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

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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

 

 

 

 

 

They’re back — Sandhill Cranes Return to Alabama’s Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge!

/in /by

I visited the Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge Visitors Center on December 19, 2025, my first venture since the winter cranes returned a month prior. I parked in the Center’s lot within 30 minutes of leaving my driveway. Think of it…a world-class wildlife and Nature destination just 20 miles to the WSW. My heart-and-soul bond with these magnificent birds rekindles when I hear the clamorous bugles, rattles, and croaks of 10-15,000 sandhill cranes celebrating their winter feeding and trumpeting their social frenzy in our southern climes.

Cycle fractals define so much in Nature: hydrologic, carbon, nitrogen, food, and life cycles. The same for the rhythms of seasonal, nutrient, migratory, and reproductive pulses, as well as our human birth, youth, maturation, reproduction, child-rearing, aging, sowing seeds, leaving memories, and saying goodbye continuum. Sandhill cranes commonly live 20-40 years. I first witnessed the winter Wheeler cranes 30 years ago (1995). Most of the cranes I saw on December 19, 2025, hatched since then, and yet the teeming flocks seemed unchanged. Such is the beauty, magic, wonder, awe, and inspiration of cycle, rhythm, and pulse fractals.

 

Reacquainting with the Cranes

 

Straight down the slope from the Center display and museum building, thousands of cranes crowded the marsh, pecking and scratching for food, cavorting, courting, leaping, communicating, fussing, and likely just plain extolling the glories of their blessed existence on God’s Green Earth. Every day that I visit from Thanksgiving to mid-February reveals carbon copy enthusiasm. I am sure, however, that their life is not so routine and simple. There are predators: coyotes, foxes, gators, snapping turtles, human hunters, and eagles. And hazards: automobiles, biting winds, arctic chills,  and flooding winter rains. Surely the marauding cranes eventually deplete a mid-December marshland spot rich with seeds, roots, worms, and other invertebrate treats. For the moment, I observed a morning without need or threat. All was well…with the flocks and with me.

 

The cranes tell their tale far better than I. This 58-second video expresses their joy and jubilation with the great crane cycle of life!

 

I retreated the marsh-side, woods-edge observation point to walk the wooded trail to the observation building. Across my many decades of reveling in Nature, I have a storehouse of precious memories. Favorite places, experiences, and even some accomplishments. Listening to the cranes, I mused, what are among my noteworthy auditory memories?

 

I forced myself to make a list. Number one jumped forward, rising above all others. The unrestrained belly laughter of our infant kids and grandkids…so incredibly magnificent, and oh so ephemeral. Like a woodland spring wildflower, the time of infant and toddler contagious and limitless convulsive chortling is brief. We cycle past it. The memories remain, and resurface when we hear another’s child, bringing mist to our eyes as we remember that our son is 49 (1/25/77) and two of our grandkids are graduating high school in May. As I draft this text on the first day of 2026, I am reminded: To every thing there is a season.

Ecclesiastes (3: 1-8 KJV):

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:

A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;

A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; 

A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;

A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;

A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;

A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;

A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.

 

Less sentimental, a second sound without contest is the great music of over-wintering sandhill cranes. A spring morning songbird chorus is among the top ten. When we lived further north, nothing surpassed the first geese migrating south in the fall…or north in the spring. Aldo Leopold said of Sand County Wisconsin geese:

One swallow does not make a summer, but one skein of geese, cleaving the murk of a March thaw, is the spring… A March morning is only as drab as he who walks in it without a glance skyward, ear cocked for geese.

A pack of coyotes deep in the night ranks high. I have never first-hand heard a wolf pack, yet I am sure it would be a contender. Not all grand sounds are of animal origin. Among them are rain on a tin roof. A gurgling stream. A soft summer breeze through leafy tree crowns. Distant thunder promising rain during a summer dry period.

Other sounds I love include squeaky snow underfoot at sub-zero temperatures. Muted blizzard gales through Alaska spruce. Oregon coastal waves blasting the rocky shore. The list is long. During my 20s and 30s, I ran distance recreationally and competitively, logging miles mostly pre-dawn to avoid stealing time from our young family. Many fellow runners trained listening to music. I loved Nature’s orchestral accompaniment.

I recorded this 59-second video along the trail to the observation building.

