author Phillip </span><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5" style="font-family: trebuchet ms; font-size: 130%;">Hoose</span><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms; font-size: 130%;"> and myself.</span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4597943001864807816.post-69443024966781435572011-04-09T04:52:00.000-07:002011-12-29T08:30:31.931-08:00Arthur Allen's early views on vanishing species<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhD1R7-Z1s8Lwp1Z2mjbdcFp7qnkMMKZwE7s1kSWxxMDm1nqpAGdP4TeI2WhyTs1nrSdLZkRK89a0JtoMBQYUXRSIJmcCTLznCza67x4GDDpRmJCfMIG577hhmJ44UrwZLEgcXLSg7sew4/s1600/Allen.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5593583476573677442" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhD1R7-Z1s8Lwp1Z2mjbdcFp7qnkMMKZwE7s1kSWxxMDm1nqpAGdP4TeI2WhyTs1nrSdLZkRK89a0JtoMBQYUXRSIJmcCTLznCza67x4GDDpRmJCfMIG577hhmJ44UrwZLEgcXLSg7sew4/s400/Allen.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; float: left; height: 306px; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; width: 400px;" /></a><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #f9cb9c;">"</span><i style="color: #f9cb9c;">It is interesting to contemplate whence each of our birds has come and whither it is heading—whether to conquer the earth with its progeny or to sink before long into oblivion.<br />
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"The processes which are going on today are the same as those that have been transpiring for millions of years. So incomplete are the records and so small our vision that it is exceeding difficult to interpret even what is going on before our eyes.<br />
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"The Great Auk, the Labrador Duck, the Passenger Pigeon have joined the great army of Archaeopteryx; and the Heath Hen, the Eskimo Curlew, the Whooping Crane, the Trumpeter Swan, and the Ivory-billed Woodpecker likewise will soon follow them in spite of all we can do to protect them.<br />
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"The most we can hope for is that an intensive study of each of these vanishing species will be made before it is too late, perhaps such studies as will give us some inkling of the natural laws that have made and destroyed thousands of species of birds during the last two hundred million years."</i><br style="color: #f9cb9c;" /> <br style="color: #f9cb9c;" /><span style="color: #f9cb9c;"> Dr. Arthur Allen wrote in his book</span> </span><span style="color: #ea9999; font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span">The Book of Bird Life: A Study of Birds in Their Native Haunts</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> <span style="color: #f9cb9c;">published in 1930. It shows that Doc Allen was already thinking that an in-depth study of each vanishing species needed to be undertaken to help save the bird. Of course, Tanner's three year field research of the ivorybill was the first to be carried out.</span><br style="color: #f9cb9c;" /> <br style="color: #f9cb9c;" /><span style="color: #f9cb9c;"> For those that know, to quote the late Paul Harvey, "the rest of the story," the heath hen did go extinct. The last was seen on Martha's Vineyard in 1932. The Eskimo curlew is probably extinct while the whooping crane and trumpeter swan have been saved.</span><br style="color: #f9cb9c;" /> <br style="color: #f9cb9c;" /><span style="color: #f9cb9c;"> And the natural processes that once pushed numerous species into extinction have now been augmented by human-related activities such as habitat destruction.</span><br style="color: #f9cb9c;" /> <br style="color: #f9cb9c;" /><span style="color: #f9cb9c;"> We all need a place to live; without it we would vanish too. </span></span><br />
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</div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4597943001864807816.post-37878605557032382272011-01-08T05:31:00.000-08:002012-01-19T12:40:35.533-08:00Albert Brand's story a tragic one<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwM3COGsiawTwJ8Qo3DNu35lM4QrLmru0Z0chrtgVCVEm7-_FFIhg94T0qrsuc44JoYvshidvL99n4orevSKTZkmxZKgSNF2SzS-wU3ecbV-uQivEx6MjY7m_COf6-pD0wCTvrpKYgSGQ/s1600/AlBran.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5563922896676012306" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwM3COGsiawTwJ8Qo3DNu35lM4QrLmru0Z0chrtgVCVEm7-_FFIhg94T0qrsuc44JoYvshidvL99n4orevSKTZkmxZKgSNF2SzS-wU3ecbV-uQivEx6MjY7m_COf6-pD0wCTvrpKYgSGQ/s400/AlBran.jpg" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; float: left; height: 349px; margin: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 262px;" /></a><br />
