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Mid-December Delights and Mysteries on the WNWR Hiking and Bicycling Trail

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I visited the Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge Visitors Center and Observation Building on December 19, 2025. See my Post on welcoming the sandhill cranes (https://stevejonesgbh.com/2026/01/27/theyre-back-sandhill-cranes-return-to-alabamas-wheeler-national-wildlife-refuge/). I then hiked the refuge’s nearby Hiking and Bicycling Trail, a 5.5-mile trek south through woodland, agricultural fields, and waterfowl impoundments, and along the Flint Creek arm of Lake Wheeler. As with all of my wildland saunters, I discovered Nature’s delights and mysteries, many of them hidden in plain sight.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hardwood and pine intermix in the patchwork of forest, farm, and wetland. I love winter’s sharp contrast of evergreen and deciduous. Contrary to most of my fellow deep-south neighbors, I am in no rush for the return of what I view as a too-long summer.

 

Give me the dormant greys and subtle hues of winter…and the distant crane calls…absent the irritating hum of hungry mosquitoes.

I recorded this 59-second video of a field commercially farmed to produce soybeans and leave a designated portion for winter wildlife consumption.

 

Residual soybeans (left) and ponded rainwater (right) attract diverse wildlife.

 

The WNWR website succinctly describes this richly diverse property blessedly located within 30 minutes drive of my home:

Although designated as a waterfowl refuge, the 35,000 acre refuge provides for a wide spectrum of wildlife. Its great diversity of habitat includes deep river channels, tributary creeks, tupelo swamps, open backwater embayments, bottomland hardwoods, pine uplands, and agricultural fields. This rich mix of habitats provides places for over 295 bird species to rest, nest and winter, including over 30 species of waterfowl and an increasing population of Sandhill cranes and a small number of Whooping cranes. 

The refuge is also home to 115 species of fish, 74 species of reptiles and amphibians, 47 species of mammals, 38 species of freshwater mussels, and 26 species of freshwater snails. Other animals such as the endangered Gray bat and Whooping crane benefit from the protection of the National Wildlife Refuge System, and the care of dedicated refuge staff and other friends of wildlife, like you. 

An Alabama Cooperative Extension System online brochure introduces 69 of the most common native trees found in Alabama. Some of the 69 common tree species do not reach this far north. However, many Alabama tree species are not considered common. Where am I heading? I know, I’m hedging on my own wild guess of how many species of native trees and woody shrubs inhabit the refuge’s 55 square miles? Given the rich tapestry of wetlands and uplands, and the fertile overlay of bottomland and alluvial soils, I am going for broke, aiming high. I estimate 150 species of native trees and woody shrubs. If you know, please send me a reliable citation.

 

Tree Form Curiosities and Oddities

 

I relentlessly peruse woodland haunts for tree form oddities and curiosities. Spotting them only accomplishes part of the task. It falls to me next to explain the form. Leonardo da Vinci astutely observer that cause generates result:

There is no result in nature without a cause; understand the cause and you will have no need of the experiment.

My 60-second video introduces the first of four curiosities I encountered.

 

I recalled the multiple times that someone conjectured that a navigationally-motivated Native American bent a young tree to show the way to a game blind, water source, trade route, or the nearest coffee shop. However, this black cherry is a mere youth, 60-70 years old at most. Eastern Woodlands Indians of the Southeast region no longer dwelled naturally in this area since their forced relocation to the West in the 1830s…along the Trail of Tears

 

I imagined an extra point or field goal piercing the uprights to win the game!

This example still retains the stub at the broken branch end, from where an adventious bud shot a branch vertically.

 

Such tortured stems are common in our forests. This one tells its own story. A branch fell from the overstory canopy, crushed a sapling and snapped the top, leaving the young tree permanently bent. A new stem grew at the break point.

 

The broken point now shows a clear snout as the tree callouses over the broken end scar.

 

Two water oak saplings grew side by side, just six feet apart,close enough that their roots touched and grafted, a form of below ground inosculation. Some falling object snapped the nearer tree 30 inches above the ground. The larger oak provided nourishment to the broken tree, sustaining it, adding growth increments to the stem, and callousing the wounds. I call this phenomenon a ghost stump, kept alive after a fatal incident. I’ve seen, photographed, and cataloged other examples.

Here is my 59-second ghost stump video.

 

The ghost stump is a macbre ogre dwarfed by its mature cousin behind it.

 

Woodland Decay as a Life-Force

 

Life in our forests is not an idealic Disney-like utopia. Nature is rife with scars, weaknesses, sickness, rot, falling (and fallen) objects. Death is a powerful and ubiquitous part of forest life. Had I passed by this former willow oak three-trunk cluster two or three years ago, without close inspection, I may have marveled at its massive dimension, vigor, and vitality. However, the near-view stem crashed unceremoniously away from the photo point within the past two years, showing its remarkably hollow interior and revealing the hollowed bases of the other two. The falling tree knocked the top out of the right stem.

 

A decay mushroom cluster lines the crater of the fallen stem. Their mycelium are consuming cellulose and lignin of the dead and dying three-stem giant, assuring that the carbon cycle is continuous. The old saw holds — don’t judge a book by its cover.

 

I found this dead lichen-encrusted oak branch on the trail. Somewhere high in the canopy, American amber jelly mycelia were decomposing the branch, until autumn breezes sent the organic matter home to the soil.

 

I stumbled across a particularly photogenic colony of false turkeytail mushrooms trailside. When I entered college (1969), fungi were classified within the plant kingdom. Shortly thereafter they elevated into their own kingdom. I neither celebrated nor took note of the epic reclassification. I was too busy with education, life, and career. Today, such things mean more to me.

 

I recorded this 54-second video at the impressive mushroom cluster.

 

I marvel at Nature’s cycles and fractiles. More than a century ago a willow oak acorn sprouted along a field edge within the rich bottomland destined to become part of the Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge in 1938. A rabbit nibbled the seedling to ground level. Because oak evolved in a world occupied by rabbits and other grazers, the seedling tapped its root reserves and issued three shoots that shot beyond the reach of rabbits and deer. The three oak stems prospered despite some physical injury (a farm kid with a penknife; a deer scraping velvet from antlers; a beaver gnawing; mechanical farm equipment), openimg an infection court for decay fungi. The decay worked within the trunks for 50-70 years, slowly, inexorably the ratio of solid wood rind to tree diameter decreased. Eventually, gravity and wind exceeded tree stength. Decay fungi have mastered the end game. Ironically, this fungus produces mushrooms that are wood-like. They, too, will yield to other fungal decomposers. In time, an acorn will sprout from the aggregated organic debris and mineral soil composite. A nature enthusiast may rediscover the magic in 2175, a century and a half hence.

 

Necessarily, the food chain extends from microbes to invertebrates to fungi to plants and to animals, large and small.

 

Powerful Food Chain Impoundment Water Enters Flint Creek

 

I was fortunate, last winter and this, to make this trek and witness s freshwater food chain spectacle. The water control mechanism below enables WNWR managers to block and maintain winter water levels in flooded areas for overwintering faunal residents. The area beyond the gate is flooded.

 

The Flint Creek arm of Wheeler Lake reflects the midday sun.

 

The bubbles (lower left) indicate the discharge from the impoundment entering Flint Creek.

 

The discharge plume is teeming with small fish feeding on what I supporse is organic debris suspended in the flow. Clouds of tiny fish (up to 2-3″ in length fill the flow. Occasionally a larger predator fish exploded into the school.

 

Here is my 58-second video (note snake entering for a fish-snack!).

 

Although mid-December, this brown water snake was warm enough to catch a snack-fish.

 

Others like this great white egret, stayed withing reach of the fish-chain feeding frenzy. I also saw several great blue herons and belted kingfishers.

 

All good things must come to an end, yet another apropos idiom!

 

I recorded this 61-second end-of-trail video.

 

An ancient white oak stands as a fitting trail end totem.

 

I lead or co-lead many local hikes and Nature santers. I relish sharing my Nature knowledge, passion, and curiosity with others. That said the certifiably introverted scientist filled with youthful exuberance still cherishes occassional ventures alone. I can endulge my pace, my interests, my mood; my imagination; my mental pursuits; my mysteries. I’ve learned that alone in Nature is often all the company I want or need!

 

Thoughts and Reflections

 

I offer these observations:

  • There is no result in nature without a cause; understand the cause and you will have no need of the experiment. (da Vinci)

  • Death is a powerful and ubiquitous part of forest life. (Steve Jones)

  • Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better. (Einstein)

  • I’ve learned that alone in Nature is often all the company I want or need! (Steve Jones)

Inhale and absorb Nature’s elixir. May Nature Inspire, Inform, and Reward you!

Note: Unless otherwise noted, all blog post images are created & photographed by Stephen B. Jones.

Please circulate images with photo credit: “©2026 Steve Jones, Great Blue Heron. All Rights Reserved.”

 

I am available for Nature-Inspired Speaking, Writing, and Consulting — contact me at steve.jones.0524@gmail.com

 

Subscribe to my free weekly photo essays (like this one) at: http://eepurl.com/cKLJdL

 

A reminder of my Personal and Professional Purpose, Passion, and Cause

If only more of us viewed our precious environment through the filters I employ. If only my mission and vision could be multiplied by untold orders of magnitude:

Mission: Employ writing and speaking to educate, inspire, and enable readers and listeners to understand, appreciate, and enjoy Nature… and accept and practice Earth Stewardship.

Vision:

  • People of all ages will pay greater attention to and engage more regularly with Nature… and will accept and practice informed and responsible Earth Stewardship.
  • They will see their relationship to our natural world with new eyes… and understand their Earth home more clearly.

Tagline/Motto: Steve (Great Blue Heron) encourages and seeks a better tomorrow through Nature-Inspired Living!

 

Steve’s Four Books

 

I wrote my books Nature Based Leadership (2016), Nature-Inspired Learning and Leading (2017), Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits: Stories of Passion for Place and Everyday Nature (2019; co-authored with Dr. Jennifer Wilhoit), and Dutton Land & Cattle: A Land Legacy Story (2025) to encourage all citizens to recognize and appreciate that every lesson for living, learning, serving, and leading is either written indelibly in or is powerfully inspired by Nature. All four of my books present compilations of personal experiences expressing my deep passion for Nature. All four books offer observations and reflections on my relationship with the natural world… and the broader implications for society. Order any from your local indie bookstore, or find them on IndieBound or other online sources such as Amazon and LifeRich.

