Vertebrates at or near Highlands Biological Laboratory

Weather:sunny both days, light WNW wind (front passed several days ago)

Other notes: few birds around -- almost no migrants -- White Pines had mature cones but just a few -- after 5 years in a row without mature cones

Please send additions/corrections to Haven Wiley

Reptiles

	Northern Watersnake Nerodia sipedon	1 near dining hall

Birds

	Mute Swan	2 on the pond in the golf course -- introduced -- not breeding
	Turkey Vulture	10 sailing in the updrafts around Whiteside Mountain
	Black Vulture	2 sailing around Whiteside Mountain
	Downy Woodpecker	1 called from the woods
	Hairy Woodpecker ***	1 in woods beside the lab -- with calls that were a shade deeper in pitch than those around Chapel Hill -- as appropriate for these larger birds (more like those in New York state) -- also one seen in flight and heard at Mile High Lookout near Heintooga
	Least Flycatcher *	1 flycatching in trees behind Coker lab -- hard to identify when not calling but this bird otherwise fit the bill
	Blue-headed Vireo **	1 singing briefly in the Cullasaja Gorge -- none heard near Highlands
	Blue Jay	10
	American Crow	8 flying over (probably a family or two)
	Common Raven	2 flew above the road near Heintooga
	Carolina Chickadee	4
	Tufted Titmouse	2
	White-breasted Nuthatch	4
	Red-breasted Nuthatch *	4
	Carolina Wren	1
	American Robin	4 probably included migrants
	Northern Cardinal	3
	Eastern Towhee	2
	Song Sparrow	2
	Dark-eyed Junco **	10
	American Goldfinch	4

Mammals

	Red Squirrel *	only brief calls

* northern species that extends southward in the mountains to southern Appalachians

** northern species that extends southward in the mountains and has evolved a distinctive subspecies in the southern Appalachians

*** species with a northern subspecies that extends southward in the mountains to the southern Appalachians

**** species confined to the southern Appalachians