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size: 130%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9cb9c;">Albert Brand’s story is tragic. A self-made man, he was able to retire from his first career as a stockbroker when he was only 39-years-old and begin a second career as an ornithologist. As a student at Cornell he developed an interest in the </span><span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9cb9c;">fledgling</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9cb9c;"> science of recording birdsong, which led him to publish two pioneering books, </span><i><span style="font-family: verdana;"><strong><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9cb9c;">Songs of Wild Birds</span></strong></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9cb9c;">,</span></i><span style="font-style: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9cb9c;"> published in 1934 which included two small 78-rpm phonograph disks and, in 1936, </span></span><i style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9cb9c;">More Songs of Wild Birds</span></span></i><span style="font-style: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9cb9c;">, containing three disks and 43 bird songs. (I have a copy of the second.)</span> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size: 130%;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9cb9c;"><br />
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<span style="font-size: 130%;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9cb9c;">Cornell's Arthur Allen writes in the foreword, "In this volume of bird songs another step has been made in overcoming the limitations of the phonograph disk in reducing the high frequencies of bird voices, and the improvement of these records over those which first appeared in </span><span style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9cb9c;">Songs of Wild Birds</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9cb9c;"> is most encouraging."</span> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size: 130%;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9cb9c;"><br />
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<span style="font-size: 130%;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9cb9c;">"It is Mr. Brand's plan to continue recording the songs and calls of North American birds, and I am sure the nature lovers the country over will look forward with keen anticipation to the appearance of each new volume and each set of records."</span> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: trebuchet ms;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9cb9c;"><span style="font-size: 130%;"></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size: 130%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9cb9c;"><br />
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<span style="font-size: 130%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9cb9c;">Because Brand had money, he helped plan and finance the 1935 Cornell Expedition and would have accompanied Allen, Kellogg and Tanner all the way but his health collapsed. That must have been heartbreaking, to be on the threshold of such a great adventure, and not be able to go. Brand’s name perhaps would have become synonymous with recorded birdsong, he was already on the forefront with two books published and a third on the way. But he did not live to complete any other projects; his health never improved and he died of kidney disease on March 28, 1940. He was only 51-years-old.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" face="trebuchet ms"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" face="trebuchet ms"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQNZ13Kqv7ebBvvoJCACKkAUxsqQ0BAXfRRURg5N7vwUue4qqVLY4OhhAL2mAw4ww6RSE2dVXkEE6lw5betqSZBOu26kZJJxPys1DTow_oVkvMHe1v5k7F8Tvjp5BypLEiAyncIb6tsHI/s1600/Brand.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5559807216047720354" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQNZ13Kqv7ebBvvoJCACKkAUxsqQ0BAXfRRURg5N7vwUue4qqVLY4OhhAL2mAw4ww6RSE2dVXkEE6lw5betqSZBOu26kZJJxPys1DTow_oVkvMHe1v5k7F8Tvjp5BypLEiAyncIb6tsHI/s400/Brand.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; float: left; height: 400px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 10px; margin-top: 0pt; width: 329px;" /></a><br />
</span></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4597943001864807816.post-12108210108826341672010-12-06T14:22:00.000-08:002012-01-19T12:38:59.022-08:00sketches for sale<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8cz5rtG1oz5SY_TajvwZNo3hGO5youZamORruUQcG4sDZO9SZvJ9OepLZ90NCl-HiYWBCIUzggfyTuPWHbBjSo41z8lYkrAOm9c6DPXdDFnHHmpeGaU9TG5GH6da8XtgivUwQWhsXoA8/s1600/BalesIvoryBillSketch.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5547697531614722242" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8cz5rtG1oz5SY_TajvwZNo3hGO5youZamORruUQcG4sDZO9SZvJ9OepLZ90NCl-HiYWBCIUzggfyTuPWHbBjSo41z8lYkrAOm9c6DPXdDFnHHmpeGaU9TG5GH6da8XtgivUwQWhsXoA8/s400/BalesIvoryBillSketch.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 274px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 400px;" /></a><br />
