On July 01, 2001 John Finnegan, Harry LeGrand, Chris Wilson and I visited Mount Mitchell State Park. We had hopes of finding two things in the park a Northern Goshawk and perhaps Green Commas. We found neither species but had a great time exploring anyway.

The first "great" find we had was a Small Purple Fringed Orchid, Habenaria psycodes. It was along the Blue Ridge Parkway near the park entrance. Once we started up into the park we realized it was a common species for the park as we saw hundreds of them in bloom. Later in the day on our way back down the mountain it was sunny and we found Great Spangled Fritillaries and Silver-spotted Skippers nectaring on the orchids.

We parked at the rangers station and walked the gravel road that goes behind the station. It was gray and cloudy so butterflies weren`t out at first. We had some real good "winter" birds along the way including Red Crossbills, Pine Siskin, Hermit Thrush, Winter Wren, Golden-crowned Kinglet, Canada Warbler, and Chestnut-sided Warbler. The goshawk was a no show and might have been mistaken for one of the Broad-winged hawks we saw flying.

While walking down the trail Chris and I started to look under a few rocks in hopes of finding the very rare Pigmy Salamander, Desmognathus wrighti. Chris is working on his masters degree and he`s specializing in salamanders. We also found several Mountain Dusky Salamander, Desmognathus ocoee "Ocoee Salamander is the new name"and another species Harry and John found in a stream that was likely a Spring Salamander.

Further down the trail someone found a Aphrodite Fritillary, Speyeria aphrodite perched on the ground attempting to warm up. I was able to take several photos without disturbing it. Later when we came back through there were two of them nectaring on Hawkweed, Hieracium species.

We also found a rare native tree in North Carolina Paper Birch, Betula papyrifera. This is very common up north but only found in Yancy County in NC. They sure were pretty I wished I`d brought a smaller lens to get a nice photo of one of them.

We also found Saint Johns Wort in bloom about everywhere. As shown below.

And another cool plant we found that was growing under some rocks. Michaux's Saxifrage, Saxifraga michauxii. Click on image to enlarge

Then we went to the summit and the sun finally showed its face on and off for most of our time up there. We found several Aphrodite Fritillary and Great Spangled Fritillary along with an American Lady and a male Banded Hairstreak just 15-20 foot from the summit.

American Lady, Vanessa virginiensis nectaring on Hawkweed found just under the summit of Mount Mitchell at 6670 foot above sea level.