Entries by Steve Jones

Oak Mountain State Park April Wildflowers

May 13, 2021 in , /by

I enjoyed three half-day hikes at Oak Mountain State Park April 14-16, 2021. This is the third Post from those hiking excursions. The other two are: Fifty Shades of Green — https://stevejonesgbh.com/2021/04/27/fifty-shades-of-april-green-at-oak-mountain-state-park/ Important State Park System Announcement — https://stevejonesgbh.com/2021/05/04/governor-kay-iveys-exciting-april-2021-state-park-system-announcement-at-oak-mountain-state-park/ This Post catalogs the variety of spring ephemerals and woody plants in flower that I encountered […]

Governor Kay Ivey’s Exciting April 2021 State Park System Announcement at Oak Mountain State Park

May 4, 2021 in , /by

I retired full time to Madison, AL January 2018, following 12 years (1973-1985) practicing forestry with a Fortune 500 paper and allied forest products manufacturing company and 33 years serving nine universities. I recall saying during the heart of my career that I just could not imagine ever retiring. I admit to some serious adjustment […]

Tall Trees in Monte Sano State Park’s Cathedral Forest

April 20, 2021 in , , /by

Thirty-Four-inch Yellow Poplar I’m continuing to explore our north Alabama forests and their sylvan residents from the ground up with my newly acquired instruments for measuring tree heights. March 12, 2021, I led Jerry Weisenfeld, Alabama State Parks Advertising and Marketing Manager, along the Arthur Wells Memorial and Sinks Trails at Monte Sano State Park […]

A Different Perspective on the Early March Forests at Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge

April 13, 2021 in , /by

March 7, 2021, I once again visited the bottomland forests on the eastern end of Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge. I’ve begun to focus my attention during my wanderings more and more on the forest canopy, the photosynthesis engines of our incredible terrestrial ecosystems. I’ve discovered that my iPhone’s “selfie function” serves a purpose far more […]

A New (for me) Tree Growth Phenomenon

April 8, 2021 in , /by

I’ll begin this Post with the teaser photograph immediately below, offering it without explanatory text, which you’ll see after the A First Time Encounter heading.   A forester, I’ve long found fascination in tree form… whether the veneer-quality cherrybark oak below left, or the distorted, burly Bigfoot oak below right. I’ve included these photos in […]

Adding a New Dimension to my Tree Appreciation

April 1, 2021 in , , /by

I’ve observed since my undergraduate forestry education that trees grow taller on richer sites, a fact that doesn’t require a bachelors degree to confirm. The central Appalachian forests where I worked undergraduate summers clearly evidenced the correlation. Forests on lower concave slopes facing the northeast quadrant (i.e. cove sites) performed best, with white and red […]

Reflections on Natural Disasters

March 23, 2021 in , , /by

  Reflections on Natural Disasters   Today’s instant global news connects us with calamities from Asian tsunamis to California and Australian wildfires to calving Antarctic mega-glaciers to seething volcanoes to European floods to a variety of weather extremes (hurricanes, tornadoes, avalanches, ice storms, severe thunderstorms, tidal surges, and drought). We anthropocentric humans dub such events […]

On Wilderness and Wildness

March 17, 2021 in , /by

Prompted by my Nature-ramblings and wanderings, I muse with this Post on the distinctions and commonalities among the terms wildness, wilderness, and Wilderness, about which Nature itself cares little. Wildness, wilderness, and Wilderness Merrian-Webster online defines wilderness as: a tract or region uncultivated and uninhabited by human beings; an area essentially undisturbed by human activity […]