<span style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms'; font-size: 130%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9cb9c;">While working on the illustration that became the cover for my book </span></span><span style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms'; font-size: 130%; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #ea9999;">Ghost Birds</span></span><span style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms'; font-size: 130%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9cb9c;"> I produced several sketches of a male ivory-bill. There's really no need for me to keep all of them, so if you'd like to buy one please contact me.</span></span><span style="font-size: 130%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9cb9c;"><br />
</span> <span style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9cb9c;">These are not color copies but real pen and ink drawings. I did a series of rough drafts in order to capture just the right </span></span><span style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms'; font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9cb9c;">Campephilus principalis</span></span><i style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9cb9c;"> </span></i><span style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9cb9c;">ex</span><span style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9cb9c;">pression. </span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9cb9c;"> </span><span style="font-size: 130%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9cb9c;">Intense and statuesque. </span></span></span><span style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms'; font-size: 130%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9cb9c;">Not an easy thing to do since I have never seen a live one.</span></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4597943001864807816.post-38341147440514603662010-11-23T12:34:00.000-08:002012-07-06T09:29:30.941-07:00Have you driven a Ford lately?•<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRWEfzddFGAZpxRW1yc1rVKWkWrcJK3Wrx-Wi440y_4yldm4hxqwGBfqSVK9YsjWMnrzWD_VswMztEfTFmkEKMiDtvAmkusRnhcPCZvAUihPQlbP50N-RidSsudWwiwMUoWns5I4qD2c8/s1600/Model-A.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5470882773686634258" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRWEfzddFGAZpxRW1yc1rVKWkWrcJK3Wrx-Wi440y_4yldm4hxqwGBfqSVK9YsjWMnrzWD_VswMztEfTFmkEKMiDtvAmkusRnhcPCZvAUihPQlbP50N-RidSsudWwiwMUoWns5I4qD2c8/s400/Model-A.jpg" style="display: block; height: 248px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 400px;" /></a><br />
<span style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms'; font-size: 130%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9cb9c;">While working on </span><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #e06666;">Ghost Birds</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9cb9c;">, one of my greatest thrills was getting to drive a </span><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9cb9c;">Ford Model A</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9cb9c;"> roadster very much like the one Tanner drove. </span></span><span style="font-size: 130%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9cb9c;"><br />
</span> </span><span style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms'; font-size: 130%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9cb9c;">Television producer/writer Steve Dean and his crew were producing an hour-long Heartland Series program about the Ijams Family for Knoxville's WBIR-Channel 10. They needed the car for one of the scenes and found one locally. </span></span><span style="font-size: 130%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9cb9c;"><br />
</span> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9cb9c;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms'; font-size: 130%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9cb9c;"> Tanner bought his used Model A in August 1936 for $175 and ultimately sold it in December 1939 for $45. Today, they're worth a good deal more.<br />
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I found the Model A remarkably easy to drive. No thrills. Just two pedals: clutch on left, brake on right. The accelerator was a silver button, reachable by your right foot. There were only three gauges to look at: odometer, temperature and voltage. At the top of the austere dashboard was a little peep hole where the driver could actually see the level of gasoline in the tank in front of him. Did you catch that? The gas tank is located between the driver and the engine.</span> </span><span style="font-size: 130%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9cb9c;"><br />
</span> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9cb9c;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms'; font-size: 130%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9cb9c;"> I grew up in a Ford family. Learned to drive in a old Fairlane, owned several Mustangs and still have my late father's Crown Vic. The one thing I noticed with the Model A was the lack of amenities, i.e. creature comforts, or comfort in general. In the 1930s, automotive amenities had not been invented yet. It was the height of the Great Depression, there were few amenities of any kind.</span></span><span style="font-size: 130%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9cb9c;"><br />
