<< Back

8/7/02

Nature Notebook

SMN
Birds:

° Green heron, black vulture, American kestrel, yellow-billed cuckoo, ruby-throated hummmingbird, belted kingfisher, pileated woodpecker, hairy woodpecker, downy woodpecker, red-bellied woodpecker, northern flicker, eastern kingbird, eastern phoebe, white-eyed vireo, yellow-throated vireo, barn swallow, tree swallow, blue-gray gnatcatcher, wood thrush, cedar waxwing, yellow-throated warbler, yellow warbler, black-throated green warbler, worm-eating warbler, black and white warbler, American redstart, common yellowthroat, blue grosbeak, indigo bunting, rose-breasted grosbeak, field sparrow and red-winged blackbird (Jonathan Mays & Sean O’Connell, Macon County Greenway, 7/28)

° Chestnut-sided warbler, black-throated green warbler, black-throated blue warbler, hooded warbler, blackburnian warbler, ovenbird, blue-headed vireo, golden-crowned kinglet, house wren, indigo bunting and field sparrow (Purchase Knob, 8/1)


Wildflowers:

° Crimson bee-balm, Monarda didyma; tall bellflower, Campanula americana; wild golden-glow or green-headed coneflower, Rudbeckia lacinata; false foxglove, Aureolaria sp.; black-eyed susan, Rudbeckia hirta; crown-beard, Verbesina occidentalis; pale Indian plantain, Arnoglossum atriplicifolium; evening primrose, Oenothera biennis; ox-eye, Heliopsis helianthoides and various goldenrods, Solidago sp. that I didn’t have time to key (Purchase Knob 8/1)


Paul Super, science coordinator at the Purchase Knob Learning Center in the Great smoky Mountains National Park, said it is open to the public but it requires a short hike. The lower gate is generally locked. It is about 2 miles all the way up to the learning center, about a mile to the first meadows. Visitors should park at the gate and walk up, even if the gate is open to avoid being locked in. Super said visitors are welcome to picnic on the porch at the learning center. Purchase Knob is located at the end of Hemphill Rd. Off U.S. 276 in Haywood County.