 

The observation building nearby brings the cranes indoors, where viewers are invisible to the birds. Microphones pipe in their raucous calls. A perfect day to offer bird images inverted in the water…and to encourage deeper mental reflections on having such a marvel within reach of where I am fortunate enough to live. I recall decades ago visiting Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge in Olympia, Washington. The Nisqually River Delta empties into the Puget Sound. Judy and I loved walking the miles of boardwalk, watching the tremendous tidal surge that rents the delta twice daily. I would love to return to spend a day, but it’s on the other side of the country. It’s not 30 minutes from my garage door to the Nisqually entrance. I will likely not visit again, yet I may check the internet for a video refresher. [Okay, I just watched a seven-minute mini-documentary — a nice break!]

 

I spotted one whooping crane near the opposite woods edge, an observation that one of the birders with a long lens verified. The cranes in this frame are in constant motion, a parallel to our individual human existence. We are in constant motion, but is it purposed movement?

 

The cranes are purpose driven. There is never a dull moment on the marshland.

I recorded this 59-second video of the clangorous cranes.

 

Leopold penned Marshland Elegy in A Sand County Almanac:

Our appreciation of the crane grows with the slow unraveling of earthly history. His tribe, we now know, stems out of the remote Eocene. The other members of the fauna in which he originated are long since entombed within the hills. When we hear his calls we hear no mere bird. We hear the trumpet in the orchestra of evolution. He is the symbol of our untamable past, of that incredible sweep of millennia which underlies and conditions the daily affairs of birds and men.

 

Leopold’s elegy arose from his concern that the days of viable crane marshes were at risk, perhaps already having crossed a threshold beyond recovery:

The sadness discernible in some marshes arises, perhaps, from their once having harbored cranes. Now they stand humbled, adrift in history.

Such, thank God, is not a sadness at our Wheeler NWR!

 

Cypress Pond Bonus!

 

Cranes headline Wheeler’s winter show, but the cypress pond near the Center always beckons this old forester. Slanting shadows, clean lines, tall stems, and needle-carpeted forest floor stir my sylvan soul.

 

I recorded this 60-second video along the boardwalk.

 

Cypress draws my eye skyward, where the columnar crowns respect each other’s space. The individual trees don’t touch. The branches are not interlaced. The technical term for the tendency to abide by no touching is crown shyness.

 

I recorded this 59-second crown shyness video.

 

These grand birds, with their prehistoric caricature, star in the WNWR winter show, but I consider the cypress pond as a year-long feature act, even though relegated to the sidelines during the annual crane Super-bird Bowl!

 

Reflecting on the cranes, I think of the sadness not of their demise, but of their seasonal departure by the end of February for their summer breeding grounds. I’ll miss them, but upon reflection I reject the notion of sadness. Instead, I embrace the notion that the cranes, in effect, are departing to a seasonally better place. This morning (January 4, 2026), we sang I’ll Fly Away at church:

Some glad morning when this life is o’er
I’ll fly away
To a home on God’s celestial shore
I’ll fly away (I’ll fly away)

Just a few more weary days and then
I’ll fly away
To a land where joy shall never end
I’ll fly away (I’ll fly away)

The cranes celebrate their annual return North To a land where joy shall never end…at least until next autumn, when chilling winds signal a migratory departure to Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge.

 

Thoughts and Reflections

 

I offer these observations:

  1. To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven. (Ecclesiastes)
  2. He [the sandhill crane] is the symbol of our untamable past, of that incredible sweep of millennia which underlies and conditions the daily affairs of birds and men. (Aldo Leopold, Marshland Elegy)
  3. The cranes celebrate their annual return North to a land where joy shall never end…at least until next autumn, when chilling winds signal a migratory departure to Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge. (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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

Early Autumn Delights on Madison, AL’s Rainbow Mountain Nature Preserve!

/in /by

On October 12, 2025, I led a scheduled Land Trust of North Alabama hike on the Rainbolt Trail, Rainbow Mountain Nature Preserve in Madison, Alabama. I led 16 participants, ascending ~250 feet to the Rainbow Mountain Loop Trail, then to the Balance Rock near the preserve’s summit, and returning to our trailhead. I knew as the leader and interpreter, I would have no time for photos, videos, and detailed personal exploration. Instead, I scouted the route three days in advance, sauntering to snap photographs and record brief videos to include in this Post.