</span> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9cb9c;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms'; font-size: 130%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9cb9c;"> There was very little room. I felt like one of the original Mercury Seven astronauts, nestled inside my capsule. It was a lot of fun to take out on an afternoon drive, but I found myself wondering: How could Tanner take this for 40,000 miles? And many of those were on bumpy, unimproved roads.</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms',serif;"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5549541467312707618" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjB8LCIre0oyeMWlfjEdHSVO-wRNwawYuH-uWzsJahO55rIU5jaMvHrQmu8Djc2JwWXvcofNrZ0rziOm9_cJTlEtFNEgSpK-BcvJPkfrA1U4eYN8VnPeCitdQ8uryZq2J-Ju2DNAMV83yE/s400/Ford-Model-A.jpg" style="float: left; height: 275px; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; width: 400px;" /></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms',serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9cb9c;">I have no idea the color of Tanner's Ford Model A. But they did come in a wide variety of pleasing shades unlike the Ford Model T, which was only available in basic black. What was the saying back then, "You can have any color you want as long as it is black." </span></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms',serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9cb9c;"><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms',serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #f9cb9c;">The Model A was a different story although most of the time, Jim's was mud-colored.</span></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms',serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0000ee; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 16px;"><br />
</span></span></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4597943001864807816.post-72531865458591841512010-11-02T04:27:00.000-07:002010-11-02T04:36:55.079-07:00Tanner often ate with the swampers<span style="font-size:130%;">March 10, 1937:<br /><br />In Florida near Cross City and the California Swamp that borders the Gulf Coast west of Gainesville.<br /><br />After Tanner visited with Jim Cannon, an old bird hunter who claimed to have killed several ivory-bills in his day, he spent some time with an old-timer named John Butler who had lived about ten miles from Cross City for 75 years. Butler knew the swamps well and hadn’t seen an ivory-bill recently. He also told Jim that he had seen his last Carolina parakeet about 15 years after the Civil War. After wards, Tanner had lunch—corned-beef hash, rutabagas, bacon, cornbread, coffee—with Willie Hodge and his 96-year-old mother. Jim noted that she was blind and lit up her pipe after the meal.<br /><br />Tanner often ate with the swampers he encountered along the way. They were generally very gracious with the young grad student, sharing their knowledge of the swamps and their sparse food.</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4597943001864807816.post-32529867285359004142010-10-21T05:21:00.000-07:002010-10-21T07:50:14.135-07:00Cornell trio hosted by soon-to-be author Niedrach<div><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 220px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjfEH4kvNlAAdkkwtdMTQ78IQ8_MLuKsKipU49QBbVMHyUpOtUkFjflA2nDpSFswl0P54-QU3FLHTxupcKiMzlVL8g5g0aWtucwReBFccGdqgdLYuCA5q_zp0Ow1_bNAuzru0J5ySAr7o/s320/Niedrach.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5523475311891216914" border="0" /></div><br /><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">While Allen, Kellogg and Tanner were in the Denver area recording birds in 1935, they were hosted by Dr. Robert J. Niedrach.</span></span></span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-size:130%;"><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-size:16px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Niedrach and Robert B. Rockwell coauthored </span><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(255, 204, 153); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Birds of Denver and Mountain Parks</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> in 1939.