When: May 17, 2024 @ 9:00 am
Registration for this event has closed. Thank you for your interest!
Wander the Needmore with an entourage of local experts!
This spring, Mainspring is hosting a Bioblitz in the Brush Creek area of the Needmore Game Lands in partnership with Highlands Biological Station, Highlands Biological Foundation, and Discover Life in America! A Bioblitz is a sort of “biological census,” aiming to capture a snapshot of all the species living in a particular area.
Each day of this event (Friday 5/17, Saturday 5/18, and Sunday 5/19), local experts will lead multi-hour mini-expeditions along waterways, through meadows, and in the forest, seeking particular species or taxa. Choose your own participation level– come all day, attend one session per day, or participate in just one or two sessions over the weekend! Beginner naturalists are welcome at this event, let’s learn as we go!
Observations collected during this event will help drive future conservation in this area, fill gaps in scientific knowledge, and maybe even document a critter that hasn’t been observed here before! Want to meander through this beautiful area while searching for and learning about mushrooms, fireflies, rare plants, and more with these scientists? Check out Friday’s schedule below, then fill out the form at the bottom of this page to secure your spot! Find more details about the sessions and their leaders below the form at the very bottom of the page. Email Skye with questions.
Other important info:
- Exertion varies per session: some sessions may be easy walks along the road while others may involve traipsing through the woods off-trail. In general, wear sturdy shoes, bring a snack and plenty of water, and be prepared to walk 2-3 miles. For accessibility-related questions, email Skye.
- All sessions will leave from Lower Needmore Rd in the Needmore Game Lands near Bryson City, either from the Brush Creek Access Area or past the swinging bridge. Exact meeting location and directions will be sent out in the week leading up to the event.
- Please download and login to the iNaturalist app before this event. We will be using this app to record our observations. If you have never used iNaturalist, here is a brief tutorial.
- A bagged lunch will be provided free of charge to any participant who wants it.
Why the Needmore? This over-5,000 acre chunk of public land in between Franklin and Bryson City encompasses a fascinating array of rich, low-elevation habitats, including 30 miles of river frontage. Mainspring has contributed over 3,000 acres to these Game Lands, and we continue to carry on the legacy of protecting this area’s unparalleled beauty and biodiversity. When the Fontana Dam was installed in the 1940’s, it flooded what would have been the lowest elevation ecosystems of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and many other low-elevation areas in the Little Tennessee River watershed have been developed. The Needmore contains a special set of unfragmented ecosystems that is not well-represented in our landscape.
Registration for this event has closed. Thank you for your interest!
Plants and Natural Communities
Jess is the Western Region Field Biologist with the NC Natural Heritage Program, where she works to document and protect rare plants and high-quality natural areas. She is a graduate of Warren Wilson College and is passionate about conservation. Jess’ specialty is vascular plants and natural communities, so this session will be appropriate for both beginner botanists who want to learn the basics and experienced naturalists who want to go down the rabbit hole.
Insect Identification and Behavior
This session will be a broad survey of insects, with a special focus on behavior. Distinguished entomologists Jim and Leslie will help participants identify insects (at least to family) and interpret aspects of their natural history such as behavior, ecology, and life cycle.
Jim Costa is Professor and Executive Director of the Highlands Biological Station of WCU, where he has taught courses in genetics, entomology, evolution, and biogeography since 1996. Jim’s many interests include insect behavior and ecology, environmental history and philosophy, conservation biology, and especially the history of evolutionary thought. His research has focused in recent years on Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace. He has authored numerous research papers, reviews, magazine articles, and 9 books, most recently Radical by Nature: The Revolutionary Life of Alfred Russel Wallace (Princeton University Press, 2023) and (co-authored with Bobbi Angell) Darwin and the Art of Botany: Observations on the Curious World of Plants (Timber Press, 2023).
Leslie Costa lives in the Blue Ridge Mountains of western North Carolina, USA. Her career has ranged from museum curation and exhibit design to tutoring and scientific illustration, with interests in natural history, environmental education, and garden design. She holds a BS in Biology from Georgia Southern University, and graduate degrees in Entomology (MS) and Landscape Architecture (MLA) from the University of Georgia in Athens, Georgia, USA. Leslie is a frequent collaborator with her partner James Costa, illustrating The Other Insect Societies (Harvard, 2006) and Darwin’s Backyard: How Small Experiments Led to a Big Theory (Norton, 2017). Her interest in Alfred Russel Wallace was piqued as the lead transcriber of Wallace’s “Species Notebook” for On the Organic Law of Change: A Facsimile Edition and Annotated Transcription of Alfred Russel Wallace’s Species Notebook of 1855–1859 (Harvard, 2013).
Mushroom and Other Fungi
THIS SESSION HAS BEEN POSTPONED DUE TO WEATHER CONCERNS
Email Skye with your party size to be added to the waitlist for this session.
This hike will be a biological survey of mushrooms in the area. We will not be foraging or collecting specimens unless the leader deems it necessary for identification purposes. Let’s get out there and enjoy the incredible variety of fungi Western North Carolina has to offer!
Gina Patton is a Naturalist and Environmental Educator for Balsam Mountain Trust who particularly loves to explore the intersection of nature and art. She enjoys leading interpretive hikes and has led workshops on Mushroom Spore Printing, Botanical Drawing, Dyeing with Plant Materials, Botanical Hammer Printing, and Nature Writing. Fungi are some of her favorite things in the world.
Butterflies and Dragonflies
THIS SESSION HAS BEEN CANCELLED DUE TO WEATHER CONCERNS
Jason Love is the Associate Director at the Highlands Biological Center in Highlands North Carolina, after serving as site manager at Coweeta Long-Term Ecological Research Program with the University of Georgia for ten years. A children’s book author, Jason also chairs Mainspring’s Education and Outreach Committee and is active in Mainspring’s educational programs for youth. Jason holds a Master of Science in Wildlife and Fisheries Management from West Virginia University and a Bachelor of Science in Forest Resources from the University of Georgia. He lives in Franklin with his wife and daughter.
Will Kuhn is the Director of Science and Research at Discover Life in America. He was born and raised in East Texas, but has lived around the Appalachians for 15+ years. He’s an entomologist by training, and an aspiring naturalist who loves learning about the diverse flora and fauna of the East Tennessee region. He’s obsessed with cataloging life on iNaturalist, including in his Knoxville neighborhood. Will directs DLiA’s scientific research and helps coordinate research with the NPS, scientists, and community scientists.
Lightning Bugs
THIS SESSION HAS BEEN POSTPONED DUE TO WEATHER CONCERNS. All participants who are registered will receive an email when a new date and time is chosen. The new date and time will be posted to our events calendar.
Luiz Silveira is a professor at Western Carolina University. His research involves firefly diversity, ecology, and evolution, and his work has led to the discovery of over 60 new firefly species worldwide. During this session, Luiz will teach principles of firefly biology and taxonomy, and basic techniques of firefly observation.
Dr. Luiz Lima Da Silveira grew up surrounded by the amazing Atlantic Rainforest in Brazil, which inspired him to become a biologist. He received his PhD in Ecology from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro in 2018. Then, he was an NSF-funded postdoc at the University of Georgia for a year before moving to the beautiful Western North Carolina to become an Assistant Professor of Invertebrate Zoology at WCU. His reach focuses on understanding insects, their diversity, ecology, and evolution across temporal and spatial scales. He is eager to find out how insect species rise and fall, where to find them, and how to better protect them. He is mostly interested in fireflies and their kin, but is also genuinely curious about every other living thing!
