Maryville- Alcoa Greenway Nature Encounters Summer 2022
Maryville-Alcoa Greenway iNaturalist Observations, Nature Postcards, and Other Nature Encounters Summer 2022
Randy Puckett iNaturalist randy135
My excuse to get outside is to use the iNaturalist phone App and computer website:
Links to this Linear Trail
Several extensions and new connector trails have been added and their information is not yet available online as of September 3, 2022 Google search. Still just get out and enjoy!
How this section of my Blog got started
Randy writes for himself but it seems friends and family said I need to share the Nature Journals, Reflections, along with my photography and even a few unique videos. During the summer of 2022 with the hot days and many chances of thunderstorms, I did not go camping away from home very often. Retirement days were different from last summer as I was looking for hobbies I wanted to do.
I had an epiphany one day when I was walking along the Greenbelt trail adding iNaturalist observations of the summer "weeds" that had beautiful blooms on them. A past life changing memory which occurred along this same Greenway trail just came into my mind. When I was going through a divorce and major career change back in 2003, I was on an easy run when I met up with a long time friend who knew I was struggling in starting my future path in life. Fred asked me: "Randy what did you want to be when you were a kid?" I quickly answered "a scientist." He said "then go do that!"
After a rewarding second career as a Science teacher I was entering a year into my retirement life so why not become a kid again and be a scientist? The iNaturalist program offers many tools to conduct biodiversity science research. I could make a scientific research project using iNat to use the Greenway trails as transects to catalogue and obtain data on the biodiversity of this small town recreational linear park (with several loops and branching side trails).
Since I now live next to the multi-miles of the Maryville-Alcoa Greenway it has given me many opportunities to get some outside exercise as I add to my iNaturalist Observations. My skills to identify and learn the common and taxonomic names of the plants and animals I see have increased tremendously. I also get creative in free verse poems and other reflective Nature writing using the pictures I take as writing prompts.
I hope you enjoy and follow this developing blog as I add more images and creative Nature Journal (NJ) writings and musings of my days as a citizen scientist. I plan on adding future posts for teaching of my development how-to's for these Digital Nature Journals.
To better view each of the images or sections of the Nature Journals below, just left click on one and it will appear enlarged and in a galley view. Use the directional arrows or swipe to scan forward or back. Hit escape to come back to the page view.
Nature post card formats from some flower observation photographs
August 2022
Ruby Throated Hummingbirds feeding on Bright Red Cardinal Flowers along the Alcoa Greenway alongside Pistol Creek
August 27, 2022
Her wings a beating blur
Looking to sip sweet nectar
From the bright red Cardinal flower blooms
A zoomed in close up I took
From the photo below
Such zip and hover
This marvelous bird
Is able to do
Purple Passion is seen by me
Just some more ramblings, pictures, and creative writings from the many short walks out my door during the Summer of 2022.
A loving purple flower I have observed for iNaturalist a few times along different places on the Greenbelt is the Purple Passionflower or scientific name Passiflora incarnata.
This species range covers a large area of the United States as shown by the iNaturalist distribution map below.
Map link https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/51453-Passiflora-incarnata
These blooms are so unique and found on a fast growing climbing wild vine. I have been moved to use several of the photographs I have taken to create two different formats of Digital Nature Journals with my free verse poems. Please read, view and enjoy.
Remember to left click on the photo's for better viewing and use your directional arrows to scan through.
NJ connection from the Greenbelt flowers into the Smokies
Flowers, Insects, Spiders
Insects September 8, 11-12, 2022
Alcoa Greenbelt Mile Post 2.5 Area
Enjoy the Biodiversity Photographs of the Beautiful and Stunning Features of the Insects Along a One Mile Section of This Greenway Trail as you Read this Nature Journal Post
Above From iNaturalist Observation 9/8/22
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/134221225
A map of this section of the Alcoa Greenway
Earlier this summer I saw Bumble Bees (Bombas Genus) and posted iNat observations on flowers but now I was seeing other insects. It was also apparent that caterpillars and other insects would be on the leaves and stems on these plants perhaps feeding on them.
I chose three cooler mornings (9/8, 9/11, 9/12) when I started to continue my transect Solo-BioBlitz on iNaturalist along the Alcoa Section of the Greenbelt trail. I was using the miles of the Maryville-Alcoa Tennessee Greenway trails to see how much biodiversity could be found along the branching, connecting, and even looping Greenway system throughout these two small cities.
I started this quest back in July with plans to document the flowers and wildlife along these trails, many of which are in the banks and even floodplain of Pistol creek and its tributaries in this urban area.
While taking numerous iNaturalist observations over the summer I also started noticing the many weed flowers I had added to my iNat observations. Many of these beautiful blooms I did not recognize. I only had some past knowledge in the woodland spring wildflowers like I would see when hiking in the nearby Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
When I would get back home and go through my field observations I had taken with my iPhone camera. Viewing them on the larger screen of my MacBook I began to see many smaller insects seeking nectar and pollen from these flowers. So many flowering plants depend on insects for cross pollination for reproduction of plants. Bee’s and Butterflies are always the first insects I would think as being the main pollinators.
My knowledge of insect identifications was expanding growing as the summer progressed. I just kept adding to my species counts of insect observations. iNaturalist has many professional and amateur Entomologists who view and have the skills to give accurate Genus and Species confirmations or to guide me to the correct ID’s of the vast insect biodiversity I was posting on iNaturalist.
On these cooler morning walks I started looking at flowers along the trail and I was a little more fine tuned to seek out these new gems of life in the insects.
These three September day’s journeys had me recording 45 observations of 29 different insect species with some stunning iPhone close up photos of these insects.
And even one Orb-weaver spider.
Other insects on this one mile of the Greenway on September 8, 11-12, 2022
And Finally Two sharing the same Plant's Flower Sweets
SCROLL DOWN FOR A FEW UNIQUE PICTURES
To better view each of the images or sections of the Nature Journals below, just left click on one and it will appear enlarged and in a galley view. Use the directional arrows or swipe to scan forward or back. Hit escape to come back to the page view.
Look for new NJ's and observations and creative writings about the Biodiversity found along the Greenbelt trails.
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