I began writing books and Posts for several reasons:

  • I love hiking and exploring Nature
  • I see images I want to (and do) capture with my trusty iPhone camera
  • I enjoy explaining those images — an educator at heart
  • I don’t play golf!
  • I do love writing — it’s the hobby I never needed when my career consumed me
  • Judy suggested my writing is in large measure my legacy to our two kids, our five grandkids, and all the unborn generations beyond
  • And finally, perhaps my books and Blogs could reach beyond family and touch a few other lives… sow some seeds for the future

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Early December Nature Explorations along The Natchez Trace Parkway

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On Wednesday, December 3, 2025, Judy and I made our first visit to the Natchez Trace Parkway, entering north of the Tennessee River in Alabama near Rock Spring (Mile Post 330) and exiting at the Meriwether Lewis Memorial (Post ~385) in Tennessee. The casual 55-mile journey served as a teaser for the entire 444-mile Parkway from Natchez, MS, to Nashville, TN. Come along with me to experience a taste of Nature and history.

 

Like most Department of the Interior National Park Service units, the Natchez Trace Parkway tells its story with excellent interpretive signage. I won’t burden the photo essay with narrative repeating details of history associated with Native American and early colonial modern developments.

 

The history is rich, colorful, positive, cruel, punishing, rewarding, and ugly. Choose the flavor you desire. It’s all there. Imagine boatmen and farmers who floated their products down the Mississippi river to market in Natchez, MS, then sold their flatboats as lumber and walked home 500 grueling miles along the Trace. That’s 35 days from punching the clock at the docks to arrive home to spouse and the kids! The sign reads, “By 1810, occasional travel had turned into a human flood; up to 10,000 passed along the well-trodden path each year.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Judy and I traveled leisurely, safely, and without threat of harm. We made our circuit, departing home after breakfast and returning in time for supper.

We encountered none of the listed hazards: torrential rains; swollen streams; thieves; swamps; or insects (“muskeetos & gnats & water very bad”):

I passed through the most horrid swamps I had ever seen. These are covered with a prodigious growth of canes and high woods, which shut out the whole light of days for miles. (Alexander Lewis, 1811)

Our camp was surprised in the night, and two of our horses stolen, by Indians. (Francis Baily, 1797)

I can adjust a simple handkerchief about my head and face in a way to parry the mosquitoes, or their more formidable companions the horseflies. (Herman Blennerhassett, 1807),

 

Each stop offered interpretation and explanation. I want to return to explore such delights as these. Rock Spring Trail is a 20-minute saunter exploring woodland and several beaverdams.

 

Ten thousand annual traipsers, countless horses, oxen, and mules, iron-rimmed wagons, and other means of coveyance, during dry seasons and mud-plagued torrents, scarred the Trace, in places leaving an obvious sunken pathway. Prior to European settlement, Native Americans traversed these hills and crossed its streams for more than 10,000 years. Every chain (66 feet; 80 chains to a mile) along the length has stories to tell.

 

The sign presents a multi-generational, multi-millennial theme, comprising volumes of decadal tales of adventure, discovery, love, war, life, and death:

This early interstate road building venture produced a snake-infested, mosquito-beset, robber-haunted, Indian-traveled forest path. Lamented by the pious, cussed by the impious, it tried everyone’s strength and patience.

 

As the sign notes:

Here you see three cuts made to avoid mud into which oxcarts and wagons sank, making progress slow, dangerous, or even impossible.

 

Although enamored with and captivated by this dip into the etheral world of intersecting human venture, natural history, time, and seasons, I kept my eyes alert for Nature’s oddities, curiosities, and mysteries. A black cherry tree infected with the fearsome countenance of a fungal black knot canker (Apiosporina morbosa) demanded my attention and implored a photograph. I wondered whether some handsome Indian warrior in 1026 might have mused on a Prunus serotina similarly infected?

 

The McGlamery Stand, a combination inn and trading post, served travelers near this location from 1849, closing before 1865. Its name persisted through the next 150 years. Can any of us expect our 2026 moniker (our individual identity) to last beyond 2176?! I am blessed beyond imagination that the lovely young lady at right still carries my surname 54 years after she graciously adopted it in 1972!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Oh, to inhale the magic of a mild autumn afternoon along a serene stillwater stream!

The branch is still carving and shaping the valley, you may follow the struggle of trees and other vegetation to gain a hold in the shallow rocky soil in the bottom in a 15-minute stroll along this narrow trail.

 

 

I cling to the emotional power of any southland stream still carving and shaping its valley! Five hundred years ago, Leonardo da Vinci observed:

Water is the driving force of all Nature!

I recorded this 59-second video at Sweetwater Branch.

 

The Driving Force of All Nature! Who can debate or challenge the half-millennial wisdom of an incredible polymath? No telephone, computer, AI, camera, or combustion engine! No view of our pale blue Earth from Apollo in moon orbit! Yet, he knew, saw, and felt so much more then we in our digitally-distracted world. It’s high time we fattened sheep got into the great out there; time to get out of the darkness into the light!

Here is my 39-second video focusing on the crystal clear water. What could da Vinci have done with my iPhone?

 

Each stop along our brief trip suggested hours of contemplation and exploration. My career demanded much from me. I seldom had the leisure to devote to what I might have learned when young, physically capable, intellectually exquisite, and tireless. However, it is only now that I yearn to delve deeply enough to probe the depths beyond career expediency. As I listened and yearned for more time to sit quietly, I thought of Chickasaw poet and novelist, Linda Hogan:

There is a way that nature speaks, that land speaks. Most of the time we are simply not patient enough, quiet enough, to pay attention to the story.

Glenrock Branch at milepost 365, yet another stop, stirred my heart, soul, body, mind, and spirit. I wanted more than our superficial circuit allowed.

 

I recorded this 59-second video at Glenrock Branch.

 

I’m a champion of and advocate for special places and everyday Nature. How many did we see along our 55 mile journey, where we discovered an endless fountain?

 

Still at Glenrock Branch, a towering American beech stood creekside (left). Nearby, an Eastern redcedar provided dormant season shade.

 

Another beech showed mirthful character with its apparent (to observers with vivid imagination) multiple facial expressions. I see eyes, noses, and mouths. Contrast its expressive trunk (i.e. an extrovert) to its kin above left and beyond it at right, clearly, like me,  a certifiable introvert.

 

I love catchy, provocative place names, especially those attached to local conditions and experiences:

A mile to the south, the Old Natchez Trace crossed a depression in the flat, dogwood-coverred ridge. After heavy rains it became almost impassable for wagons. Its name, Dogwood Mudhole, recalls the ordeals of travel. It shows, too, how place names arising from local conditions of long ago are carried down through the years.

 

Stephen Edward Ambrose (January 10, 1936 – October 13, 2002) was an American historian, academic, and author. He published Undaunted Courage (1996), telling the nearly unfathomable 48-month tale of daring and courage of the Lewis and Clark Corps of Discovery. They led the 33-member Corps approximately 8,000 miles, from St. Louis, Missouri to the Pacific Ocean and back.

 

Defying all odds, the Corps completed its mission, losing only a single member, not to accident or hostiles, but to pneumonia. Mr. Lewis succumbed at this site along the Trace, to internal demons, stronger than his fame, courage, or continental conquest.

 

 

 

 

 

The monument and its massive oak triggered an emptiness in my heart. A man who soared with eagles died alone, scared, and helpless in the wilds of west Tennessee. As I read Undaunted Courage, I pictured Lewis and Clark transitioning to the hereafter with angels singing and trumpets blaring. The sad and troubled soul passed without fanfare.

 

Like other stops, the Meriwhether Lewis memorial presented hiking opportunities. Alas, we allowed no time in our itinerary for pleasant side excursions.

 

I wondered whether this dogwood tree, batttered, dead, and tortured, once bore a heavenly spring shroud of white-blossom elegance. Did it live a daring and courageous life, only to die alone, scared, and helpless…without fanfare?

 

Instead, I’ll bring this essay to close by celebrating that the Trace lives on through a million tales from along its 250 years and 35,520 chains of beauty, magic, wonder, awe, and inspiration!

Thoughts and Reflections

 

I offer these observations:

  • Water is the driving force of all Nature! (da Vinci)

  • The Natchez Trace carves a multi-generational, multi-millennial theme, comprising tales of adventure, discovery, love, war, life, and death. (Steve Jones)

  • Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better. (Einstein)

Inhale and absorb Nature’s elixir. May Nature Inspire, Inform, and Reward you!

Note: Unless otherwise noted, all blog post images are created & photographed by Stephen B. Jones.

Please circulate images with photo credit: “©2026 Steve Jones, Great Blue Heron. All Rights Reserved.”

 

I am available for Nature-Inspired Speaking, Writing, and Consulting — contact me at steve.jones.0524@gmail.com

Subscribe to my free weekly photo essays (like this one) at: http://eepurl.com/cKLJdL

 

A reminder of my Personal and Professional Purpose, Passion, and Cause

If only more of us viewed our precious environment through the filters I employ. If only my mission and vision could be multiplied by untold orders of magnitude:

Mission: Employ writing and speaking to educate, inspire, and enable readers and listeners to understand, appreciate, and enjoy Nature… and accept and practice Earth Stewardship.

Vision:

  • People of all ages will pay greater attention to and engage more regularly with Nature… and will accept and practice informed and responsible Earth Stewardship.
  • They will see their relationship to our natural world with new eyes… and understand their Earth home more clearly.

Tagline/Motto: Steve (Great Blue Heron) encourages and seeks a better tomorrow through Nature-Inspired Living!

 

Steve’s Four Books

 

I wrote my books Nature Based Leadership (2016), Nature-Inspired Learning and Leading (2017), Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits: Stories of Passion for Place and Everyday Nature (2019; co-authored with Dr. Jennifer Wilhoit), and Dutton Land & Cattle: A Land Legacy Story (2025) to encourage all citizens to recognize and appreciate that every lesson for living, learning, serving, and leading is either written indelibly in or is powerfully inspired by Nature. All four of my books present compilations of personal experiences expressing my deep passion for Nature. All four books offer observations and reflections on my relationship with the natural world… and the broader implications for society. Order any from your local indie bookstore, or find them on IndieBound or other online sources such as Amazon and LifeRich.

I began writing books and Posts for several reasons:

  • I love hiking and exploring Nature
  • I see images I want to (and do) capture with my trusty iPhone camera
  • I enjoy explaining those images — an educator at heart
  • I don’t play golf!
  • I do love writing — it’s the hobby I never needed when my career consumed me
  • Judy suggested my writing is in large measure my legacy to our two kids, our five grandkids, and all the unborn generations beyond
  • And finally, perhaps my books and Blogs could reach beyond family and touch a few other lives… sow some seeds for the future

 

 

 

Mid-November 25-Year Return to Alabama’s Chewacla State Park

/in /by

Having arrived in Auburn, Alabama on Thursday evening November 13, 2026, fellow retired forester (and Auburn University forestry graduate) Chris Stuhlinger, my grandson Jack (18), and I visited the College of Forestry, Wildlife, and Environment’s (CFWE) Kreher Forest Ecology Preserve and Nature Center, spent all day Friday at sundry engagements on AU’s campus, and hiked several trails Saturday morning at AL’s nearby Chewacla State Park. I invite you to join us as we hike the Upper Chewacla Trail System.

