Ephemeral by Nature

"e;Reading Ephemeral by Nature is the next best thing to talking a walk with Stephen Lyn Bales. In addition to describing the plants and animals readers will encounter, Bales scouts out hidden side trails. A look at jack-in-the-pulpit will turn up dinosaurs, Darwin, and Finding Nemo, and consideration of cerulean warblers will lead to coffee in Columbia and a discussion of why the sky is blue. Each chapter begins with one of his delightful drawings, and you'll find Bales' artistic eye is as discerning and detailed as his writing."e;-Patricia K. Lichen, author of Passionate Slugs and Hollywood Frogs and Kidnapping the Wild OneIn this captivating collection of twelve essays, a testament to a lifetime's fascination with the outdoors and its myriad wonders, naturalist Stephen Lyn Bales examines a variety of flora and fauna that in one way or another can be described as "e;ephemeral"e;-that is, fleeting, short-lived, or transient.Focusing on his native East Tennessee, Bales introduces us to several oddities, including the ghost plant, a wispy vascular plant that resembles a rooster's tail and grows mainly in areas devoid of sunlight; the Appalachian panda, an ancestor of today's red panda that wandered the region millions of years ago and whose fossil remains have only recently been discovered; and the freshwater jellyfish, a tiny organism that is virtually invisible except for those hot summer days when clusters of them bloom into shimmering "e;medusae,"e; sometimes by the thousands. Other essays consider such topics as the plight of the monarch butterfly, a gorgeous insect whose populations have dropped by 90 percent in only the last two decades; the reintroduction of the lake sturgeon, one of nature's most primitive and seldom-seen fish, into the waters of the Tennessee Valley; and the surprising emergence of coyote-wolf and coyote-dog hybrids in the eastern states.Written with insight, humor, and heart, Ephemeral by Nature is as entertaining as it is instructive. Along with a wealth of biological details-and his own handsome pen-and-ink drawings-Bales fills the book with delightful anecdotes of field trips, species-protection efforts, and those thrilling occasions when some elusive member of the natural order shows itself to us, if only for a brief moment.