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Overton Park At Home

Here you’ll find some resources for enjoying Overton Park when you can’t visit in person.

Shop Park Gear Online
Our online store, hosted by Bluff City Sports, offers t-shirts, hoodies, caps, and tote bags so you can show your park pride.

#NatureZen Archive
Our staff shares photos and reflections on the wildlife found in Overton Park. Revisit these posts here.

Field Guides to Overton Park
Learn the names of common organisms found in the park using the iNaturalist platform. We’ve put together field guides to plants, birds, and insects.

How to Use iNaturalist
New to citizen science? This guide shows you how to record your own observations of wildlife, whether that’s in the park, in your yard, or in your neighborhood.

Staff Favorites
Here are some nature-related things our staff loves to watch, read, and listen to.

  • Andrew Weda, Operations Manager – Hiking Responsibly During COVID-19, by the American Hiking Society, answers frequently-asked questions such as “Can I take my kids to a playground?” and “How strict do I need to be about social distancing?”
  • Fields Falcone, Programs Manager: Cornell University’s website All About Birds. From here you can link to Merlin (free birding app), the Macaulay Library of bird songs, and tons of free resources for learning, citizen science, Cornell’s publications, live bird cams, etc. Fly into the rabbit hole of bird-nerddom!
  • Eric Bridges, Director of Operations – I like Carl Alwin Schenck’s book The Cradle of Forestry in America: The Biltmore Forest School 1898-1913. It’s the story of America’s first forestry school, created to manage the 125,000-acre forest at George W. Vanderbilt’s Biltmore Estate in Asheville, North Carolina.
  • Kaci Murley, Deputy Executive Director – I’m enjoying “Business of Bees,” a Bloomberg podcast about the ecology and economics of the global $217 billion insect pollination industry. And if you only have time for one episode, I recommend Episode 4: Honeybees Don’t Need to be ‘Saved,’ an exploration of how the Western honeybee became the “poster species” for the public environmentalist movement and the importance of proper conservation for all pollinators, including butterflies, birds, chocolate flies (important!), and bats.
  • Melissa McMasters, Director of Communications – Rosemary Mosco’s science and nature cartoons at Bird and Moon always bring a smile to my face. Her e-mail newsletter highlights a weird bird in each edition, and her work is funny even if you’re not a serious birder.
  • Tina Sullivan, Executive Director – Black Faces, White Spaces by Carolyn Finney is a book I keep in the Overton Park Conservancy Library to loan out to everyone who wants to read it.