Predators of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recently removed the Eastern Cougar (puma concolor), also known as the Mountain Lion, from the endangered species list classifying the cat officially "extinct". After conducting a recent survey of approximately 600 scientists and wildlife service rangers in 21 eastern United States, the Fish and Wildlife Service concluded that the eastern sub-species of the Mountain Lion (puma concolor) no longer exists. We believe they do! The Mountain Lion is the largest of the American cats. With a range from the Yukon territory of Canada to the southernmost region of the Andes in South America, the Mountain Lion has the most expansive habitat of any large mammal in the Western Hemisphere. However, there has been very little concrete evidence of the large cats living very far east of their current range. Stories of Mountain Lion sightings are common in the American states east of the Mississippi River, but such sightings are almost always unverified due to lack of real photographic proof. Nowhere in America are the facts about the Mountain Lion's range more speculative than in the eastern Tennessee and western North Carolina region known as the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. With over 9 million visitors each year, the GSMNP is the most visited national park in all of the United States. It is no surprise that many reports are made of Mountain Lion sightings in the park. The Mountain Lions (and Red Wolves) were once common the area into the late 1800s with the last 100% proven instance of a mountain lion living in the region was in the winter of 1920. Tom Sparks, a resident of what is now the national park, was attacked by a Mountain Lion (also known as a Panther, Cougar, or Puma) and the cat was later killed. According to Don Linzey, author of Mammals of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, there were 43 reported sightings of the cats between 1908 and 1976. Sightings have become increasingly more common since the increase in tourism to the park over the last 30 years since the data was taken. Sightings of large cats now average 7 per year in the GSMNP.

Why Do It:

The purpose of this project is to once and for all retrieve photographic evidence of large predatory cats in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. We hope to ultimately prove that these mammals still roam the land of the United States east of the Mississippi River...and get them back on the Endangered Species list. Another reason we want to do this project is to create an amazing set of photos. This project will allow us to finally write and illustrate a full-color book featuring some of the most elusive animals in the area.

How Will We Do It:

Photographer Isaac Cogdill and adventurer Rob Watson will document a 7 day stake-out of the backcountry of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in search of the Mountain Lions that are now classified as extinct. As the project is carried out, Isaac and Rob will stay at a single-tent backcountry camp site for seven days supplied with all the gear needed to record and document the many species of large mammals and other rare and exotic plants and animals of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The goal is to return with evidence of these large cats as well as many photographs of the main prey of the Mountain Lions, the White-tailed Deer and daily activities of all animals of the park from Black Bears and Bobcats to Coyotes, Owls, and Falcons. The entire collection of observations, field notes, information of various species encountered, and photographs from the excursion will be compiled into a full-color, bounded, softcover book. In addition to the books, limited edition prints of the projects photos will be made solely for contributors.

What Needs Funded:

Nearly everything needed to complete this project is at hand: Tent, sleeping bags, ropes, rain gear, photo gear, remote cameras, audio recorder, laptops, maps, GPS, first-aid, outdoor clothing, packs, etc. Funding for this project will be used to rent a super telephoto lens and an extra battery that will accompany existing photographic equipment, a solar charger to power our small netbook computer and charge batteries for headlamps and cameras. Funds will also be used to offset transportation costs and for miscellaneous items such as casting materials as well as the production of prints and books. ANY EXTRA FUNDING over the goal amount will go to the purchase of additional books that will be donated to local school libraries.

What If We Return Without Proof:

The blog and full-color book will contain many photos and textual observations taken during the week long project as well as descriptions of the many species photographed during our stay. The success of this project will educate many people about the Mountain Lion and give a glimpse into the behind-the-scenes lives of some of the many animals that allure visitors to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and will inspire us to continue searching for the last remnants of the Eastern Mountain Lion.

Video Music: Re-Entry by Lee Rosevere and This Old Town by Isaac Graham
Two Cougar Photos by David Tyrer flickr.com/​photos/​8321586@N07/​

STS-134 Space Shuttle Endeavor's Final Launch!