Chewacla

 

I had last visited the park 25 years ago, before I left my Auburn position as Director, Alabama Cooperative Extension System, heading to NC State University. I was pleased to revisit Chewacla in good company.

Chewacla

 

I welcome these autumn days of comfortable temperatures. I contend that our southern winter is a gradual transition from fall to spring, with an occasional cold spell thrown in for good measure.

 

Sauntering along the Mountain Laurel Trail and Return on a Ridgetop Trail

 

We parked at the Mountain Laurel Trailhead and worked downstream to the falls. We enjoyed pleasant temperature and morning sun as we strolled through the mixed hardwood forest along the toe slope.

Chewacla

 

The open understory presented a parklike scenario, and evidenced a high deer population effectively browsing the understory.

Chewacla

 

The stream flow corroborated the persistent autumn dry period that preceded our trek. A great morning for reflecting and reflection!

Chewacla

Chewacla

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

No heat, excess humidity, biting, sucking, or irritating insects — only the welcome crunch of early leaf-fall, a few bird calls, a scampering squirrel, and an occasional acorn dropping. Peace, serenity, and tranquility suggesting that all is good! Sauntering the gentle trail and soft fall woods with friend and family, I think of John Muir’s classic quote:

When we contemplate the whole globe as one great dewdrop, striped and dotted with continents and islands, flying through space with other stars all singing and shining together as one, the whole universe appears as an infinite storm of beauty.

Here’s my 60-second video from the Chewacla Creek channel.

 

Above the dam, the channel expands to a calm lake. A persimmon loaded with fruit leans over the water. I believe the mood and word of the morning is tranquil.

 

I recorded this 56-second video where the stream flattened to the lake.

 

Saw palmetto is common from central Alabama south to the coast. From 1981-85, I served as Union Camp Corporation’s Land Manager, responsible for the company’s 325,000 forestland acres (500 square miles) in Alabama, 100K north of the black belt (prairie soil divide just south of Auburn and Montgomery) and the remainder to the south. Seeing saw palmetto sparked deep memories of those years of action-packed industrial forestry!

Chewacla

 

I suppose I could elucidate what ecosystem factors at Chewacla signal deep within me the feeling that I am in the deep south, starting with the saw palmetto! North Alabama, although still in the South, has a more northern feel.

 

Curiosities and Oddities along the Way

 

I discover and appreciate tree form oddities, curiosities, and mysteries wherever I roam. This sweetgum sports an agrobacterial burl three feet above the ground.

 

 

A red maple streamside bears burls from its base to the live crown. When I took forest pathology in 1971-72, I would have termed the tree’s condition as diseased, attributing its abnormal growth to an infectious organism (fungal, bacterial, viral).

Chewacla

 

A Google AI Overview offered:

A tree disease is a harmful deviation from a tree’s normal function, typically caused by pathogens like fungi, bacteria, or viruses, or by environmental stress, leading to symptoms like discolored leaves, cankers, wilting, or stunted growth, and can ultimately weaken or kill the tree. These issues disrupt water, nutrient, and energy flow, often targeting roots, stems, or foliage, with factors like drought, soil issues, or physical damage increasing susceptibility.  

One-half century ago, my forest pathology focused on tree health relative to timber products, i.e. commercial value. This maple has no value for lumber production, yet it may have novelty commercial value. My point is that diseased in this case, may not be a cause for alarm.

Like so many tree form anomalies, this sycamore suffered a crushing blow from above years ago, bending the tree to 30 degrees from horizontal, then sending a new short vertical. The form is distorted; the cause is clear; the future is affected; a disease organism is not involved,

Chewacla

 

Make what you will of this dragon-headed Ostrya virginiana (ironwood), its mouth agape in grin (left) and its eye piercing and nostril flared (right). Once again, injury from above explains the origin of disfigurement.

ChewaclaChewacla

 

The same cause and effect explain this hickory abnormality, not a face but a large caliber muzzle.

Chewacla

 

 

I wanted to make a head/snout/face out of this Ostrya burl, but nothing comes to me. Do with it what you will.

Chewacla

 

Simon and Garfunkel’s America (1968) came to mind as I struggled for a descriptive totem for this particular burl.

Laughing on the busPlaying games with the facesShe said the man in the gabardine suit was a spyI said “Be careful, his bowtie is really a camera

I suppose it’s okay to be just a burl!

 

Other Notable Feature

 

Vaccinium arboreum (aka sparkleberry or farkleberry) is the only tree form of the native blueberry genus. I appreciate its mirthful common names, showy bark, interesting shape and texture, and its evergreen foliage.

Chewacla Chewacla

 

How could I trek the Mountain Laurel Trail without posting mountain laurel photographs?!

Chewacla

 

We spent little more than 90-minutes at Chewacla. I wanted to showcase with this photo essay what a short morning saunter can reveal about the magic of everyday Nature.

Chewacla Falls

 

Without further elaboration, I give you the falls.

Chewacla

 

I recorded this 58-second video at Chewacla Falls.

I remind you of my third book, co-authored with Dr. Jennifer J. Wilhoit, Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits: Stories of Passion for Place and Everyday Nature. Without deep thought or deliberate intention, my series of ~500 Great Blue Heron weekly Posts has trended to six consistent theme elements:

  • Stories of passion for place and everyday Nature emerge wherever and whenever I wander (and wonder).
  • Nature-inspired life and living color and direct my living, learning, serving, leading, and praying.
  • Nature’s beauty, magic, wonder, and awe lie mostly hidden in plain sight.
  • Look deep into Nature, and then you will understand everything better. (Albert Einstein)
  • And into the forest I go, to lose my mind and find my soul. (John Muir)
  • In every walk in Nature, one finds far more than he seeks. (Muir)

Certainly, there is more, yet these six simple themes cover most of my Nature musings.

Alabama State Parks Foundation

I’ll remind you that although I serve on the Alabama State Parks Foundation Board (Secretary), in part because of my love of Nature and in recognition for my writing many prior Posts about visiting and experiencing the Parks, any positions or opinions expressed in these Posts are mine alone and do not in any manner represent the Foundation or its Board.
I urge you to take a look at the Foundation website and consider ways you might help steward these magical places: https://asparksfoundation.org/ Perhaps you might think about supporting the Parks System education and interpretation imperative: https://asparksfoundation.org/give-today#a444d6c6-371b-47a2-97da-dd15a5b9da76

The Foundation exists for the sole purpose of providing incremental operating and capital support for enhancing our State parks… and your enjoyment of them.

We are blessed in Alabama to have our Park System. Watch for future Great Blue Heron Posts as I continue to explore and enjoy these treasures that belong to us. I urge you to discover the Alabama State Parks near you. Follow the advice of John Muir:

And into the forest I go, to lose my mind and find my soul.

In every walk with Nature one receives far more than he seeks.

I only went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in.

Between every two pines is a doorway to a new world.

 

Thoughts and Reflections

 

I offer these observations:

  • Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better. (Albert Einstein)
  • And into the forest I go, to lose my mind and find my soul. (John Muir)
  • A short autumn morning saunter can reveal volumes on the magic of everyday Nature. (Steve Jones)

Inhale and absorb Nature’s elixir. May Nature Inspire, Inform, and Reward you!

 

Note: All blog post images created & photographed by Stephen B. Jones unless otherwise noted. Please circulate images with photo credit: “©2026 Steve Jones, Great Blue Heron LLC. All Rights Reserved.”

I am available for Nature-Inspired Speaking, Writing, and Consulting — contact me at steve.jones.0524@gmail.com

Subscribe to my free weekly photo essays (like this one) at: http://eepurl.com/cKLJdL

 

Reminder of my Personal and Professional Purpose, Passion, and Cause

If only more of us viewed our precious environment through the filters I employ. If only my mission and vision could be multiplied untold orders of magnitude:

Mission: Employ writing and speaking to educate, inspire, and enable readers and listeners to understand, appreciate, and enjoy Nature… and accept and practice Earth Stewardship.

Vision:

  • People of all ages will pay greater attention to and engage more regularly with Nature… and will accept and practice informed and responsible Earth Stewardship.
  • They will see their relationship to our natural world with new eyes… and will understand more clearly their Earth home.

Tagline/Motto: Steve (Great Blue Heron) encourages and seeks a better tomorrow through Nature-Inspired Living!

 

Steve’s Four Books

 

I wrote my books Nature Based Leadership (2016), Nature-Inspired Learning and Leading (2017), Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits: Stories of Passion for Place and Everyday Nature (2019; co-authored with Dr. Jennifer Wilhoit), and Dutton Land & Cattle: A Land Legacy Story (2023) to encourage all citizens to recognize and appreciate that every lesson for living, learning, serving, and leading is either written indelibly in or is powerfully inspired by Nature. All four of my books present compilations of personal experiences expressing my deep passion for Nature. All four books offer observations and reflections on my relationship with the natural world… and the broader implications for society. Order any from your local indie bookstore, or find them on IndieBound or other online sources such as Amazon and LifeRich.

I began writing books and Posts for several reasons:

  • I love hiking and exploring Nature
  • I see images I want to (and do) capture with my trusty iPhone camera
  • I enjoy explaining those images — an educator at heart
  • I don’t play golf!
  • I do love writing — it’s the hobby I never needed when my career consumed me
  • Judy suggested my writing is in large measure my legacy to our two kids, our five grandkids, and all the unborn generations beyond
  • And finally, perhaps my books and Blogs could reach beyond family and touch a few other lives… sow some seeds for the future

 

Chewacla

 

 

 

 

 

Brief-Form Post #54: Second Autumn Afternoon Near the Lodge and Cabins at AL’s DeSoto State Park!

/in /by

I attended an Alabama State Parks Foundation Board morning meeting on Thursday, November 6, 2026, at the DeSoto State Park Lodge. I had hiked extensively at the park the previous afternoon. Following the board session, I hiked the Chalet Trail from the Lodge and circuited the nearby cabins area. I am seldom disappointed by the magic a short saunter reveals, if only one looks deeply enough to discover what lies hidden in plain sight.