</span></span><br /></span><br /></span><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> The Denver Museum of Natural History (later changed to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science) employed Niedrach from 1913 until his retirement in 1970. He was a field naturalist who became the museum’s curator of birds. Niedrach was also a collector, taxidermist and preparator. He worked closely with Alfred M. Bailey, the museum's director from 1936 to 1969. </span></span><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /><br />Bailey was a pioneering bird photographer and cinematographer noted for his fieldwork. Bailey and Niedrach worked on several projects together. In 1951, they coauthored <b><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FFCC99;">Stepping Stones across the Pacific</span></i></b>, in 1953, <i><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FFCC99;">The Red Crossbills of Colorado</span></b></i>, in 1965, the two-volume </span><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(255, 204, 153);"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Birds of Colorado </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">and in 1967, they published </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial, serif;"><i><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FFCC99;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Pictorial Checklist of Colorado Birds: with brief notes on the status of each species in neighboring states of Nebraska, Kansas, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming</span></span></b></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms', serif;"><br /></span><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMtKjK3CYsoz5EwdsnNIzLPcrX8AMgYqJIoj6IQuvkosvRpoBwnLY-bIvtOo4uEgGuk-JBLxzRHAlCMtIPwDgKE96Fp7A9jioab2MrJkki_ji42rZldHkPVIe2FhK08qEr19m_5X4vGg4/s1600/Dnvr1939.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 334px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMtKjK3CYsoz5EwdsnNIzLPcrX8AMgYqJIoj6IQuvkosvRpoBwnLY-bIvtOo4uEgGuk-JBLxzRHAlCMtIPwDgKE96Fp7A9jioab2MrJkki_ji42rZldHkPVIe2FhK08qEr19m_5X4vGg4/s400/Dnvr1939.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5524727037960010770" border="0" /></a></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4597943001864807816.post-43919938396814446202010-10-12T18:02:00.000-07:002010-10-14T04:58:38.008-07:00The limits of science in the 1930s<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgShOd3vz6Z0cWkrAhJ2Kp_BpjrBs0l2OIUePC6iVDGBpVZ6uxnnvW91y42f72yAfhjy36oEzekTqVu8L4-U92RlJGeid8MGfUACms1LVXgHwUjKhKJrimOMMtgb8lhj5Cl7fwpbVSoF8k/s1600/Nature's-Ghosts.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 261px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgShOd3vz6Z0cWkrAhJ2Kp_BpjrBs0l2OIUePC6iVDGBpVZ6uxnnvW91y42f72yAfhjy36oEzekTqVu8L4-U92RlJGeid8MGfUACms1LVXgHwUjKhKJrimOMMtgb8lhj5Cl7fwpbVSoF8k/s400/Nature's-Ghosts.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5523492905694482338" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:130%;" >Author and history professor (Virginia Tech) Mark Barrow writes in his wonderful book <span style="font-style: italic;"> </span><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(255, 255, 0); font-style: italic;">Nature's Ghosts</span><span style="font-style: italic;">:</span><br /><br />"The 1920s and 1930s marked a watershed in the evolution of policies and scientific practices related to endangered species in the United States. While naturalists had long shown a keen interest in the plight of vanishing wildlife, for the first time they possessed the training, conceptual tools, techniques, financial backing, and desire to begin more thorough investigations of those species in the field. The three studies chronicled in this chapter [Alfred O. Gross: heath hen, James T. Tanner: ivory-billed woodpecker and Carl Koford: California condor] were born of a optimistic belief that if enough could be learned about the life history, behavior, and ecology of vanishing animals, they might be snatched from the jaws of extinction.” </span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /><br /></span><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:130%;" > “In the cases of Tanner and Koford, the single most important proposal was to restrict human access to and modifications of areas known to be prime ivorybill and condor habitat. Yet, given the larger political, social, and economic climate of the time, even those modest recommendations faced stiff resistance from individuals who had prior claims on the landscapes on which these species depended to survive.”</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /><br /></span><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:130%;" > “While Koford and his colleagues overcame much of that resistance, [indeed, the California condor unquestionably still flies today] the National Audubon Society failed to stop logging on the Singer Tract. Clearly, science alone could achieve only so much without a larger change in values.”</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">- From <span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Nature’s Ghosts: Confronting Extinction from the Age of Jefferson to the Age of Ecology</span>, by Mark V. Barrow, Jr.</span></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4597943001864807816.post-14246705727029776912010-10-07T06:47:00.000-07:002010-10-13T04:37:10.152-07:00Hope is the thing with feathers<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhd8uNmbR_yFuh-Dn0zzE0Z1XgzmPRo3DOipYfZNxTCQHOvW-KoaaVXpeh0UdfoJuac-apksZflP4R4NCQUY48brI6zmESv4x0u5Ba81yIRkuA_T-cbsginx603Wquiy79Gu4as7QSxtG4/s1600/Cokinos.