Smokies Light

The Place of a Thousand Drips is losing some or most of its magic. With the hemlocks dying off, it's more open and exposed to the sun now. Near the end of the trail I came across a small caravan of elves, trolls, and a couple of wizards mounted on unicorns headed out of the Park. They've come upon hard times with last year's drought, climate change, and the loss of cover in the dying forest. A few said they heard rumors of work out in Oregon or Washington state, a few others were headed south to Costa Rica, though none were too happy about their future prospects. One wizard said he was just gonna take a night audit job in Gatlinburg. At age 1000, he was getting too far along in years to make a major change.

And in the streets the children screamed,
The lovers cried, and the poets dreamed.
But not a word was spoken;
The church bells all were broken.
And the three men I admire most:
The father, son, and the holy ghost,
They caught the last train for the coast
The day the music died.
-- Don McLean

Never published this one taken last March at the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge.

I've added a new gallery of Florida pics taken last Winter on the commercial site.

These little musketeers flew the nest today for the first time. They are huddled against a retaining wall for the parking lot at my condo, with woods and brush high above where their nest apparently was. The parking lot and wall was not a hospitable place for the little ones, so I stayed with them at a distance for almost two hours, watching the parents tend to them and to warn any cars of their presence. No cars came along during that entire time, but it was a stressful time for the parents, the kids, and also myself, having to let nature take its course and hope for the best. More pics and story in the extended entry...

Sunday was another entire day of outages and limited access for my site. Today I will waste moving all my content to another host provider and getting it working over there. At some point the "nameservers" will move jimfletcherphotography.com and smokieslight.com to the new host. Chances of this operation going smoothly: 0%. If you ever set up a website, do not use ehostpros.com for your provider.

I hate computers.

The highest mountain in the second pic has snow or frost on it. It's still Wintertime in the high mountains.

Way up high where it's still Winter.

I've posted before that the dark-eyed junco is my favorite mountain songbird. It's just one beautiful little bird. Their preferred habitat is what you see here, brushy areas on the highest mountaintops in the Smokies and Appalachia. In the winter when the high mountains are covered in ice and snow, they will come down to the valleys and often be seen at bird feeders. This image was taken on the Forney Ridge trail on Clingman's Dome. The rocks you see are the actual trail. When walking the high mountain trails in the warmer months, the rustling you hear in the brush is almost alway a junco. I've been trying to capture an image of one for years in their preferred habitat. I really like this pic.

Travelling...might be a while before posting resumes. Thanks for stopping by.

Back in paradise Florida looking at real estate. I still have the Gatlinburg condo but it's up for sale. I'll be hanging out here for a while seeing if I can make a go of it. So far there's been little time for picture taking but maybe that will change soon. Notice in the pic below some folks wearing long sleeves. It's been strangely chilly in the mornings and evenings here with strong cool winds. Even tho I haven't posted in days my hit count is higher than ever thanks to an Instapundit mention. I should post less often I suppose.

Taken this evening.

Just looking for something to post today. This really is my backyard, no kiddin.

I was tracking the bird in the center trying to get a sharply focused bird with the lighthouse softly blurred in the background. It kinda worked but the other two birds just happened to be there also.

The Trail of Tears began 170 years ago this week. Read more about it here.

Invited a few friends over for a backyard cookout. I didn't get too close to the peeple for fear of getting punched. Some folks don't take too kindly to getting their pic taken in their swimsuit by a stranger. Above image is looking north, below south. Wall to wall cars and peeple, hardly a place to set a chair. Happy Memorial Day.

Just wish the same folks who advocate carrying guns in National Parks as a constitutional right would advocate just as hard not to have their emails and phone calls reviewed by the government as a constitutional right.

The proposed change in national park gun regulations is open for public comment until June 30. Comments can be made online at www.regulations.gov — type “guns national parks” in comment search field — or by mail at:

Public Comments Processing, Attn: 1024-AD70
Division of Policy and Directives Management
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
4401 N. Fairfax Drive, Suite 222
Arlington, VA 22203.

The way Florida used to be.

I didn't see a single fish camping here even tho it was a holiday weekend.

I wasn't expecting the bird to take flight so didn't have the shutter speed set to takeoff position, causing the wings to appear ghostly.