 

I found multiple delights worthy of pointing out to the hikers. Fragrant sumac, often mistaken for poison ivy or poison oak, grows trailside on the Rainbolt Trail lower slope.

 

Carolina buckthorn, an understory shrub, is also common along the lower hillside.

 

Amur honeysuckle, an East-Asian invasive, is likewise common, unfortunately.

 

Chinquapin oak is among the many oak species populating our uplands.

 

Always alert for tree form oddities and curiosities, I photographed this rock-kissing chestnut oak with resurrection fern aside one of the many limestone ledges.

 

 

Rainbow Mountain is one giant limestone ledge!

 

I recorded a brief video of a terraced ledge and a shagbark hickory standing sentinel against it.

 

A still photograph of the shagbark hickory with its intricate plated, shaggy bark.

 

There is no limit to elements of Nature hidden in plain sight. My goal in leading any Nature Walk is to encourge participants to look, see, understand, and appreciate. The task of interpreting is complicated by a narrow trail, varying pace, and a wide range of participant interest. I try to reach as many as I can and transfer as much as I am able.

Alligator rock, admitedly an imaginative stretch, fascinated everyone.

 

I had recorded a brief alligator rock video on my scouting visit.

 

A three-stemmed chinquapin oak served as another point of interest…and learning. You’ll see in the video below that this fern-draped stem is one of three.

 

I recorded a brief video at above cluster.

 

A contorted dead Eastern redcedar, flanked by chinquapin oak and green ash seedlings, sported a pleasant cape of resurrection fern.

 

Viewed from different angles, the cedar with fern presents a lovely natural sculpture.

 

I never tire of the menagerie of beauty, magic, wonder, awe, and inspiration that Nature provides, like this supplejack vine spiraling on a hickory sapling. I hoped that some level of my amazement, surprise, and delight transfered to my fellow hikers. Enthusiasm for Nature can be (should be) a contagion.

 

Oh, what a treasure is this whitemouth dayflower!

 

My journey of discovery and joy is not limited to the botanical. The physical environment stirs my soul. I am a closet geologist, fascinated by this layered limestone head wall (view to the South left and North right) at the suumit of the preserve. How many millions of years ago did the source marine creatures die and their sediment collect on a shallow tropical sea floor?

 

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

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

 

Thoughts and Reflections

 

I offer my observations:

  • Nothing in Nature is static; every visit reveals a distinct face.
  • Leading a Nature walk, I try to reach as many as I can and transfer as much as I am able.
  • Enthusiasm for Nature can be (should be) a contagion.

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

 

 

 

 

Brief-Form Post #53: Wolf Creek Narrows Forest Renewal in an Old Growth Northern Hardwood Stand!

/in /by

 

I am pleased to add the 53rd of my GBH Brief-Form Posts (Less than five minutes to read!) to my website. I get wordy with my routine Posts. I don’t want my enthusiasm for thoroughness and detail to discourage readers. So, I will occasionally publish these brief Posts.

 

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. 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 a recent blowdown within the Natural Area and my reflections on the implications for the affected stand.

 

Blowdown in the Forest

 

All forests are in flux. Individual trees germinate, grow, senesce, and die. Forests come and go with disturbance. Wind, ice, fire, insects, and disease affect trees and entire forests. I observe often that death is a big part of life in forested ecosystems and, for that matter, in any ecosystem. Within a discreet portion of the Wolf Creek Narrows Natural Area old growth forest, a wind storm (thunderstorm downdraft or microburst; derecho; tornado; or perhaps sustained winter gales) toppled enough mature trees to give the affected stand a unique character.

 

The fallen trees align parallel to the wind direction, their lower trunks shattered or the entire tree uprooted. Based on the apparent progress of woody debris decay, I estimate that the wind event occurred within the past three years.

 

The wind eliminated enough overstory canopy to significantly reduce forest floor shading. Already understory woody and herbaceous plants are responding with increased vitality. Nature abhors a vacuum.

 

A cinnabar bracket fungus has colonized this downed American beech, evidencing that the windthrow-accelerated carbon cycling is in full gear.

 

Elevated root mounds provide ideal sites for herbaceous exploitation. White ash seedlings are quickly colonizing the forest floor on either side of the downed white ash tree.

 

Not all of the downed trees resulted from the discreet recent event. These trunks toppled more than five years ago. This hardwood stand, like most of Pennsylvania’s forests, is probably even-aged, regenerating following some catastrophic event, such as timber harvesting, widespread major wind, or fire.