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhd8uNmbR_yFuh-Dn0zzE0Z1XgzmPRo3DOipYfZNxTCQHOvW-KoaaVXpeh0UdfoJuac-apksZflP4R4NCQUY48brI6zmESv4x0u5Ba81yIRkuA_T-cbsginx603Wquiy79Gu4as7QSxtG4/s400/Cokinos.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5523476573232568450" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:130%;">As my friend Chris Cokinos so aptly pointed out, quoting the Belle of Amherst, “Hope is the thing with feathers — That perches in the soul — And sings the tune without the words — And never stops — at all.” </span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:130%;">Never stops at all. That’s our hope. For if a bird as plentiful as the passenger pigeon and one as leery and lost as an ivory-bill can both go extinct, then there is no hope.</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:130%;">Although I have known Nancy Tanner for over 12 years (we are both members of the local bird club) and knew of her connection to the ivory-billed woodpecker, it was really Chris Cokinos’ book that first set my mental gears in motion.</span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms',serif;font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-size:130%;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTgGcdXITv39LAeEVCr2HlBFRXSc9dsTsR0YpnUs0ZVqszzJcA4fwHNQSiYMnIFE67g9odoOG7RO_6CcH1ZNSutyGnKfjU-Tsxhy2DE2WiSK3TysmIbpe9ZGSl5IPjsMYefemfGts3ItY/s320/Hope.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5525372040983995394" style="margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 207px; height: 320px;" border="0" /></span><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:130%;">His <span style="color: rgb(255, 204, 153);">Hope Is the Thing with Feathers: A Personal Chronicle of Vanished Birds</span><span style="color: rgb(255, 204, 153);">,</span> first published in the year 2000, is a look at several lost avian species: Carolina parakeet, heath hen, great auk, passenger pigeon, Labrador duck and the ivory-billed woodpecker that are extinct or nearly so. (The jury is still out on the ivorybill and may be sequestered for many years to come. Read Scott Weidensaul’s <span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(255, 204, 153);">The Ghost with Trembling Wings</span><span style="color: rgb(255, 204, 153); font-weight: bold;">.</span>)</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:130%;"><br /></span><div><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:130%;">If have not read “Hope” then please stop reading this and run out and buy a copy. Don’t check it out of the library; authors struggle to make ends meet.</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:130%;">I was lucky to meet Chris a few years ago when he came to Ijams Nature Center to speak.</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:130%;">Many thanks Chris, for your words of support. My book about Jim Tanner is finally finished.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"> <span style="font-size:85%;"> - Photo of Christopher Cokinos and Nancy Tanner taken January 15, 2007 </span></span><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;">at Ijams Nature Center in Knoxville</span></span><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;">.<br /><br /><br /></span></span></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4597943001864807816.post-46950727329551009922010-09-27T19:16:00.000-07:002010-10-23T04:20:10.774-07:00Sonny Boy negatives found<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcJlUKJEEgItSgakl8xPPeJwkskr-gc0eNoUMw-PUChDLnDsFzaxBDkYTuV-N1evfLM9SrdG1kgkj5T0hNyfKbHvyukqx2IMsuVPJ4gofdH-DTK9C-9T_nVMpTSzUlYikMBT_09ODL1QA/s1600/LynNancy.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 363px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcJlUKJEEgItSgakl8xPPeJwkskr-gc0eNoUMw-PUChDLnDsFzaxBDkYTuV-N1evfLM9SrdG1kgkj5T0hNyfKbHvyukqx2IMsuVPJ4gofdH-DTK9C-9T_nVMpTSzUlYikMBT_09ODL1QA/s400/LynNancy.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5521783005573885490" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">For me, a postscript to this story came on Friday, July 3, 2009. Books such as </span><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(255, 255, 102); font-style: italic;font-size:130%;" >Ghost Birds</span><span style="font-size:130%;"> are assembled from thousands of shards and pieces, like an explosion in reverse. I had gotten a phone call from Nancy Tanner two days earlier. She had located an envelope of old ivory-bill prints and negatives she did not know she still had in her home. Jim had donated almost all of the original material to Cornell or the Tensas River National Wildlife Refuge—those items are now archived at L.S.U.—in the late 1980s. Nancy and I agreed to one of our customary lunches, which she prepared for me.