A fascinating post appeared at the American Birding Association’s young birders’ blog, The Eyrie, last week. You can read it here, but if you’re short on time, here’s the digest version: Birders don’t often bird true wilderness because wilderness is less birdy than fragmented and disturbed habitat often is.

Corn from a Jar: Moonshining in the Great Smoky Mountains by Daniel S. Pierce traces the history of moonshining from its beginning in the U.S. to current, legal moonshining. Dr. Pierce humanizes moonshiners as sober, folks trying to provide for their families.

Were Frederick Law Olmstead, or his son, alive today, they likely would much prefer the view of Yosemite National Park from their namesake overlook along the Tioga Pass Road, and not from the floor of the Yosemite Valley.

While the Plains states and Northeast have been drubbed again and again by winter in recent weeks, they've got nothing on Mount Rainier National Park. In the past week the park has received more than 6 feet of snow at Paradise.