The purpose of this feature is to give scout leaders, educators and naturalists an idea of some of the natural events coming up each month.  We will try to cover a variety of natural events ranging from sky events to calling periods of amphibians, bird and mammal watching tips,  prominent wildflowers and anything else that comes to mind.  We will also note prominent constellations appearing over the eastern horizon at mid-evening each month for our area for those who would like to learn the constellations.  If you have suggestions for other types of natural information you would like to see added to this calendar, let us know!

Note: You can click on the hyperlinks to learn more about some of the featured items.  To return to the Calendar, hit the "back" button on your browser, NOT the "back" button on the web page.  All charts are available in a "printer friendly" mode, with black stars on a white background.  Left clicking on each chart will take you to a printable black and white image. 

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Notes From May 2020

But there were also signs of spring. Not long after starting the climb from Newfound Gap I heard the beautiful and complex song of the Winter Wren. As its name implies, this species is a winter resident in most of the state, but it breeds in the higher elevations of the Appalachians.

This is true of a number of bird species. Red-breasted Nuthatches also breed in the Smokies and called frequently during the hike. I heard a Golden-crowned Kinglet, and we saw a Hermit Thrush later in the morning. In the summer months the flute-like song of the Hermit Thrush is common at high elevations.

A Red Squirrel crossed the trail in front of us on Mount Kephart, another species whose mostly northern range extends southward along the spine of the Appalachians.

While at The Jumpoff we met Olympic biathlete Clare Egan, who was there hiking some trails as part of her conditioning. She was quite gracious and spent some time with us answering questions about her chosen sport before returning to her normal pace and quickly disappearing down the trail.

The view across the mountains, which includes Masa Knob, brought to mind the friendship of Horace Kephart and George Masa. Their friendship was shown most recently in the Ken Burns documentary, The National Parks. Kephart and Masa valued each other's areas of expertise. Kephart knew the importance of Masa's contributions as a photographer, and Masa learned about plants, animals and mountain lore from Kephart. Both worked incredibly hard for the creation of the national park. Masa, who stood about five feet tall and weighed 100 pounds, often hiked ten miles or more carrying a heavy tripod and an 8x10 view camera. He also measured distances between points in the park by pushing a rig made from the front end of a bicycle, both on and off trails.

On April 3rd, 1931, George Masa read in the newspaper that Horace Kephart had been killed in an automobile accident. He wrote in a letter to a friend, "Kep is gone forever! His death shocked me to pieces. I never experienced such feeling in my life...But we must keep going on what we have in our hands, and I like to carry out what Kep wanted."

Masa said that every time he visited Kephart's grave, "I feel that I better carry him up to the top of Mt. Kephart."  He died of influenza on April 2nd, 1933, almost two years to the day after Kephart's death. He died in a sanitarium, penniless and in debt, and his wishes to be buried beside Kephart were not honored. His grave was left unmarked for fifteen years.

On June 15, 1934 the Great Smoky Mountains National Park was officially established. On April 25, 1961, through the efforts of the Carolina Mountain Club, a 5,600-foot wooded peak on the flanks of Mt. Kephart was named Masa Knob.

Much of the above information about George Masa and Horace Kephart came from an excellent in-depth article on PBS.org. You can find it here.

The weather changed so rapidly in May that it was hard to find even one night that remained free of clouds and rain. Our new comets defied predictions and remained below naked eye visibility. However it is in the nature of comets to be unpredictable. Longtime comet hunter David Levy said it best; "Comets are like cats: they both have tails, and thy both do precisely what they want."

Perhaps as a consolation prize there were two bright supernovae discovered in May. One of them was in the galaxy Messier 61.

I took this image of Messier 61 on May 15th and May 21st, during times in the early morning hours when the sky cleared. The supernova is arrowed. On both evenings I had to remotely park the telescope and roll the observatory roof back on due to incoming rain. But I was grateful to have the chance to catch the light show! Supernova SN 2020jfo is arrowed.

They are one of nature's biggest fireworks! They can for a time put out more light than their entire host galaxy. This supernova  is a type II supernova. They form from a supergiant star with a mass that is more than 8 times that of our Sun. These stars are  rock stars. They burn brightly and die young. Their life spans range from 30 million years down to a few hundred thousand years. Compare this with our sun's age of the 4.6 billion years.

As such a star ages the energy generated by the nuclear fusion in its core may be unable to sustain the core against its own gravity. The core collapses and the rebound creates a stellar explosion. Depending on the mass of the original star, the star may collapse into either a neutron star or a black hole.

Messier 61 is a starburst galaxy with an exceptionally high rate of new star formation. It has been a prolific generator of supernovae. Supernovae have been discovered there in 1926, 1961, 1964, 1999, 2006, 2008, 2014 and now 2020. 

To see the crescent, perhaps with a few clouds drifting by in the foreground, is a beautiful sight. As the month progresses Venus will climb higher and higher into the sky and the crescent will show more of the sunlit side of Venus.

On June 19th Venus will be quite close to the waning crescent Moon. They should make a pretty pair in the morning twilight, particularly in binoculars; two thin crescents, one big and one tiny!

To the Aztecs Venus represented their god Quetzalcoatl. Quetzalcoatl, according to E.C. Krupp in his book, Beyond the Blue Horizon, represented a life-giving power drawn from water, earth and sky. 

Quetzalcoatl's earthly embodiment was the Resplendent Quetzal, certainly one of the most beautiful birds on our planet. When you see a male Resplendent Quetzal in flight, its very long tail feathers ripple behind it. The effect is stunning. The literal translation of the name is "feathered serpent."  According to the mythology, Quetzalcoatl sacrificed himself on a funeral pyre. After the pyre had burned his heart rose from the ashes to become the morning star. I often think of that when I see the tiny crescent rising from the Sun in the early dawn - Quetzalcoatl's heart.

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