 

An even-aged forest grows in a predictable manner. The inverse J-shaped diameter distribution is one such formulaic metric. Consider the graphs below as a generalized representation of the growth pattern across time. A young even-aged stand my have thousands of stems per acre. Look above at the many ash seedlings surrounding the single mature fallen ash. Over decades, the stand density (stems per unit area) declines. What may have been thousands becomes hundreds, and ultimately scores and dozens. Average stem diameter of the white ash seedlings (two rows above) is less than an inch. The fallen mother (seed source) tree is perhaps two feet.

 

The tendancy of an even-aged old growth hardwood forest is to gradually transition naturally to uneven-age. Some of the windthrow openings may be large enough to allow trees, their germination triggered by the recent storm, to emerge into the upper canopy, representing a younger age class. Many of the openings will at least be large enough to allow a sapling or mid-canopy cohort to establish, staging one or more of those individuals to rapidly ascend into the main canopy when a subsequent storm topples a large dominat tree, or a cluster of the original old growth cohort.

The forest is in no hurry. Its evolutionary pathway prepared this very successful admixture of species to flourish and persist when conditions are favorable and respond when change presents opportunities. The ash seedlings are already carpeting the ground now blessed with open canopy sunlight. Although my examinations were only surperficial, I observed that American beech, sugar maple, and white oak are stand components. They are shade tolerant species that can persist for decades under a full canopy. They and others are poised to constitute a greater percentage of the future dominant canopy.

The forest is changing, as are all forests. The wind event accelerated the change. I’d like to monitor it annually over another several decades, but my own life curve continues unabated. Perhaps I can revisit Wolf Creek Narrows another time or two, but there are no guarantees. I am grateful for having made this inaugural visit. I’ve learned something of this slice of Nature near to my son’s home and not too far from where I conducted my forestry doctoral research four decades ago.

I am addicted to special places and everyday Nature. Wolf Creek Narrows Natural Area is one such Special Place.

 

Closing

 

I accept the challenge of distilling these Brief-Form Posts into a single distinct reflection, a task far more elusive than assembling a dozen pithy statements.

I cannot offer a quote more apropos than an observation I made in the text above:

The forest is in no hurry. Its evolutionary pathway prepared it to flourish and persist when conditions are favorable, and to respond when change presents opportunities to exploit.

 

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

 

 

Gray Cemetery: Nature Across Two Centuries of Life, Living, and Dying!

/in /by

Suburban housing and light commercial establishments surround Gray Cemetery in Madison, Alabama. Urged by friend Gilbert White to visit the 200-year-old cemetery, I (and my 17-year-old grandson, Jack) met him there on September 6, 2025, as a thunderstorm bore down on us. We returned for a leisurely, sunny Sunday afternoon with Gilbert the next day. Abandoned 100 years ago, the cemetery (courtesy of volunteers working feverishly over the past four years) is reappearing from the jungle of natural vegetation regrowth. My central observation is that Nature is adept at disappearing (i.e., hiding, obscuring, and concealing) the dedicated work of man.

The new look will attract saunterers — mature forest, an open understory, and the deep and meaningful history tales told by the ~500 permanent residents whose remains are interred here.

 

This incredible cemetery is a gem recovered from a jungle of natural vegetation and vibrant second-growth forest that strangled the cemetery for a full century. The new scene is park-like, the trees towering above the newly revealed historical site.

 

Diverse Tree Species

 

A diverse tree overstory complements the rich human history. I admit to total fascination with the forest that emerged from the grassy knoll that served as an early Madison, Alabama burial oasis. I won’t burden you with the messy dendrology of the species I discovered, admired, and celebrated.

White oak.

 

A white oak stump resulted when workers removed the tree decapitated by an F-1 tornado passing nearby earlier in the summer. I accepted the carnage as a gift, permitting me to do a ring count. The tree aged at 103 years, confirming that the tree regenerated at the time of cemetery abandonment and neglect.

 

The annual rings of oak are easy to count.

 

I assume that this 44-inch diameter white oak is older, and probably shaded a segment of the cemetery for decades prior to service and maintenance ceased.

 

See this spectacular white oak on my 27-second video:

 

Sweetgum (left) is one of our common Alabama forest denizens. The species aggressively colonizes abandoned crop, pasture, grasslands, and cemeteries. Sugar maple (right).