STS-134 Space Shuttle Endeavor's last launch. Cape Canaveral, Florida. We decided last night (the night before the launch) at about 10pm that we should just go to Florida and watch the launch in the morning. I got off work and left Gatlinburg, TN at 10pm, we got our stuff, and took off for Titusville, FL. We had to make it before the launch at 8:56am...about 10 hours from when we left. We drove super fast and got there about 40 minutes before launch and found a perfect spot to watch from the shore line. It was really awesome, none of us had ever seen a shuttle launch or even knew what to expect. We lucked up and got a perfect show! This is a still from the 720p/24fps video from my Nikon D7000 at 100 ISO and 1/50th with the Nikkor 18-105mm f/3.5-5.6 VR lens. I was very impressed with the video from the D7000! I shot it at 720p/24fps because my card was kind of slow and I was afraid it would drop the video part of the way through the launch, so I dropped it to 720p instead of full 1080p. The last mission of the space shuttle Endeavor! Check it out in 720p HD on Vimeo... http://vimeo.com/23824683
STS-134 Space Shuttle Endeavor's Last Mission

STS-134 Space Shuttle Endeavor's Final Launch... and our first! from Isaac Cogdill on Vimeo.

Cokin Graduated ND Review

The Cokin filter system comes in three sizes: A Series, P Series, Z-Pro, and X-Pro. The A series filters are 67mm x 67mm square and can cover lens thread sizes ranging from 36mm to 62mm. I bought the P series holder because I planned on using the filters with bigger lenses. The P series are 84mm wide and fit thread sizes 48mm to 82mm (except 54mm) and work with most of the lenses the A series will fit as well as larger front element lenses such as the common 52mm, 62mm, 67mm, and 77mm Nikon threads and 58mm and 77mm Canons. The Z-Pro filters are sort of expensive but are made of “3^rd Gen CR39 Organic Glass developed by Cokin” instead of CR39 Organic Glass (used in most eye glasses) like the smaller filters and will fit lenses with threads ranging from 49mm to 96mm (except 54mm) and are 100mm wide. The X-Pro fits threads from 62mm to 112mm and are even bigger.

The Cokin Graduated Neutral Density filters are extremely useful, regardless of which size you prefer. The main reason to use a graduated neutral density filter is to keep from blowing out the highlights in the sky of a landscape style photo.  The filters are dark on one half and clear on the other, the only difference in the various styles is the way they fade from dark to clear. The Cokin ND8 P121 has a hard/fast fade. The P121 is most useful when the contrast changes from bright to dark quickly (like a sunset at the beach) The ND8 P121 S has a more gradual fade than the P121 but harder/faster than the P121 F and is great for when the scene is not split by a hard straight line. The P121 F is dark on one side and clear on the other. It fades evenly from one end to the other and can be slid way down to make a nearly even neutral density filter for long exposures.
I have the Cokin ND8 P121, the ND8 P121 S, and ND8 P121 F. I only bought the ND8s because the ND4 and ND2 looked like they would be too light to make much of a difference. I’m sure they would be useful in certain situations. Adorama sells all of the Cokin line in just about every size. If you buy them from these links or through the banner at the top of the page, it will help me keep this site going.

Graduated Neutral Density Filters @ Adorama

(Most Cokins are currently back ordered because of Cokin's management buyout, but Cokin will be back soon)

Welcome Home!

So, long delay, but we had an awesome two days in London! We walked around all day long seeing everything from Westminster Abbey to the Tower Bridge and Waterloo Station...which is a long dang walk. We took tons of pictures and got back to Dan's in Andover to get some good sleep. The next day, our last day (almost), Dan's mom cooked us a nice roast with raspberry apple pie before we left for London! We took our stuff to Gatwick Airport and then headed into town by train. It was raining, but we went to Chinatown, bought another bag so ours wasn't over the 60 pound limit and got some dinner. We took some night shots of the city, saw a guy bust his "boys" full speed on a subway pole and headed back to the airport...our hotel for the night! We ended us locking our stuff to a bench and sleeping under it. That was an awful idea! We slept for about an hour and woke up at 3am and stayed awake for the whole boarding/security process until our plane left at 9am. The ride was nice with plenty of food, coke and touch screen games and music. We got to Nashville via ATL at 5pm! Candace, Beau, and my mom were waiting for us with an awesome sign and it was time to give Hayley her real ring! There was a guy playing guitar and he played a slow song for us and I got down and one knee and did it all again :) Hayley was very excited and everyone clapped for us! Now are back in good ol' Tennessee! Thanks to everybody for actually reading this blog, it was a ton of fun documenting the whole trip through words...and ~12,000 photos! We met some awesome people and we're glad that everyone could keep us with us the whole way!

Stonehenge, Crop Circles, and Avebury!