<br /><br />With a Wimbledon semifinal match on in the background (American Andy Roddick beat Britain’s own Andy Murray, 6-4, 4-6, 7-6, 7-6), we discussed a wide range of topics. (If there’s anything Nancy loves more than discussing a wide range of topics, it’s tennis.) Afterwards, we cleared the dining-room table and I began to sort through the material. I soon came across the first precious slice of history, one of the original negatives of J.J. Kuhn and the young ivory-bill, and then another and another. My heart began to pound. The exact whereabouts of the original negatives had been a mystery. </span></span> <span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:130%;"><br /><br />“Goodness, Nancy do you know what these are?” </span> <span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:130%;"><br /><br />By the time I worked my way through the stack of material, we learned that Jim had actually taken at least fourteen photos that day. Yes, fourteen! I said to Nancy, “Does anyone in the world know this?” And at that moment, we both realized that perhaps we were the only two people who did. </span> <span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /><br />On his 24th birthday: March 6, 1938, after he calmed his jitters and “buck fever,” Jim had been able to reel off over a dozen black-and-white photos, some of the most memorable photographs in the annuals of natural history; a series of indelible images that show the frenzied nestling close up, outside the safety of its nest hole. An excited young male </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:130%;" >Campephilus principalis</span><span style="font-size:130%;"> that in a matter of minutes had climbed all over woodsmen Kuhn, like a hyper cat on a scratching post. Be still my beating heart!<br /><br />For my article about this day that appeared in the September issue of </span><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(255, 204, 102);font-size:130%;" >Smithsonian</span><span style="font-size:130%;"> go to: <a style="color: rgb(255, 204, 102);" href="http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/A-Close-Encounter-With-the-Rarest-Bird.html">http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/A-Close-Encounter-With-the-Rarest-Bird.html.</a></span><br /></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4597943001864807816.post-30206544893942378232010-09-21T22:58:00.001-07:002010-09-21T22:58:53.282-07:00Jim Tanner's childhood•<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhezWRj4wlW6cL760wt-xA1KkEZAM6TY_Z429a0hq2moNIO3Mb_O4aZS3otrmTkXtKift5AUsUNpnH7PQOh0IV9mSvObL-pwIs9TMo-JTVyMhIbyd1IUkCjB3VrhyphenhyphenG13SHIVnek71zkOLo/s1600/TanBirHse.gif"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 294px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhezWRj4wlW6cL760wt-xA1KkEZAM6TY_Z429a0hq2moNIO3Mb_O4aZS3otrmTkXtKift5AUsUNpnH7PQOh0IV9mSvObL-pwIs9TMo-JTVyMhIbyd1IUkCjB3VrhyphenhyphenG13SHIVnek71zkOLo/s400/TanBirHse.gif" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5460906642010485970" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">James T. Tanner was born in this house on North Main Street in Homer, New York on March 6, 1914. I visited Homer in August 2007.</span><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsLra-vlYXIcgjKOUpLXfx8DNqtmkxs5iGDHZCbLJKvOIyu4VCKZGvgqJZCRVC-cY3KDKT0eU57Dwjhb1XP5IrdPYoSRJbQZgDIc-JgjZ0ID5WTWlP4nU3EVgg4W3lsSoGZPgFWjLnjjw/s1600/TanDryGoods.gif"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 267px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsLra-vlYXIcgjKOUpLXfx8DNqtmkxs5iGDHZCbLJKvOIyu4VCKZGvgqJZCRVC-cY3KDKT0eU57Dwjhb1XP5IrdPYoSRJbQZgDIc-JgjZ0ID5WTWlP4nU3EVgg4W3lsSoGZPgFWjLnjjw/s400/TanDryGoods.gif" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5460908711282771442" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:130%;"><br />His father C.J. owned a dry goods store in the center of town.</span><br /><br />•Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4597943001864807816.post-49113990196503840762010-09-17T09:17:00.000-07:002010-09-18T04:54:07.416-07:00James T. Tanner, ecologist<div><br /><div><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 214px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_pVlpqP8LXWwcoTWmRxznwPg0-FJCkTetNCg4jzRu9BFLUU1qIdUHI4iqknZQRQWBmO3fk4hQvc2PIrAdzqqFpVKIqy2mEpjM0_YS1ihqZD029FVRhgzMycXEnKRuxqej1WLa4PchWfM/s320/Tanner-Eco-Book.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5504201815594419298" border="0" /></div><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:130%;" >Ecology.<br /><br />In the 1930s it was a fledging new science, an offshoot of biology. German biologist Ernst Haeckel created the term ecology or “oekologoe” in 1866, defining it as “the relationship of the organism to its environment.” By the 1960s the field burst forth into the mainstream, becoming a hot topic of research. It’s also a discipline that would grow to dominant Tanner’s thought processes in his later years.