Birding in the Highlands of Roan
Date: 6/15/2024
Time: 8:30 am
Leaders: Joe McGuiness, Biologist with the Cherokee National Forest & Marquette Crockett, SAHC Director of Roan Stewardship
Meeting Location: The Spear Country Store, 5810 US-19E, Newland, NC 28657
Distance: 1 mile
Difficulty: Easy (2/10)
Cost: FREE
Registration: Pre-registration is REQUIRED
We will need to carpool to the site from Spear Country Store. Arrive early and grab some coffee or a biscuit! Please park in the back at the request of the store manager.
We will drive from here into the Roan Mountain Important Bird Area, traveling up through SAHC’s Yellow Mountain Connector Property, 456 acres which joins North Carolina’s Yellow Mountain State Natural Area to create an unbroken swath of mature forest and rushing streams. As we drive, we may hear forest interior birds like Scarlet Tanager, Ovenbird, Veery, Black-throated Green and Blue Warblers, and others. Turk’s Cap lily, Black Cohosh, and Purple Flowering Raspberry dot the roadsides.
Arriving at SAHC’s 336-acre Cane Creek Preserve and Life Estate, which sits near 4500 feet in elevation, we will spend time birding in the wildlife meadow, looking for early successional species. Then we will hike about 0.5 mile through Montane Oak habitats looking for high elevation forest birds. We will have lunch in a second set of meadows and hike back to the car. This site is approximately 25 minutes from the Drop-In social at our Elk Hollow Preserve, where we hope you will join us afterwards for refreshments!