We had an awesome day! We woke up early, ate left over croissants for breakfast and caught the train to Salisbury at about 11am. We got a bus ticket to see Stonehenge, but it was pouring the rain when we got there, so we just stayed on the bus and went back to Salisbury...then stayed on the bus and went back to Stonehenge (gotta get our money's worth haha). We got off the second time because the weather was great! We walked around taking tons of pictures. It is in a area called the Salisbury Plains where the British military trains every one from pilots to snipers, so we got some shots of a jet pulling some Gs over Stonehenge...not in the same picture though. I seriously had to pee SO bad I was sweating, but you had to leave Stonehenge to get to the bathroom and I didn't want to waste the trip there just because I had to go! So after a little while I couldn't work my camera it was bad so I ran across the place, straight out the entrance, went to the bathroom, then cut everyone in line and went through the booth and back to Hayley...nobody said anything. So, we got plenty of pictures! Dan picked us up (with his dog Jerry) in Salisbury and we went out to hunt down some crop circles out in the countryside. Most of the fields were harvested already, but we saw one huge crop circle that really awesome! Dan, took us by some cool Stone Age burial mounds, and to Avebury where the village is surrounded by two rings of these stones, bigger than Stonehenge, all the way around the village! We ate at the Red Lion Pub in the middle of the rings and rode back to Andover. It's bedtime now and London early tomorrow, so pictures will have to wait!

Ediburgh, Ogle, and Andover!

Sorry for the delay, we had a hard time finding a place to stay, got a negative reference on Couch Surfing from a guy who barely even gave us any direction, and stayed in Edinburgh instead of Glasgow. We had an awesome time in Glasgow with Mathilde and Tich! Mathilde told us about Balloch which is a town by Loch Lomond to the west of Glasgow and we took lots of pictures, I even broke out my macro lens! We missed the train back by less than 10 seconds, but we just went to a cafe for 30 minutes until the next one. We got groceries again and make pizza for dinner back in Glasgow. We got up early and headed to Edinburgh for the day! Patrice was with us for that too and we walked around everywhere, ate some dang good ribs, and mac n' cheese, saw the castle, walked across town for some awesome views then...we had to figure out what the heck we were gonna do! Patrice had to catch a plane to Croatia and be at the Edinburgh Airport at 5am and we couldn't stay with Mathilde and Tich again because they had a full house with some old friends. So, we went from place to place asking for a room (the Fringe Festival is all of August in Edinburgh and there is not a single room anywhere, even on CS). We ended up splitting a 2 person room 3 ways, RUNNING to Waverly station to catch the last train to Glasgow then running to get the train to Mathilde's to get our stuff, then RUNNING back, with all of our stuff to catch the last train back to Edinburgh (while eating Burger King) so we wouldn't have to come back very early in the morning to get our bags...Well, Patrice made his flight and we made it to the Ogle castle in Ogle, Northumberland, England! It was super nice! Since I am the 29th generation of a direct line of Ogles (my Mom is an Ogle and, if you go back 4 generations, so is my Dad haha) descendant of the very first Ogle (Humphry of Ogle 1085-1155)...we just had to stay there! We walked around Ogle, which is a very small community really not even a town. We checked out the land around the place and then just enjoyed the place! The owner's daughter cooked us dinner because we were starving and had no clue that there was nothing to eat in Ogle! She also made us a full English breakfast, tons of toast, juice, and even gave us a ride back to the nearest train station along with leftover croissants for a snack! Our train was late, which is good because we were late too, but then as soon as our train arrived in Birmingham, we saw our connecting train pulling away! Then we waited for another train...it was late, so when we got to Reading, we saw our next connecting train pulling away! So we got sandwiches and tried to call Dan in Andover. We left him a message and just hoped he would be there when we walked off the train in Andover...he was! Good thing because it was raining. Him and his girlfriend took us back to his house where they had cooked a green curry dinner for us, we played with their dalmation, Jerry, and met Dan's mum and sister for a game of Rummikub. We are going to bed now, but in the morning we are going to Salisbury to see Stonehenge and Dan is picking us up at 6:30 and we're going to check out some crop circles around Hampshire! We'll update tomorrow...I promise!

Glasgow, Scotland!

We cleaned the rooms...and bathrooms. We got milkshakes with a guy named John that was working at the hostel from Australia before we caught the train. The train ride to Glasgow was not too long, and Patrice, Mathilde, and baby Rose met us at the train station! Last night, we went to Mathilde and Tich's house, walked through the park and got supplies to make a pasta dinner. Tich (Richard) gave me a sweet "Harris Tweed" hat like the one I saw in Pitlochry! So, we plan on checking out Glasgow today, but so far only breakfast and showers are done and Hayley is playing with the baby :)