Stories · Highlands Biological Station

Stories from the Station

Field dispatches, archive histories, monthly newsletters and press, from the scientists, staff and volunteers of HBS since 1927.

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Notes from the FieldNFF·030 · October 2026

Puzzling the Grassy Archipelago

Why do Roan Mountain’s grassy balds stay open when forest surrounds them? Jim Costa follows a clue from Wallace’s 1858 notebook.By Dr. Jim Costa, HBS Executive Director · Read the story →Notes from the ArchivesOctober 2026

Charlton Ogburn, Jr. at Highlands Biological Station

How a seventeen-year-old birder helped begin the first check-list of Highlands’ birds, and kept his ties to the Station for the rest of his life. By Lily Haney · Reinke Archives InternRead the story →

Two series

From the field & the archives

Notes from the Field follows research at the Station as it happens. Notes from the Archives tells the stories of the people, places and discoveries behind nearly a century of HBS.

Graphic depicting journey from Highlands to Japan and back.FieldNFF·023Nov 2026Water & AirFrom Highlands to TsukubaHighlands Biological Station’s microplastics research traveled to the SETAC Asia-Pacific Biennial Conference in Japan, where four Station-affiliated projects joined the conversation.Jason Love, Associate DirectorRead →FieldNFF·024Oct 2026BotanyA Field Guide to Roadside Wildflowers At Full SpeedMost wildflower guides want you kneeling in a prairie with a hand lens. This one assumes you are on the interstate, you have somewhere to be, and you get about a second to decide what that streak was.Read →FieldNFF·025Oct 2026Water & AirWhat the Lake RevealsA rare American Bittern, a hidden beaver tunnel, and a pollinator garden: Canty Worley on what Lindenwood Lake at Highlands Biological Station reveals.Read →FieldNFF·026Oct 2026SalamandersUnder a Flat Rock in Hall CreekThere are whole worlds moving quietly beneath the stones of our mountain streams. Most of us pass right over them, following the water downstream, never knowing what we've missed. Last September, researcher Sandy Kawano lifted a flat rock in Hall Creek and found twenty-five pale yellow salamander eggs tucked against its underside. It was a small discovery, easy enough to overlook, but one worth writing down.Read →BASS · 1560CELLO · 1726VIOLA · 1796VIOLIN · 1844FieldNFF·022Oct 2026Forests & ClimateThe Grove QuartetFour trees a few yards apart across a creek, begun in 1559, 1725, 1795 and 1843. Liam Stiefel turned every ring into a note in G major so the grove could be heard together.Liam StiefelRead →Illustration of six bats in flight under a crescent moon, crossing above a mist net toward a hemlock where a glowing marker shows a roost.FieldNFF·018Oct 2026Field NotesFive of the SixA UNC team led by Field Site Director Dr. Rada Petric is tracking endangered bats across Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point. Nearly everyone on it came through HBS first.Sarah VickeryRead →William Hamilton Gibson's original watercolor for Plate XXIII, Strobilomyces strobilaceus: three shaggy, dark-scaled mushrooms with a cut-away cap and a square detail of the poresArchivesOctober 2026The Mystery of the Misplacement of the Mycological WatercolorsIn 1957 a Columbia graduate student cleaning out a storeroom found a stack of grimy oak frames, each holding a watercolor of mushrooms. They were William Hamilton Gibson’s originals for his 1895 guide to edible fungi. Six are now in the Reinke Archives and six at the New York Botanical Garden, and seventeen are still unaccounted for. With an artist’s aside by Sarah Vickery.Holly Compton Shields & Bryding AdamsRead →George Masa's 1931 photograph of the Samuel T. Weyman Memorial Laboratory: a long raking window wall under a sloping clerestoryArchivesSeptember 2026A Stranger No MoreGeorge Masa, the Weyman Laboratory and a 1932 fold-out map.Bryding AdamsRead →The Mico Standard Engraver, a cast-iron bench-top pantograph machineArchivesAugust 2026What's in a Name?The 1966 Mico Standard Engraver and the labels of the Highlands Botanical Gardens.Bryding AdamsRead →Nature Films and Public Education at the Highlands Museum, 1935ArchivesJune 2026“They Give Us Those Nice Bright Colors”Nature films and public education at the Highlands Museum.Bryding AdamsRead →A. S. Wheeler, Veterinary Surgeon — archival portraitArchivesMay 2026Dr. Arthur Seaver Wheeler: A Renaissance Man of Science and ArtBryding AdamsRead →Quoth the RavenArchivesMay 2026Quoth the Raven, Forever MoreBryding AdamsRead →
All field dispatchesNotes from the FieldAll archive storiesNotes from the ArchivesVolunteer storiesSixteen volunteers in their own words

Newsletters

This month at HBS

Every monthly newsletter since November 2024. Research dispatches, garden notes, events and community stories.

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Foundation publications

Annual reports & fall newsletters

Published by the Highlands Biological Foundation, a separate nonprofit that supports HBS.

Earlier issues, back to 2017

In the press

HBS in the news

News stories, research spotlights and features about the Station from across the region.

Writing about HBS? Contact Sarah Vickery, Business & Communications Manager, at svickery@wcu.edu or 828-526-2602.