Roads End Naturalist

Exploring the natural world as we wander at the end of the road

Category: Trip report

  • Red River Gorge

    The most beautiful gift of Nature is that it gives one pleasure to look around and try to comprehend what we see. ~Albert Einstein We just returned from a whirlwind trip that included stops to see my parents, two areas in Kentucky, and some birding in Ohio. We camped one night in Cumberland Gap National Read more…

    Written by

    Mike Dunn

  • Persistent Pileated

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    He seldom gave more than three or four pecks at a time, and would then swing his head round to one side or the other, sometimes raising his scarlet crest. ~O. M. Bryens, on watching a pileated woodpecker feeding Spent a few days at my folk’s place in Damascus this week, enjoying the beautiful mountain Read more…

    Written by

    Mike Dunn

  • Bald is Beautiful

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    With the exception of a body of rocks looking like the ruins of an old castle, near the southwestern extremity, the top of Roan may be described as a vast meadow, without a tree to ob­struct the prospect; where a person may gallop his horse for a mile or two, with Carolina at his feet Read more…

    Written by

    Mike Dunn

  • Sunset Birds

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    Nature is painting for us, day after day, pictures of infinite beauty, if only we have the eyes to see them. ~John Ruskin While we saw a variety of wildlife on our Florida adventure, I was a bit surprised we had not seen as many birds as I had hoped. As I mentioned in an Read more…

    Written by

    Mike Dunn

  • Big Cypress

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    If, in the name of progress, we want to destroy everything beautiful in our world, and contaminate the air we breathe, and the water we drink, then we are in trouble. ~Marjory Stoneman Douglas, in response to critics saying that conservationists were trying to halt progress in Florida by preserving Big Cypress Swamp Big Cypress Read more…

    Written by

    Mike Dunn

  • Everglades

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    There are no other Everglades in the world. They are, they have always been, one of the unique regions of the earth, remote, never wholly known. ~Marjory Stoneman Douglas, author of The Everglades: River of Grass, 1947 Sitting by the fire yesterday afternoon, I can hardly believe I spent last week in the Florida heat Read more…

    Written by

    Mike Dunn

  • Bitternsweet Memories

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    Life wants you to have gratitude for the gift of living.  Treasure every second. ~ Bryant McGill The season is about over. It is hard to believe I just finished what is probably my last tour for this winter season at Mattamuskeet and Pocosin Lakes. But, if it is to be the last, at least Read more…

    Written by

    Mike Dunn

  • Arrows of the Sea

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    Over the unlucky school of fish is a bewildering maze of soaring, circling birds, pouring down out of the sky in rapid succession, plunging into the water like so many projectiles and sending columns of water and spray many feet into the air like the spouting of a school of whales. ~Arthur Cleveland Bent, 1922, Read more…

    Written by

    Mike Dunn

  • Pelagic Birding

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    You may know the true observer, not by the big things he sees, but by the little things; and then not by the things he sees with effort and premeditation, but by his effortless, unpremeditated seeing—the quick, spontaneous action of his mind in the presence of natural objects. John Burroughs, 1905 I had the good Read more…

    Written by

    Mike Dunn

  • Grass with Eyes

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    He prefers solitude, and leads the eccentric life of a recluse, “forgetting the world, and by the world forgot.” To see him at his ordinary occupation, one might fancy him shouldering some heavy responsibility, oppressed with a secret, or laboring in the solution of a problem of vital consequence. He stands motionless, with his head Read more…

    Written by

    Mike Dunn