On this late May tour we plan to visit various locations along the Blue Ridge Parkway north of Asheville. Our focus today will be on the higher elevations of the Craggy and Black Mountains, two subranges of the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains. We will begin around the Craggy Gardens area where we will look for an assortment of warblers, including Chestnut-sided, Canada, Black-throated Blue, Black-throated Green and Blackburnian, among others. Least Flycatcher, Rose-breasted Grosbeak, and Veery are just a few other birds we should find in the area before we head up even higher in elevation. Eventually, we will find ourselves up in the spruce-fir zone and the areas around Mt. Mitchell (at 6,684 feet, the tallest peak in the eastern United States). Typical breeding birds of this habitat include Brown Creeper, Dark-eyed Junco, Winter Wren, Red-breasted Nuthatch, Hermit Thrush and Red Crossbill. We’ll do our best to find all of these and more! Over the last few years, birds typical of more northerly areas have lingered well into June, suggesting they may begin nesting here, such as Magnolia or Yellow-rumped Warbler.