Come along with me to see the beauty, magic, wonder, and awe I spotted. The lodge deck overlooking the canyon of the West Fork of the Little River proved a good place to begin my trek. A brilliantly red sourwood tree stood at eye level, peering through the now-leafless yellow poplar (left). A smaller sourwood shrub topped a sandstone ledge near the deck (right). As a run-of-the-mill guy who knows only the basic rainbow colors, I referred to sourwood’s fall cape simply as red. Online leafyplace.com relied on more color-proficient descriptors: vibrant shades of crimson red to burgundy and purple.

DeSoto

 

The canyon reached ~250′ from stream to rimrock. Summer foliage hides the opposite ridge, now visible with leaf-drop.

 

I recorded this 58-second video from the Lodge deck.

 

Intent on uncovering more of the forest’s secrets, I walked from the Lodge to the Chalet Trailhead.

 

Afternoon along the Chalet Trail

 

A hike doesn’t need to be long and daunting to offer rewards. A perfect afternoon for leisurely sauntering is ideal for recovering mentally from a Board meeting, and for preparing physically for the required two-hour drive home.

 

I recorded this 59-second video within the forest along the trail.

 

Periodic prescribed fire has eliminated understory trees and shrubs, creating an open-grown grassy impression. Some refer to the appearance as park-like, a condition that many persons queried in surveys prefer.

I chose the Chalet Trail to focus on the benefits and consequences of prescribed fire as a parkland management tool. Note that the sign is sanctioned by: Alabama Prescribed Fire Council; National Wild Turkey Federation; The Nature Conservancy; and The Longleaf Alliance.

DeSoto

 

The understory is open, with no brambles or thickets impeding walking and, ostensibly, hiding snakes, critters, and other scary woodland denizens. I speak in jest of scary woodland denizens, yet I, too, prefer parklike stands in an area heavily trafficked around picnic tables, campgrounds, and cabins.

Chewacla

 

I recorded a 60-second video of the stand managed by fire and evidencing charred trunks.

 

I observe in nearly every Great Blue Heron photo essay that death is a big part of life in our forests. Whether a wildfire or controlled burn, dead and down woody debris is part of the ground-level fuel. Occasionally even a intentionally administered prescription fire will burn intensely enough to damage cambium at the base, opening a court of fungal infection. The kickory tree at left bears a catface, a hollow resulting from heart decay. The rot extends upward, eliminating any commercial timber value and weakening structural soundness. However, in this park cabin area management regime, timber value is of little consequence. Instead, squirrels, snakes, birds, and other critters value tree cavities! All the better for park wildlife enthusiasts.

DeSoto

 

 

Fall colors, open canopy, an orchard stocking level, and a welcoming understory tell me that controlled fire is an effective management tool.

DeSoto

 

Charred trunks and nearly bare forest floor evidence employed fire success.

 

Across my 12 years practicing forestry in the southeastern US for a Fortune-500 paper and allied forest products manufacturer, I control-burned tens of thousands of acres of company-owned forest land. Whether site preparation or established stand burning, the tool is essential to meeting our seeming insatiable demand for pulp, lumber, poles, chips, and miscellaneous other probucts. For the record our South Alabama crews once ignited and safely managed a rough-reduction, aerial ignition day when we covered 4,300 acres, a banner accomplishment!

Many surprises in Nature lie hidden in plain sight, including this groundhog head. A burl on a water oak trunk trailside. The critter sports a moustached mouth, abbreviated proboscis, two eyes (its right one with a lichened, overhanging brow), and a plated forebrow. It’s okay to employ a little imagination when searching our forests for obscure mammal residents.

DeSoto

 

Albert Einstein observed:

Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.

It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge.

 

Closing

 

I accept the challenge of distilling these Brief-Form Posts into a single distinct reflection.

Aldo Leopold, a preeminent mid-Twentieth Century ecologist, is my conservation hero, and his writing, A Sand County Almanac, is a lyrical conservation classic. Leopold encouraged informed and responsible land management, employing an arsenal of effective, bold practices informed by experience, wisdom, and hard work. He professed:

Prudence never kindled a fire in the human mind; I have no hope for conservation born of fear.

Nature’s special treats await our discovery, our understanding, and our interpretation!

Subscribe to my free weekly photo essays (like this one) at: http://eepurl.com/cKLJdL

 

Crispy-Leafed Early Autumn at Leebrook Park in Pennsylvania’s Franklin Park Borough

/in /by

Judy and I visited our son, Matt, and his family in late September 2025, at their home in Butler County, Pennsylvania, 20 miles north of Pittsburgh. We explored several parks and natural areas, including Leebrook Park, located in Franklin Park Borough, Allegheny County. Come along with Matt, Judy, Hannah, Nate, and me as we view memorable Leebrook Nature attractions on an autumn afternoon.

I always appreciate well-marked trails and informative signage.

 

Upper Roadside Parking Entrance

 

We entered by a trailhead distant from the main parking lot, primary entrance, and recreation fields. The second-growth mixed hardwood stand occupied a long-abandoned pasture.

 

I recorded this 60-second video as we traipsed through the former pasture forest.

 

This sugar maple, likely the same age as the overstory trees, sports a massive canker, infecting the entire trunk, and accounting for the tree’s distortion and stunted growth.

 

Nate provided scale.

 

Eight to ten inch diameter black cherry and red maple trees stand side by side. Germinating decades ago six inches apart, they have closed the gap. Inosculation is the term describing trees that seem to grasp one another, growing eventually as one.

 

Hannah (18) and Nate (12) stood atop a dead and downed trunk before leaping to the leaf-littered ground. Not a big deal, you say, but in the sunest years of their grandfather, it is a moment worth cherishing.

 

Rather than hike into the lower forest and needing to climb back to the car, Matt relocated us to the lower, richer slope with a far more interesting forest.

 

Lower Trail at Playing Field Entrance

 

Larger trees, greater variety of tree species, and wrinkled terrain drew my interest.

 

The bowl-shaped ravine supported a stand of cove hardwoods: mixed oaks, sugar maple, black cherry, a single sycamore, shagbark hickory, and yellow poplar, among others.

 

My 60-second video captured the special essence of the cove.

 

Trees reach more than 110 feet skyward. Such sites are characterized by deeper soils, greater soil moisture, denser shading by virtue of their lower slope position, and protection from ridgetop winds. I love the look and feel (shade and microclimate) of Appalachian hardwood coves.

 

The centered tree above (left) is a colorfully-patterned sycamore:

 

I recorded this 36-second video focusing on the three bird or mammal cavities in the towering top of the sycamore.

 

Shagbark hickory is as happy and comfortable on the hills of west-central Penn’s-woods as it is on Alabama’s Cumberland Plateau.

 

Always alert for tree form oddities and curiosities, I had to capture the image of this main canopy sugar maple. Suffering a decades-old upper crown injury, the old denizen has a snout and eye where the stem broke. Two large forks ascend in a prominent U-shape from the snout. The odd creature appears to stand sentry above the sylvan cove.

 

I find enchantment in such peculiarities, knowing full well that there is a story to be told. A heavy burden of snow or ice decapitated the younger tree? A thunderstorm gust brought its top down? I can only imagine the year, month, and causal agent.

 

Spiral Grain and Woodpecker Excavation

 

Spiral wood grain fascinates me. I see it often in downed hardwood trees after decomposition sheds their bark. When I discuss spiraling with others, nearly everyone insists that the spiraling should be apparent in the bark of a living tree. I insist, contrarily, that the phenomenon is completely hidden beneath the bark. Finally, I found direct evidence. This spiraled, standing dead oak has lost much of its bark, revealing the grain (right). The still clinging bark above (right) evidences no external indication of the structural spiraling!

 

Works of Nature’s creative sculpturing abound. Woodpeckers hungry for grubs and adult insects are assisting decomposition of this standing trunk.

 

A brief three-generation, leisurely family stroll reveals many secrets, mysteries, and magic in a place close to home, publicly maintained, and accessible free of charge. As I draft this narrative, I am halfway through teaching a six-week adult education course on our US National Parks. At the outset, I offer a Warning/Caution/Alert: Don’t be so smitten, enamored, and captivated by our incredible 63 National Parks that you ignore and shun the incredible beauty, magic, wonder, awe, and inspiration of local special places and everyday Nature. LeeBrook Park is one such example — much closer, less expensive, and less crowded than Yosemite, Yellowstone, or the Grand Canyon! Enjoy pancakes at home, have a sandwich in the park, and be home for dinner.

Thoughts and Reflections

 

I offer these observations:

  • A brief three-generation, leisurely family stroll can reveal many secrets, mysteries, and magic in a place close to home, publicly maintained, and accessible free of charge. (Steve Jones)
  • I find enchantment in tree form oddities and peculiarities, knowing full well that there is a story to be told. (Steve Jones)
  • Our death is not an end if we can live on in our children and the younger generation. For they are us; our bodies are only wilted leaves on the tree of life. (Albert Einstein)

Inhale and absorb Nature’s elixir. May Nature Inspire, Inform, and Reward you!

 

Note: All blog post images created & photographed by Stephen B. Jones unless otherwise noted. Please circulate images with photo credit: “©2026 Steve Jones, Great Blue Heron LLC. All Rights Reserved.”

I am available for Nature-Inspired Speaking, Writing, and Consulting — contact me at steve.jones.0524@gmail.com

Subscribe to my free weekly photo essays (like this one) at: http://eepurl.com/cKLJdL

 

Reminder of my Personal and Professional Purpose, Passion, and Cause

If only more of us viewed our precious environment through the filters I employ. If only my mission and vision could be multiplied untold orders of magnitude:

Mission: Employ writing and speaking to educate, inspire, and enable readers and listeners to understand, appreciate, and enjoy Nature… and accept and practice Earth Stewardship.

Vision:

  • People of all ages will pay greater attention to and engage more regularly with Nature… and will accept and practice informed and responsible Earth Stewardship.
  • They will see their relationship to our natural world with new eyes… and will understand more clearly their Earth home.

Tagline/Motto: Steve (Great Blue Heron) encourages and seeks a better tomorrow through Nature-Inspired Living!

 

Steve’s Four Books

 

I wrote my books Nature Based Leadership (2016), Nature-Inspired Learning and Leading (2017), Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits: Stories of Passion for Place and Everyday Nature (2019; co-authored with Dr. Jennifer Wilhoit), and Dutton Land & Cattle: A Land Legacy Story (2023) to encourage all citizens to recognize and appreciate that every lesson for living, learning, serving, and leading is either written indelibly in or is powerfully inspired by Nature. All four of my books present compilations of personal experiences expressing my deep passion for Nature. All four books offer observations and reflections on my relationship with the natural world… and the broader implications for society. Order any from your local indie bookstore, or find them on IndieBound or other online sources such as Amazon and LifeRich.