 

Likewise, water oak is ubiquitous in our area.

 

As are species of hickory.

 

Black cherry, not a valuable timber species in northern Alabama, does regenerate valiantly and works its way into the intermediate canopy.

 

Eastern redcedar is a prolific pioneer species. This one is notably large and vibrant. What a magnificent crown, with laddered branching that reaches high above.

 

I recorded a 57-second video of the handsome Eastern redcedar tree.

 

I mentioned the low intensity tornado that side-swiped the old cemetery. It toppled  a large loblolly pine.

 

The fallen pine, like most of the trees standing within the cemetery, probably dates back to abandonment.

 

 

 

Cemetery Remnants

 

I had not previously seen such brick tombs.

 

 

 

Here is the oldest interment at Gray Cemetery. I am sure that Mrs. Gray’s story is rich with life and living, and that many loved and loving descendents mourned her passing.

 

Local celebrated local historian John Rankin shared some time with us. He knows many of the stories that enrich our cemetery explorations and reflections.

 

I recorded this 60-second video showing the four types of tombs.

 

This is a box tomb.

 

An Irish stone tomb.

 

And another example of a standard vertical tombstone.

 

 

Cemetery Critters

 

Among the departed humans, I found evidence of a current living resident — the shed skin of a grey ratsnake.

 

And a hackberry emperor butterfly.

 

Throughout our vibrant ecosystems, including the human realm, life and death are intertwined.

 

Thoughts and Reflections

 

I offer these observations:

  • Nature is adept at disappearing (i.e., hiding, obscuring, and concealing) the dedicated works of man. (Steve Jones)
  • Throughout our vibrant ecosystems, including the human realm, life and death are intertwined. (Steve Jones)
  • This incredible cemetery is a gem recovered from a jungle of natural vegetation and vibrant second-growth forest that strangled the cemetery for a full century. (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 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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Late Summer Revelation and Confusion (mine!) in a WNWR Bottomland Forest

/in /by

I once again wandered the bottomland hardwood forest on the Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge, south of HGH Road near the Madison-Limestone County line on the morning of August 30, 2025. I wanted to reconnoiter the forest with my recently acquired 1937 aerial photo of the stand. I present my preliminary observations, reflections, photographs, and brief videos as I attempt to make sense of forest history and lay the groundwork for reevaluation during the dormant season.

 

My Hesitant Working Hypothesis

 

I was convinced that the bottomland hardwood forest that I explore 3-4 times per year, had regenerated naturally from abandoned farmland since the Corps of Engineers completed construction of Wheeler Dam in the mid-1930s. However, I often found trees far older and individuals decayed beyond what I would expect in a forest freshly regenerated just eight and one half decades ago. Chris Stuhlinger, another retired forester, and I are digging into the question of stand origin. The area I frequent lies south of the red line (HGH Road) and west of the vertical line (Madison County to the east; Limestone to the left) on this 1937 aerial photo. I’ve placed a short vertical ink mark where I routinely enter the forest, which is clearly extant 88 years ago, discounting my supposition of a forest sprouting in the mid-30s from abandoned agricultural land.

HGH

 

I determined the age of a large wind-blown white oak just a few hundred feet south of the forest beyond the edge of the photograph: August 2025 Post: https://stevejonesgbh.com/2025/08/27/huge-white-oak-blowdown-and-cleanup-at-wheeler-national-wildlife-refuge/.  I determined its age at 129 years, making it 30-40 years old when acquired by the Corps/TVA. Chris and I will closely examine the stand during the 2025-26 dormant season in the absence of mosquitoes, ticks, chiggers, foliated poison ivy, and oppressive heat and humidity. HGH

 

 

My Rationale for Accepting  an Abandoned Farmland Origin

 

In the meantime, I reveal and reflect upon my recent saunter. Dominant yellow poplar and red oak trees could easily have been seedlings in the 1930s. These bottomland soils are extraordinarily fertile.

 

I recorded this 41-second video of a large black oak within a mixed stand that could have regenerated nearly nine decades ago.

 

The same is true of the forest housing this mid-story persimmon and a main canopy black oak.

 

Here is my 35-second video of the persimmon and black oak.

 

I recorded this 38-second video of mixed main canopy and understory species.

