Situated on a 98-acre farm that’s cradled by the Blue Ridge Mountains, just outside the small town of Hot Springs in Madison County, the Rare Bird Farm has become a haven for nature lovers, artists and music fans alike. 

“We’re way out here [in the countryside] — it’s not a place you’re going to just stumble into,” chuckled Mitchell Davis, RBF business development director. “And we think music is a great connector to get people to come and check the [property] out.” 

Hello from Room 107 at the Skyline Lodge in Highlands. I’m here on assignment for the Bear Shadow Music Festival. But, my mind keeps drifting elsewhere. It wanders to the fact I’m not back home for the memorial service for the recent passing of my best friend. That, and the last time I stayed here was with the woman I thought that I’d spend the rest of my life with. 

On Friday June 5, Haywood Waterways Association will lead a moderate 6-mile hike in the Sunburst area of Haywood County. Shannon Rabby, Instructor of Fish and Wildlife Management Technology, Sciences and Natural Resources, will share his knowledge of local trees and woody plants on our way to a waterfall. 

The event is free for Haywood Waterways’ members and a $5 donation for nonmembers; memberships start at $25. 

The series Where We Live: History, Nature, and Culture, will present a program called “Beautiful, Beneficial Bees.”

The program will be focused on beekeeping in Western North Carolina and will cover a brief history of beekeeping, structure of a hive, what it takes to be a beekeeper here, issues that we face, the need for bees and what the average person can do to support bees and other pollinators. 

Great Smoky Mountains National Park will begin its 2026 season of adaptive programming this spring with ranger-led experiences designed for visitors with limited mobility and their families.  

This year’s lineup includes hiking, biking, fly fishing and one overnight backcountry camping trip:   

North Carolina citizens and stakeholders who use their scientific, academic, habitat and partnership expertise to provide advice to the NCWRC on nongame wildlife conservation issues and opportunities for the state’s most vulnerable wildlife populations. This input includes guidance on changes to the North Carolina protected species list, development of conservation plans for endangered, threatened and special concern species, as well as sharing of conservation actions among partners to achieve common goals. 

With striking white-and-gray plumage, yellow beaks and talons and powerfully compact bodies, peregrine falcons (Falco peregrinus) are beautiful birds in any posture. But they’re downright magical in the air — aerial acrobats capable of reaching 200 mph as they dive down onto their prey. For Johnson City, Tennessee, ornithologist Rick Knight, such sightings are especially rich in meaning. 

For the past dozen years here up Moses Creek, October has brought not only cool temperatures and colorful leaves but swarms of drone-like brown marmorated stinkbugs that try to get inside our house for the winter. I wrote about these invasive pests in the Nov. 8, 2023, issue of the Smoky Mountain News, and how Becky and I turned their unwelcome arrival into a kind of enjoyable hunting season, making lemonade out of lemons, with no limit on how many bugs we could bag. 

The National Park Service plans to burn approximately 180 acres in Wear Cove Gap (north of Metcalf Bottoms) and 243 acres in Lynn Hollow (near the Top of the World community) in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Weather permitting, burn operations may begin as early as March 25 and may continue through March 31. These prescribed fires will help to safely reduce fuels, maintain resilient natural systems and protect communities along the park boundary. 

Charlotte Rollman swears she used to be shy.

“I did art so that people would like me,” she said, telling the story of how, as a fourth grader, she once drew money and passed it out to her classmates, who then “really liked me.”

But when John Adkins met the woman who would later become his business partner, shyness was nowhere to be found among his first impressions.