I began writing books and Posts for several reasons:

  • I love hiking and exploring Nature
  • I see images I want to (and do) capture with my trusty iPhone camera
  • I enjoy explaining those images — an educator at heart
  • I don’t play golf!
  • I do love writing — it’s the hobby I never needed when my career consumed me
  • Judy suggested my writing is in large measure my legacy to our two kids, our five grandkids, and all the unborn generations beyond
  • And finally, perhaps my books and Blogs could reach beyond family and touch a few other lives… sow some seeds for the future

 

 

 

 

Curiosities, Oddities, and Mysteries In a Sanctuary’s Bottomland Hardwood Forest!

/in /by

On October 14, 2025, I had nearly two hours to roam before meeting with a colleague to prepare for a scheduled joint seminar the next week. I visited the tupelo swamp on the northeast side of Huntsville’s Goldsmith-Schiffman Wildlife Sanctuary. I had no objective beyond seeing what may lie hidden in plain sight during the dry autumn season. Never disappointed by my routine impromptu explorations, I discovered a portfolio of interesting features.

 

A Big Oak Topples into the River

 

Sometime this past summer, this 2.5-foot diameter water oak toppled violently into the adjacent Flint River, blocking at least half of the river’s width. The crown clings to the brown leaves that were in full flush when the tree fell.

 

I recorded this 58-second video of the toppled water oak.

 

I wonder whether the crown will hold in place when winter rains swell the river to bankfull and beyond. The force will be powerful. Only Nature knows her limits, yet cares nothing of the consequences. I’ll keep an eye on her antics and impacts.

 

I observe in nearly every Post, death is a big part of life in our forests.

 

Another Big Oak Decomposes and Decays

 

Across eight years of permanent residence in North Alabama, I am learning better how to estimate the pace of decomposition and decay based on observation. Marian Moore Lewis, author of Southern Sanctuary, and I encountered a recently uprooted red oak on November 18, 2020 in this same bottomland forest. Fine roots were still evident; the root ball soil remined intact; bole bark and crown appeared fresh.

November 2020 November 2020

 

The massive root ball is clearly weathering away in my October 14, 2025 photo. Only the largest woody roots remain, yet even they are rapidly decaying. Trunk bark is shredding and stripping. Five years leave a striking mark on a large oak. My eye is calibrating. I am confident that I can estimate time since windthrow within 2-3 years, through the first 20 years. By then, the soil incorporation is in control.

 

I will continue to Monitor…and Learn.

A Rich Species Mix

 

With litte necessary narrative, here are some of the tree varieties I encountered.

A nice crop of walnuts beneath a 24-inch diameter black walnut.

 

 

 

 

A sycamore and an attractive natural forest floor arrangement of peeled sycamore bark, a dropped leaf, and a seed ball.

 

Sycamore’s peeling bark is one of its distinctive features.

 

During my frequent Nature interpretive walks, more than half of participants recognize sycamore, provided I offer some hints and prompts.

Carpinus caroliniana is an understory to mid-canopy hardwood that has been a favorite of mine since my undergraduate student days. I learned its common name as musclewood. It resembles the sinewed fibers of a muscled arm. Other common monikers include American hornbeam, blue beech, and ironwood. I photographed two individuals.

 

I’m a lifetime fancier of tree form oddities and curiosities.

 

An Attractive Fungal Resident

 

A twin water oak nestled aged resinous polypore brakets in its fork.

 

I recorded a 58-second video at the infected twin water oak

 

Again, death is a big part of life in our forests. The twins are diseased. Mycelia are decomposing and decaying the twin. Death is underway. Although macabre, the truth is that the end begins at the start…for all life on earth.

 

Answer Me This

 

Just ten feet from the infected twin, I spotted this galvanized nail in another water oak.  Yet another story that I cannot but weakly ponder. Did it mark a survey point? Is it related to transfer of the private property to the city to create the Sanctuary? A scavenger hunt or geocaching site? Pardon the pun, but I am unable to nail the reason!

 

I will continue finding riddles I cannot solve.

Water Tupelo Swamp

 

I grew up and attended forestry school far north of the natural range of water tupelo, which may explain my fascination with this forest type. I’ve published at least a dozen Posts about my adventures in this forest type, including several in the Sanctuary. I will offer only an album of photographs without detailed narrative. These buttressed tupelo draw me. The dry season standing water and soil saturation hint at the deeper water ahead in the winter.

 

You don’t need much beyond my 60-second swamp tour video overview.

 

Strange tree forms and a haunting aspect dominate.

 

This is far removed from the upland hardwood forests I wandered in my youth.

 

I recorded a 48-second video of a massive water tupelo. I estimated its ground-level diameter as 12-14 feet!

 

I relish the beauty, magic, wonder, awe, and inspiration!

 

What is the hairy, grizzled, bearded old man of the tupelo forest!?!?

 

See my related Post (https://stevejonesgbh.com/2025/10/27/brief-form-post-47-strange-bearded-tupelo-trees-air-root-mysteries-and-curiosities/) for the answer!

 

Thoughts and Reflections

 

I offer these observations:

  • Tupelo forests are far removed from the upland hardwood forests I wandered in my youth. (Steve Jones)
  • Death is a big part of life in our North Alabama forests. (Steve Jones)
  • I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious. (Albert Einstein)

Inhale and absorb Nature’s elixir. May Nature Inspire, Inform, and Reward you!

 

Note: All blog post images created & photographed by Stephen B. Jones unless otherwise noted. Please circulate images with photo credit: “©2026 Steve Jones, Great Blue Heron LLC. All Rights Reserved.”

I am available for Nature-Inspired Speaking, Writing, and Consulting — contact me at steve.jones.0524@gmail.com

Subscribe to my free weekly photo essays (like this one) at: http://eepurl.com/cKLJdL

 

Reminder of my Personal and Professional Purpose, Passion, and Cause

 

If only more of us viewed our precious environment through the filters I employ. If only my mission and vision could be multiplied untold orders of magnitude:

Mission: Employ writing and speaking to educate, inspire, and enable readers and listeners to understand, appreciate, and enjoy Nature… and accept and practice Earth Stewardship.

Vision:

  • People of all ages will pay greater attention to and engage more regularly with Nature… and will accept and practice informed and responsible Earth Stewardship.
  • They will see their relationship to our natural world with new eyes… and will understand more clearly their Earth home.

Tagline/Motto: Steve (Great Blue Heron) encourages and seeks a better tomorrow through Nature-Inspired Living!

 

Steve’s Four Books

 

I wrote my books Nature Based Leadership (2016), Nature-Inspired Learning and Leading (2017), Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits: Stories of Passion for Place and Everyday Nature (2019; co-authored with Dr. Jennifer Wilhoit), and Dutton Land & Cattle: A Land Legacy Story (2023) to encourage all citizens to recognize and appreciate that every lesson for living, learning, serving, and leading is either written indelibly in or is powerfully inspired by Nature. All four of my books present compilations of personal experiences expressing my deep passion for Nature. All four books offer observations and reflections on my relationship with the natural world… and the broader implications for society. Order any from your local indie bookstore, or find them on IndieBound or other online sources such as Amazon and LifeRich.

I began writing books and Posts for several reasons:

  • I love hiking and exploring Nature
  • I see images I want to (and do) capture with my trusty iPhone camera
  • I enjoy explaining those images — an educator at heart
  • I don’t play golf!
  • I do love writing — it’s the hobby I never needed when my career consumed me
  • Judy suggested my writing is in large measure my legacy to our two kids, our five grandkids, and all the unborn generations beyond
  • And finally, perhaps my books and Blogs could reach beyond family and touch a few other lives… sow some seeds for the future

 

 

 

 

 

The Stream at Pennsylvania’s Wolf Creek Narrows Natural Area

/in /by

Wolf Creek Narrows Natural Area, owned and managed by the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy (WPC), is in northwestern Butler County, Pennsylvania, just 30 minutes from where my son and his family reside north of Pittsburgh. Matt, his dog Oakley, and I circuited the 2.35-mile trail on the morning of September 22, the first day of autumn. I focus this photo essay on Wolf Creek and streamside elements of the preserve.

 

Forest Portal to Wolf Creek

 

The ecotone where deep forest meets the stream corridor represents a sharp transition from shaded stillness, damp air, and relative silence to gurgling water, bright sunshine, and refreshing breezes.

 

The towering old growth hardwoods tap streamside soil moisture and fertiity available in the deep alluvial soils. Their streamside branches  harvest full sunlight from the opening above the stream channel. The trees have nearly unlimited access the the essential resources necessary for maximum growth: moisture, nutrients, sunlight, and space.

 

I love the stark visual contrast of closed shade to open stream. The sun found a way to spotlight a leaf-covered patch of forest floor near the stream.

 

Too often I encounter southern streamside forests supporting thick understory cover of greenbriars, cane, and brush. I appreciate the parklike high forest and sparse ground cover along Wolf reek.

 

Wolf Creek Proper

 

The stream channel and canyon floor beckoned and embraced us. I vividly recall taking Matt accompanying me hiking along woodland streams 40 years ago. Along Wolf Creek, I sensed our roles shifting, feeling as though now I accompanied Matt as we circuited the Narrows trail system. I suppose such is the circle of life.

 

I recorded this 59-second video of Matt and Oakley along Wolf Creek.

 

The press of family visitation affairs limited the time available at Wolf Creek Narrows. I would loved to have lingered along our transit. Many places were custom made for leaning against a tree streamside, sipping coffee or hot chocolate, nibbling a cookie, or eating a peanut butter and banana sandwich. Funny, when Matt was young, it was I who endured busy days, time constraints, and the pressures of living. It is now I who has time for a liesurely pace.

 

I recorded this 59-second video along Wolf Creek.

 

We paused at the road bridge that marked our turn-around point. The orientation of clouds and sun created contrasting views of Wolf Creek. Bright sunlight highlighted the view upstream (left). Clouds darkened the sky and the stream as I snapped a photo downstream. Nothing in Nature is static. A heartbeat flits by and everything shifts.

 

We reentered the deep forest, leaving the road and stream corridor to enter what I term a a place of reverence…a streamside cathedral.

 

Streamside Cathedral

 

I felt the solemnity and said a prayer for those who loved Lucy Jeanne Chalfant and this special place. Lucy was born just four years after Judy and I entered the world some 100 miles south of here in western Maryland. As I stood silently, I felt Lucy’s presence. She walked on with me for a spell, and she returns as a vapor as I draft this narrative.

 

Lucy Jeanne Chalfant (1955-1993)

This trail is blessed in loving memory of Lucy, a daughter, sister, and friend. Walk in peace. Find serenity, courage, and wisdom. May the tranquillity of this place abide with her spirit and all who pass here.