</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /><br /></span><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:130%;" > Thirty years after his days in the Singer Tract, watching the affect of habitat loss on a single species, Jim Tanner turned his attention to the science of ecology. At the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, he organized the graduate level program of ecology, serving as the its director from 1970 to ‘74, eventually writing one of the field’s early textbooks, <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; color: rgb(255, 255, 204);">Guide to the Study of Animal Populations</span>, published in 1978 by UT Press. One anonymous reviewer noted, “The style is readable. In fact it is one of the few understandable texts in mathematical ecology.”</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /><br /></span><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:130%;" > Tanner writes in his preface,<br /><br /></span><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:130%;" > “The study of animal populations has taken two directions. One is the theoretical or mathematical study of population dynamics, beginning with the works of Verhulst (1838), Lotka (1925), and Voterra (1926). A second is the study of the means of manipulating populations for practical and economic goals. This is illustrated in Leopold’s classic book on game management (1933), in which he makes the subject of population characteristics the central theme of the book. Other examples of the management of animal populations are in fisheries, the control of pest insects, and the preservation of rare species. Both the theoretical and practical aspects depend upon an understanding of population characteristics and upon the ability to measure these. </span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /><br /></span><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:130%;" > “My purpose here is to describe the characteristics of animal populations, the methods of their measurement, and their interactions. These characteristics can be classed into those describing the population as it exists at some instant (e.g., density and composition) and those measuring the ways in which it is changing (e.g., birth and death rates). And example of an interaction is the effect of age composition on the birth rate. I have intended to review the important aspects of the subject and to describe the research methods most useful in animal populations studies, emphasizing those methods most amenable to statistical analysis. </span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /><br /></span><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:130%;" > “Whenever reasonable, I have used the concepts and terms of demography, a better-established science than that of animal populations. Good introductions to demography are by Keyfitz (1968) and Spiegelman (1968). This approach is limited, however, because data on animal populations cannot be obtained as in demography; most animals will not stand still and be counted, and individuals have no official identity, no birth certificate.”</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4597943001864807816.post-38327249346371895602010-09-04T08:38:00.000-07:002010-09-04T11:03:06.075-07:00Tennessee Ornithological Society•<div><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHZmgYdcjspr_RVJ3fvyqhSwiGXBH8YdzRzVxzBhvtkHbnJ58yaZw-_hKLzys0iBbmkDIEE7flTFEWh9EIFbHvgiLDQ569wcnjEfBIdmK6uDF8EOFOW77aLABCrAD6tef1UaAp7XCpXRg/s1600/KTOS-1952.jpg"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHZmgYdcjspr_RVJ3fvyqhSwiGXBH8YdzRzVxzBhvtkHbnJ58yaZw-_hKLzys0iBbmkDIEE7flTFEWh9EIFbHvgiLDQ569wcnjEfBIdmK6uDF8EOFOW77aLABCrAD6tef1UaAp7XCpXRg/s400/KTOS-1952.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5500182539773356754" border="0" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 211px; " /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Jim Tanner joined the <span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FFCC99;">Tennessee Ornithological Society</span> (TOS) in the late 1940s while teaching in Johnson City at Tennessee State Teachers College, known today as East Tennessee State University.<br /><br />After accepting a job at the University of Tennessee, he transferred his membership to the Knoxville Chapter of TOS. The above group photo was taken in 1952 at the annual Spring Field Day at the home of H.P. and Alice Ijams. Their original home site is now part of Ijams Nature Center.<br /><br />Jim Tanner is sitting in the center, wearing a kwiki shirt. H.P. is wearing a brown sweater, standing to the left of Tanner and Alice Ijams is wearing the black dress to the right of Tanner. Noted Tennessee ornithologist Albert Ganier is sitting in front of Tanner to the left</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms', serif;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Joe Howell, who spent time with the 1935 Cornell Expedition while they were in Florida, also taught at UT. Howell is the tall man standing on the far right.</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br />•</span></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0