I felt the peace, tranquility, and serenity. I pondered Lucy’s story. What took her from her parents, siblings, and friends at the fresh age of 38? I was four at Lucy’s birth, and I write these words 33 years after she ascended to a place of permanent and ultimate renewal. What makes me so blessed as to pass silently through the sylvan refuge where her memory persists? Who among those who loved her return? I can imagine no better place to rest, linger, and remember. Something touched me on the trail…and left a mark.

 

This special place reminds me of words Robert Service applied in his The Spell of the Yukon:

It’s the forest where silence has lease;

It’s the beauty that thrills me with wonder,

It’s the stillness that fills me with peace.

I recorded this 56-second video of a moment of deeply spiritual reflection at Wolf Creek Narrows.

 

I wonder, are Lucy’s spirit mists rising within the canopy 120 feet above the forest floor.

 

As with any forest saunter, I found delights. A speckled sycamore trunk reached into the soaring crown. A hollowed stem opened 30 feet above ground, welcoming whateever critter occupies the sheltering interior.

 

I recall in my youth grabbing a World Book encyclopedia volume from the shelf and thumbing rendomly through the pages, discovering what treasures lie hidden within, awaiting my curious and eager mind. I’m struck now at age 74 by how similar is my woodland sauntering. I’m thumbing through the forest, gleefully sating my curiously eager mind, still discovering and learning as I wander…and wonder!

 

Magical Mystery Tour: Ferns and Toads

 

Sensitive fern (left) and Christmas fern, common here and back in Northern Alabama, greeted me along the way. I shall remain a fern aficionado as long as my stride carries me through dark woods.

 

 

 

 

 

Wood fern (below) and New York fern, ubiquitous across my doctoral research forests in NW Pennsylvania and SW New York, is not common in northern Alabama.

 

An American toad, hiding within a protective rock crevice, likely knows where he will wait out the coming winther.

 

I am completing this narrative two days before Christmas, a season when the Pennsylvania toad is tucked away, secure from winter predators and Pennsylvania’s piercing Arctic blasts. Madison, Alabama is forecast to experience upper 60s to lower 70s through Christmas weekend, and then drop into the upper teens the following week. What’s an Alabama toad to do?

 

Thoughts and Reflections

 

I offer these observations:

  • I thumb through the forest, gleefully sating my curiously eager mind, still discovering and learning as I wander…and wonder! (Steve Jones)
  • This trail is blessed in loving memory of Lucy, a daughter, sister, and friend. Walk in peace. Find serenity, courage, and wisdom. (Memorial stone for Lucy Jeanne Chalfant (1955-1993))
  • Nothing in Nature is static. A heartbeat flits by and everything shifts. (Steve Jones)

Inhale and absorb Nature’s elixir. May Nature Inspire, Inform, and Reward you!

 

Note: All blog post images created & photographed by Stephen B. Jones unless otherwise noted. Please circulate images with photo credit: “©2026 Steve Jones, Great Blue Heron LLC. All Rights Reserved.”

I am available for Nature-Inspired Speaking, Writing, and Consulting — contact me at steve.jones.0524@gmail.com

Subscribe to these free weekly Nature Blogs (photo essays) at: http://eepurl.com/cKLJdL

 

Reminder of my Personal and Professional Purpose, Passion, and Cause

If only more of us viewed our precious environment through the filters I employ. If only my mission and vision could be multiplied untold orders of magnitude:

Mission: Employ writing and speaking to educate, inspire, and enable readers and listeners to understand, appreciate, and enjoy Nature… and accept and practice Earth Stewardship.

Vision:

  • People of all ages will pay greater attention to and engage more regularly with Nature… and will accept and practice informed and responsible Earth Stewardship.
  • They will see their relationship to our natural world with new eyes… and will understand more clearly their Earth home.

Tagline/Motto: Steve (Great Blue Heron) encourages and seeks a better tomorrow through Nature-Inspired Living!

 

Steve’s Four Books

 

I wrote my books Nature Based Leadership (2016), Nature-Inspired Learning and Leading (2017), Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits: Stories of Passion for Place and Everyday Nature (2019; co-authored with Dr. Jennifer Wilhoit), and Dutton Land & Cattle: A Land Legacy Story (2023) to encourage all citizens to recognize and appreciate that every lesson for living, learning, serving, and leading is either written indelibly in or is powerfully inspired by Nature. All four of my books present compilations of personal experiences expressing my deep passion for Nature. All four books offer observations and reflections on my relationship with the natural world… and the broader implications for society. Order any from your local indie bookstore, or find them on IndieBound or other online sources such as Amazon and LifeRich.

I began writing books and Posts for several reasons:

  • I love hiking and exploring Nature
  • I see images I want to (and do) capture with my trusty iPhone camera
  • I enjoy explaining those images — an educator at heart
  • I don’t play golf!
  • I do love writing — it’s the hobby I never needed when my career consumed me
  • Judy suggested my writing is in large measure my legacy to our two kids, our five grandkids, and all the unborn generations beyond
  • And finally, perhaps my books and Blogs could reach beyond family and touch a few other lives… sow some seeds for the future

 

 

 

Wandering Peak-Color Autumn Forests Afternoon at AL’s DeSoto State Park!

/in /by

I explored the Azalea Cascade, Orange, Blue, and Chalet Trails at AL’s DeSoto State Park on November 5 & 6, 2025. Perfect weather and peak fall colors elevate my pleasurable routine saunters to an extraordinary experience. It’s no wonder that I am addicted to Special Places and Everyday Nature! DeSoto State Park sits atop Sand Mountain at 1,600 feet above sea level in northeast Alabama, eight miles from Fort Payne, and not much further to the Georgia line. Come along with me on a gorgeous autumn afternoon.

As I began drafting this photo essay narrative (November 25, 2025), the ground in Fairbanks, Alaska, where we lived for four years, has carried a snowpack for six weeks, and the lows dip well below zero. I noticed on this morning’s news that portions of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula are expecting 2-3 feet of lake effect by Thanksgiving. Lucky me — I am enjoying the prime outdoor season in North Alabama. Autumn, winter, and spring invite, welcome, and comfort me during these perfect days. Forget about frostbite, howling bitter winds, drifting snow, clouds of mosquitoes, insuferable chiggars, stifling heat, torrid humidity, and other natural tortures. This is heavenly!

Peak color, blue sky, bright sun, and a towering hardwood forest reached out, grabbed me, and dragged me along the Azalea Cascade Talmadge Butler Boardwalk. The deep alluvial soil and protected cove position spelled ample year-round moisture and a nutrient-rich, high-productivity site. The mixed hardwood forest stood greater than 100 feet tall.

DeSoto

 

I don’t see need for a lot of science-based narrative. Instead, I give you a guided tour along a series of trails during what may be the best day of the year, with perfect weather, a languid afternoon, a stress-free mind, and full autumn colors in a southern upland hardwood forest!

DeSoto

 

I recorded this 59-second video along the boardwalk.

 

Sourwood (Oxydendron arboreum) is a common intermediate canopy species in our North Alabama upland forests. It refuses to be either positively phototropic (growing toward the sun) or negatively geotropic (growing vertically opposite gravity). Instead, it chooses its own course, like this one leaning in no particular direction.

DeSoto

 

Most main canopy species reach heavenward, seeking the bounty of full sun high above.

DeSoto

 

The boardwalk leads to azalea cascade, where a small stream enters a reflecting pool through the boulders.

DeSoto

 

Here is my 29-second video of the spectacular autumn leaves reflections.

 

A birch tree clings to the rock ledge where its seed germinated decades ago, sending its roots to exploit mineral soil both uphill and beneath the ledge. Every tree has a compelling story to tell.

DeSoto

 

Several hundred feet above the cascade the trail crosses the stream on a rustic footbridge.

DeSoto

 

I recorded a 58-second video at the quaint woodland footbridge.

 

I’ll offer a little forestry lesson at this 30-inch-diameter yellow poplar tree. The species reigns supreme across Alabama’s most productive forest sites…well-drained bottomlands and upland cove sites. The species, unlike sourwood, insists on growing straight and tall. It has a low relative stocking density, contrasting it to white oak and American Beech, among some others. Note how little crown space this yellowpoplar occupies. A beech or white oak of this diameter would have a crown of at least 50 percent greater area, i.e. a greater relative stand density.

DeSoto

 

Rhododendron is a classic broad-leaved evergreen, thriving in moist, sheltered forest micro sites. Sourwood (right) bursts in deep color, rivalling the flaming sugar maple magic of New England autumn.

DeSoto

 

Brilliant emerald moss brightens this sandstone ledge along the trail.

DeSoto

DeSoto

 

Lost Falls served as my destination, its upstream brook reflecting the late afternoon sun touching the ridge. The dry autumn streamflow furnishes little of the excitement I’ve witnessed during the maelstrom of early April’s wet season.

DeSoto

 

Here is my 40-second video of Lost Falls.

 

Beyond the falls, a sandstone glade ecotype dominates for a while. Exposed sandstone bedrock, very thin and acidic soils, and extremely variable moisture conditions prevail, ranging from standing surface water in the dormant season to xeric in summer. Thick reindeer lichen, and obligate glade plants make for challenging and entertaining botanizing.

 

I recorded this 58-second video of the glade.

 

From the Azalea Cascade to the sandstone ledge forest to the glades, my trek traversed at least three major ecotypes. This stretch of the glade is other worldly.

DeSoto

 

Leaving the glades behind, I descended toward the Azalea Cascade, through a stand control-burned three years ago to reduce understory vegetation. The forest floor is no longer densely populated with understory trees, shrubs, and herbaceous plants. Bark-charred standing trees and burned woody debris evidence the burn.

DeSoto

 

Without offering explanation, I will simply observe that some hardwood trees have spiral grain, evident only when the stem is dead (de-barked by progressive decomposition), whether vertical or on the ground. I have not found definitive literature revelations on why trees spiral. When I find the answer, I will devote an entire  photo essay to the explanation.

DeSoto

 

Returning to the boardwalk cove, the forest-yellow, pale blue late afternoon sky, and camo-green sandstone ledges bid me farewell.

DeSoto

 

The evening gloaming is descending, offering a late autumn kiss on the cheek.

DeSoto

 

Even the deer emerged along the road, another signal that the autumn day has run full circle.

DeSoto

 

My Nature wanderings come in many shapes and sizes. Judy and I wander our suburban neighborhood nearly every day. I find wonder and delight even in the everyday Nature within walking distance of my home. I venture into regional State Parks, the nearby Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge, Land Trust Nature Preserves, and other natural areas withinin 90-minutes of home once a week. Two or three times annually I seek out of state locations to eplore, requiring travel, overnight stays, and greater expense. Now that I am 74 years old, I believe my international Nature-Based consulting assignments may have ended, the last one in 2019 to Kazakhstan. Regardless, I will continue to find beauty, magic, wonder, awe, passion, inspiration, and spiritual renewal in special places and everyday Nature!

Alabama State Parks Foundation

I’ll remind you that although I serve on the Alabama State Parks Foundation Board (Secretary), in part because of my love of Nature and in recognition for my writing many prior Posts about visiting and experiencing the Parks, any positions or opinions expressed in these Posts are mine alone and do not in any manner represent the Foundation or its Board.
I urge you to take a look at the Foundation website and consider ways you might help steward these magical places: https://asparksfoundation.org/ Perhaps you might think about supporting the Parks System education and interpretation imperative: https://asparksfoundation.org/give-today#a444d6c6-371b-47a2-97da-dd15a5b9da76

The Foundation exists for the sole purpose of providing incremental operating and capital support for enhancing our State parks… and your enjoyment of them.

We are blessed in Alabama to have our Park System. Watch for future Great Blue Heron Posts as I continue to explore and enjoy these treasures that belong to us. I urge you to discover the Alabama State Parks near you. Follow the advice of John Muir:

And into the forest I go, to lose my mind and find my soul.

In every walk with Nature one receives far more than he seeks.

I only went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in.

Between every two pines is a doorway to a new world.

 

Thoughts and Reflections

 

I offer these observations:

  • Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better. (Albert Einstein)
  • Fall beauty is unbounded by life form. (Steve Jones)
  • I embrace Nature’s relentless magic, wonder, awe, and inspiration — her infinite storm of BEAUTY! (Steve Jones)
  • I will continue to find beauty, magic, wonder, awe, passion, inspiration, and spiritual renewal in special places and everyday Nature! (Steve Jones)

Inhale and absorb Nature’s elixir. May Nature Inspire, Inform, and Reward you!

 

Note: All blog post images created & photographed by Stephen B. Jones unless otherwise noted. Please circulate images with photo credit: “©2026 Steve Jones, Great Blue Heron LLC. All Rights Reserved.”

I am available for Nature-Inspired Speaking, Writing, and Consulting — contact me at steve.jones.0524@gmail.com

Subscribe to my free weekly photo essays (like this one) at: http://eepurl.com/cKLJdL

 

Reminder of my Personal and Professional Purpose, Passion, and Cause

If only more of us viewed our precious environment through the filters I employ. If only my mission and vision could be multiplied untold orders of magnitude:

Mission: Employ writing and speaking to educate, inspire, and enable readers and listeners to understand, appreciate, and enjoy Nature… and accept and practice Earth Stewardship.

Vision:

  • People of all ages will pay greater attention to and engage more regularly with Nature… and will accept and practice informed and responsible Earth Stewardship.
  • They will see their relationship to our natural world with new eyes… and will understand more clearly their Earth home.

Tagline/Motto: Steve (Great Blue Heron) encourages and seeks a better tomorrow through Nature-Inspired Living!

 

Steve’s Four Books

 

I wrote my books Nature Based Leadership (2016), Nature-Inspired Learning and Leading (2017), Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits: Stories of Passion for Place and Everyday Nature (2019; co-authored with Dr. Jennifer Wilhoit), and Dutton Land & Cattle: A Land Legacy Story (2023) to encourage all citizens to recognize and appreciate that every lesson for living, learning, serving, and leading is either written indelibly in or is powerfully inspired by Nature. All four of my books present compilations of personal experiences expressing my deep passion for Nature. All four books offer observations and reflections on my relationship with the natural world… and the broader implications for society. Order any from your local indie bookstore, or find them on IndieBound or other online sources such as Amazon and LifeRich.

I began writing books and Posts for several reasons:

  • I love hiking and exploring Nature
  • I see images I want to (and do) capture with my trusty iPhone camera
  • I enjoy explaining those images — an educator at heart
  • I don’t play golf!
  • I do love writing — it’s the hobby I never needed when my career consumed me
  • Judy suggested my writing is in large measure my legacy to our two kids, our five grandkids, and all the unborn generations beyond
  • And finally, perhaps my books and Blogs could reach beyond family and touch a few other lives… sow some seeds for the future

 

DeSoto

 

 

 

 

The Meadow at Pennsylvania’s Wolf Creek Narrows Natural Area

/in /by

Wolf Creek Narrows Natural Area, owned and managed by the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy (WPC), is located in northwestern Butler County, Pennsylvania, just 30 minutes from where my son and his family reside north of Pittsburgh. Matt, his dog Oakley, and I circuited the 2.35-mile trail on the morning of September 22, the first day of autumn. My heart soared at the prospect of returning to an ecosystem shaped by a continental ice sheet just 13 millennia ago. This Post focuses on our passages (out from the trailhead and back) through a goldenrod-dominated autumn meadow.

 

The 243 acre Natural Area includes several distinct ecosystems: meadow; forest/field ecotone; upland forest, forested riparian zone; and the immediate Slippery Rock Creek. I like the openess of the meadow, accenting the vibrant autumn sky above. Meadows are temporary landscape features unless managed to short-circuit the natural successional impetus to transition to forest cover. I am not sure whether the ash sapling in the photo at right was planted or is a volunteer.

 

The perennial herbacious cover is dense, ideal for songbirds, small mammals, snakes, and other critters. As I drafted this text on December 2, 2025, western Pennsylvania was reporting several inches of fresh snow. I imagine diverse wildlife hunkered in the tangled vegetation beneath the snow.

I recorded this 58-second video in the luscious goldenrod meadow.

 

I can’t resist the image of goldenrod backdropped by the fall sky. The air, comfortable and clear, cut through my North Alabama mental fatigue with a long summer and a September dry spell. This a meadow still fresh, blooming, and vibrant, awaiting a first freeze, autumn rains, and an impending deep winter rest.

 

Hiking the meadow with Matt, sharing the autumn sunshine and exploration, reminded me of Einstein’s view of extending our life-reach beyond our own fleeting existence:

Our death is not an end if we can live on in our children and the younger generation. For they are us; our bodies are only wilted leaves on the tree of life. (Albert Einstein)

Some videos express the essence of a special place better without narration. I recorded this 59-second video focusing on the sounds of autumn breezes and late season insects.

 

An ideal stage for late season bloomers, the meadow celebrates the end of a full summer of generous meadow sunshine with goldenrod, New England aster, and smooth blue aster. Bright flowers will greet the icy fingers certain to come.

 

Supplemental wildlife accoutrements (a bluebird nesting box) enrich the meadow bird habitat.

 

As does the bat house at the meadow/forest edge.

 

I compliment the LConservancy for both the artificial nesting structures and the excellent interpretive signage.

 

Pear leaf crabapple is both an excellent wildlife food source and an early meadow colonizer in the successional steps toward natural forest regeneration.

 

The same is true of northern arrowwood. Both species are prolific producers of fruit that wildlife consumes, digestively scarifies its seeds, and disseminates to enable further colonization.

 

Two red oaks (left) and numerous sycamore saplings represent the advancing forest along the meadow’s north flank, which is a separate ecotone, neither meadow or forest. View the oak and sycamore saplings as scouts from the advancing forest army. Imagine a squierrel caching an acorn in rich soil under the goldenrod, and then losing track of it. The acorn sprouts with spring’s warmth. The seedling oak flourishes in full sunlight, partially protected by the 4-6-foot-high meadow vegetation from deer and rabbit browsing. The oaks are now out of easy reach of the hungry mammals. This day’s northwesterly breezes may be carrying windborne sycamore seed, potentially extending the forest deeper into the meadow.

 

The scouts will give way to an outright forest invasion. This isn’t the forest successionary army’s first rodeo. Just 13,000 years ago, the vast continental ice sheet yielded to a warming climate. Hundreds of millions of acres of once fertile and forested land emerged from the deep icepack barren and stark, stretching from the former ice edge near here far into the sub-Arctic Canadian Shield. That wild expanse, now ruchly forested, attests to Nature’s capacity to reclaim devastated territory, whether blasted by Mt. Saint Helens (1980), incinerated by the Big Burn (1910 in Washington, Idaho, and Montana), or savagely innundated by tropical storm remnants flushing western North Carolina river bottomland forests (The Great Flood of 1916). A beautiful postage stamp upland meadow in modern day Butler County Pennsylvania is just a bump in the road for an advancing vegetative front intent on expanding a forest.

I recorded this 59-second video at the meadow/woodland edge ecotone.

 

The real challenge falls to the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy managers. How do they hold the forest at bay, if indeed that is their objective, which I hope it is. I appreciate and value ecosystem diversity. I won’t attempt to recommend a treatment scenario. I have little relevant expertise, beyond thinking that fire may be among the alternatives.

I do know that the common garter snake we spotted in the meadow depends on the meadow ecotype, as do many other wildlife species.

 

How long will the meadow survive as a unique ecosystem without management practices, like bush-hogging, prescribed fire, selective herbicide treatments, and other alternatives? No matter where my Nature wanderings take me, I discover a constant: Nothing in Nature is Static. Nothing remains the same. In this case, human intervention will be necessary to keep the meadow…a meadow.

I often turn to John Muir for words that succinctly capture my sentiments…far better than my own feelings. Of my passion for the meadow, I turn to Muir:

Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul.

 

Thoughts and Reflections

 

I offer these observations:

  • Nothing in Nature is Static. Nothing remains the same. (Steve Jones)
  • Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul. (John Muir)
  • Our death is not an end if we can live on in our children and the younger generation. For they are us; our bodies are only wilted leaves on the tree of life. (Albert Einstein)

Inhale and absorb Nature’s elixir. May Nature Inspire, Inform, and Reward you!

 

Note: All blog post images created & photographed by Stephen B. Jones unless otherwise noted. Please circulate images with photo credit: “©2025 Steve Jones, Great Blue Heron LLC. All Rights Reserved.”

I am available for Nature-Inspired Speaking, Writing, and Consulting — contact me at steve.jones.0524@gmail.com

 

Subscribe to these free weekly Nature Blogs (photo essays) at: http://eepurl.com/cKLJdL

 

Reminder of my Personal and Professional Purpose, Passion, and Cause

If only more of us viewed our precious environment through the filters I employ. If only my mission and vision could be multiplied untold orders of magnitude:

Mission: Employ writing and speaking to educate, inspire, and enable readers and listeners to understand, appreciate, and enjoy Nature… and accept and practice Earth Stewardship.

Vision:

  • People of all ages will pay greater attention to and engage more regularly with Nature… and will accept and practice informed and responsible Earth Stewardship.
  • They will see their relationship to our natural world with new eyes… and will understand more clearly their Earth home.

Tagline/Motto: Steve (Great Blue Heron) encourages and seeks a better tomorrow through Nature-Inspired Living!

 

Steve’s Four Books

 

I wrote my books Nature Based Leadership (2016), Nature-Inspired Learning and Leading (2017), Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits: Stories of Passion for Place and Everyday Nature (2019; co-authored with Dr. Jennifer Wilhoit), and Dutton Land & Cattle: A Land Legacy Story (2023) to encourage all citizens to recognize and appreciate that every lesson for living, learning, serving, and leading is either written indelibly in or is powerfully inspired by Nature. All four of my books present compilations of personal experiences expressing my deep passion for Nature. All four books offer observations and reflections on my relationship with the natural world… and the broader implications for society. Order any from your local indie bookstore, or find them on IndieBound or other online sources such as Amazon and LifeRich.

I began writing books and Posts for several reasons:

  • I love hiking and exploring Nature
  • I see images I want to (and do) capture with my trusty iPhone camera
  • I enjoy explaining those images — an educator at heart
  • I don’t play golf!
  • I do love writing — it’s the hobby I never needed when my career consumed me
  • Judy suggested my writing is in large measure my legacy to our two kids, our five grandkids, and all the unborn generations beyond
  • And finally, perhaps my books and Blogs could reach beyond family and touch a few other lives… sow some seeds for the future

 

 

 

The Northern Hardwood Forest at Pennsylvania’s Wolf Creek Narrows Natural Area

/in /by

Wolf Creek Narrows Natural Area, owned and managed by the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy (WPC), is located in northwestern Butler County, Pennsylvania, just 30 minutes from where my son and his family reside north of Pittsburgh. Matt, his dog Oakley, and I circuited the 2.35-mile trail on the morning of September 22, the first day of autumn. I focus this photo essay on the exquisite old-growth northern hardwood forest.

My heart soared at the prospect of returning to an ecosystem shaped by a continental ice sheet just 13 millennia ago. The absolute freshness and newness stimulate wild conjecture and total admiration for Nature’s rapid recovery from thousands of feet of ice.

The Western PA Conservancy provided an online description:

Wolf Creek Narrows Natural Area is particularly known for its spectacular display of spring wildflowers. An active floodplain, mature northern hardwood forest, and scenic cliffs make this property one of WPC’s most popular. It is believed that the steep, narrow gorge of Wolf Creek Narrows originally formed when the ceiling of an ice-age cave eroded and collapsed due to runoff from the melting glacier. The site now consists of a high-quality stream meandering through towering 50-foot cliffs. These natural processes, including annual flooding and ice scouring, as well as limited human activities, have resulted in diverse natural communities.

We have lots of karst topography and abundant caves in my present home range of northern Alabama, but nothing so exciting as ice-age caves and ice scouring!

The meadow trail below led into the deep forest.

 

Okay, I’ve opened the portal to Wolf Creek Narrows. Now comes the tough part. How do I package 31 photos and two brief videos into a Post digestible within 15-minutes? Species resident to the Allegheny Hardwood forests of my 1984-85 NW PA and SW NY PhD field research welcomed me with warm and comforting embrace.

 

I’ve found that brief videos tell a richer tale than still photographs and written narrative. I recorded this 58-second video within the mixed forest. I hope that I’ve stimulated your interest in this special place.

 

The Narrows and Wolf Creek lie beyond the forest edge.

 

Matt stands six-feet tall, behind a 30-inch diameter American beech. The red oak beyond the beech (at left) is nearly 40-inches in diameter.

 

You don’t need my narrative to appreciate the beauty, magic, inspiration, and awe of this park-like northern hardwood wonderland.

 

Take a look heavenward into this cathedral forest canopy.

 

I love the deep shade and open understory far below.

 

I frequently lead or co-lead organized woodland Nature excursions (saunters) in parks, preserves, refuges, and sanctuaries near my Madison, Alabama home. Like John Muir, I prefer sauntering in the woods…abhoring hurrying through the forest. I noticed that Oakley takes the same approach, sniffing and scenting her way within the woods, reading the signs, never missing an olfactory clue. My iPhone camera substitutes for scenting. So much of what I seek in Nature lies hidden in plain sight. I believe my own joy in discovery matches Oakley’s!

 

I can’t imagine Oakley concerned with steps, miles, time elapsed, or other metrics. For her, each sniff tells a tale. My objective is to learn from every Nature venture, intent upon constructing a meaningful tale in form of a photo essay like this one.

In fact, my retirement mission, practiced in these Posts, is to: Employ writing (and photography) to educate, inspire, and enable readers and viewers to understand, appreciate, and enjoy Nature… and accept and practice Earth Stewardship.

I keep my nose fine-tuned for sniffing tree form oddities and curiosities. A living, deeply decayed, cankered intermediate canopy sugar maple forced me to snap photographs of both the canker and the brown mushrooms above. How long ago did the fungus (or fungi) infect the sugar maple? How long will the tree survive? Death is a big part of life in the forest, whether west-central Pennsylvania or Alabama’s Tennessee River Valley.

 

Again, so much in Nature lies hidden in plain sight. Oakley discovered untold olfactory treasures. Most un-attuned hikers would not have seen, understood, and appreciated the visual treasures I encountered in our brief morning excursion. Allow me now to superficially catalog the more notable main canopy tree species.

 

Diverse Species Introductions

 

With little need for extensive narrative, I offer photos expressing the forest’s dominant upper canopy tree species. Yellow poplar reigns supreme at Wolf Creek Narrows, just as the species rules the high canopy at my favorite deep forest stand along the Wells Memorial Trail in Alabama’s Monte Sano State Park.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I recorded this 59-second video of the forest’s mixed species.

 

I conducted my doctoral field research in the Allegheny Hardwood forests within 80 miles of Wolf Creek…forests dominated by black cherry.  I revere the species for its beautiful high grade furniture wood, superior height growth, straight form, and handsome bark and foliage. The white-trail-marked black cherry (image below right) delivered a message meant for me. The species marked my professional development re-route. I worked 12 years after earning my Forestry BS for a southern paper and allied products manufacturing company that relied heavily on loblolly pine, a utility species here in the Southeast. Black cherry is anything but a utility species. It’s the filet mignon of furniture grade timber. Black cherry served as the North Star for my second career launch. The big white-blazed cherry signaled that the species remains a major emblem and totem for my path well into retirement. Among my fellow Union Camp foresters, I chose the path less traveled…one lined by black cherry trees (the other edged by loblolly pine) leading to a PhD and 35 years at nine universities.

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

(Robert Frost)

 

American beech and yellow birch reminded me of my love for northern hardwood forests.

 

Basswood (tree and leaves) also ranges into northern Alabama, but the entire mixed species forest package at Wolf Creek represents a special orchestration that strokes my psyche and lifts my entire body, heart, mind, soul, and spirit. The assemblage reached me as Art Garfunkel belting his full-bodied Bridge Over Troubled Waters!

 

Black walnut tree and nut.

 

 

Bitternut hickory.

 

And nut.

 

Cucumber tree and leaf.

 

Red oak, deep memories, and an older gent feeling young-at-heart experiencing a symbolic step into his past…at home in a place he’d never been before.

 

Forests like this netted me decades ago, never completely allowing release. I think of Robert Service’s The Spell of the Yukon:

The freshness, the freedom, the farness–

O God! how I’m stuck on it all.

There’s a land–oh, it beckons and beckons,

And I want to go back–and I will.

It’s the great, big, broad land ‘way up yonder,

It’s the forest where silence has lease;

It’s the beauty that thrills me with wonder,

It’s the stillness that fills me with peace.

Some of me remains in the Far Northland of Alaska, where we lived 2004-08. Service nailed the place and my sentiment. In similar fashion, vestiges of these magnificent northern hardwood forests habituate my psyche. I want to go back–and I will, if only to the nearby Wells Memorial Trail, a suitable southern version of a rich upland forest.

 

Thoughts and Reflections

 

I offer these observations:

  • The rich northern hardwood forest is an orchestral composition, a natural Bridge Over Troubled Waters. (Steve Jones)
  • Black Cherry is a trail marker species, both a literal guide through the Wolf Creek Narrows forest…and a career/life path symbol and guidepost for me. (Steve Jones)
  • Mine is a story of passion for place and everyday Nature. (Steve Jones)

Inhale and absorb Nature’s elixir. May Nature Inspire, Inform, and Reward you!

 

Note: All blog post images created & photographed by Stephen B. Jones unless otherwise noted. Please circulate images with photo credit: “©2025 Steve Jones, Great Blue Heron LLC. All Rights Reserved.”

I am available for Nature-Inspired Speaking, Writing, and Consulting — contact me at steve.jones.0524@gmail.com

Subscribe to these free weekly Nature Blogs (photo essays) at: http://eepurl.com/cKLJdL

 

Reminder of my Personal and Professional Purpose, Passion, and Cause

If only more of us viewed our precious environment through the filters I employ. If only my mission and vision could be multiplied untold orders of magnitude:

Mission: Employ writing and speaking to educate, inspire, and enable readers and listeners to understand, appreciate, and enjoy Nature… and accept and practice Earth Stewardship.

Vision:

  • People of all ages will pay greater attention to and engage more regularly with Nature… and will accept and practice informed and responsible Earth Stewardship.
  • They will see their relationship to our natural world with new eyes… and will understand more clearly their Earth home.

Tagline/Motto: Steve (Great Blue Heron) encourages and seeks a better tomorrow through Nature-Inspired Living!

 

Steve’s Four Books

 

I wrote my books Nature Based Leadership (2016), Nature-Inspired Learning and Leading (2017), Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits: Stories of Passion for Place and Everyday Nature (2019; co-authored with Dr. Jennifer Wilhoit), and Dutton Land & Cattle: A Land Legacy Story (2023) to encourage all citizens to recognize and appreciate that every lesson for living, learning, serving, and leading is either written indelibly in or is powerfully inspired by Nature. All four of my books present compilations of personal experiences expressing my deep passion for Nature. All four books offer observations and reflections on my relationship with the natural world… and the broader implications for society. Order any from your local indie bookstore, or find them on IndieBound or other online sources such as Amazon and LifeRich.

I began writing books and Posts for several reasons:

  • I love hiking and exploring Nature
  • I see images I want to (and do) capture with my trusty iPhone camera
  • I enjoy explaining those images — an educator at heart
  • I don’t play golf!
  • I do love writing — it’s the hobby I never needed when my career consumed me
  • Judy suggested my writing is in large measure my legacy to our two kids, our five grandkids, and all the unborn generations beyond
  • And finally, perhaps my books and Blogs could reach beyond family and touch a few other lives… sow some seeds for the future