 

 

Evidence Casting Doubt on My Abandoned Farmland Hypothesis

 

The very large dominant trees, including standing dead and nearby grotesqueley swollen and decayed individuals (the final tree in the short video) suggest an older stand. The massive green ash and shagbark hickory, both about two and one half feet in diameter, also hint at an age beyond 88 years.

 

The same advanced age can be deduced by this 44.5-inch diameter chinquapin oak and the Carpinus carolinia (muscle wood tree) growing at its base.

 

I also encountered this hollowed three-foot diameter oak barely clinging to life. Eighty-eight years is too abbreviated a period to reach this size and advanced decay.

HGH

 

I recorded this 47-second video highlighting the hollowed oak.

 

Likewise for this hopelessy decayed and swollen four-foot diameter oak.

HGH

 

Here is my 47-second video of the individual.

 

This ancient oak stands along the old lane 150 feet from where I parked.  Three and one-half feet in diameter, a windstorm took half of its canopy in the summer of 2020. Hidden from this view, the tree is hollow and open at the base, extending at least 30 feet to where the wind ripped half the crown away,

 

This violently uprooted three-foot diameter cherrybark oak toppled earlier this past summer.

 

I recorded this 57-second video of the fallen giant.

 

Here’s another view of the oak.

HGH

 

Nature has work to do, returning the tons of recently deceased wood to the soil. The carbon cycle is a BIG deal! Powder post beetles, wood-boring insects that deposit eggs just under the bark of dead or dying trees, are first in line to feast on the mighty oak’s cellulose and lignin. Drafting this narrative triggered an urge to ask many questions that at the moment I will not take time to answer. Questions such as, “How do the adult beetles know the oak is dead? Do live and dead wood smell different? Does living cambium emit sounds a beetle can hear? Does appearance change subtly with death? More obviously, does a horizontal trunk light up with a neon invitation to Come and Get it!?” Trust me, the beetles know! Within the two months since the tree fell, beetles have deposited eggs, the larvae have hatched, and begun voraciously consuming wood fiber. The beetles have already progressed from egg, to larva, to pupa, to adult. The emergent adult exit holes pepper with the fallen trunk with powdery frass.

 

Death and life are inter-twined in the forest. The forest air is seasonally thick with fungal spores that have already entered every beetle exit hole. Infecting hyphae have found purchase within the oak. Mushrooms will appear on the oak trunk by the end of next summer. Five years hence, the bark will have sloughed and decay will have penetrated deeply into the wood. Nature abhors a vacuum!

 

Temporary Closure and a Revised Hypothesis

 

The 1937 aerial photo is clear. The area I felt had been in agriculture when engineers completed Wheeler Dam was, in fact, forested in 1937. I have a new hypothesis to test with Chris when we conduct our dormant season on-site forestry forensic sleuthing after New Year’s. The largest trees in the stand are overwhelmingly diseased and battered, suggesting that they may have been unmerchatable individuals when crews commercially harvested the forest that was present when the Corps/TVA aqcuired the land adjacent to the land destined for Lake Wheeler inundation. The resultant forest 88 years later is two-aged:

  1. The naturally regenerated 88 year old hardwood stand
  2. Scattered mostly unmerchantable individuals left by loggers

I look forward to learning as we go. As with most elements of Nature, the more I learn, the less I know. Every revelation uncovers new mystery. Such is the joy of curiosity.

Thoughts and Reflections

 

I offer these observations:

  • The noblest pleasure is the joy of understanding. (da Vinci)

  • Every revelation uncovers new mystery. Such is the joy of curiosity. (Steve Jones)

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

  • As with most elements of Nature, the more I learn, the less I know. (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: “©2025 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

 

HGH Road

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

Brief-Form Post #52: Late October Afternoon Scouting for Eagles and Nests at Lake Guntersville State Park!

/in /by

I am pleased to add the 52nd of my GBH Brief-Form Posts (Less than five minutes to read!) to my website. I get wordy with my routine Posts. I don’t want my enthusiasm for thoroughness and detail to discourage readers. So, I will occasionally publish these brief Posts.

 

Fellow retired forester Chris Stuhligher and I visited Lake Guntersville State Park (LGSP) on October 23, 2025, to scout a scheduled spring 2026 eagle view outing for the University of Alabama in Huntsville Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI). The LGSP map in hand, we stopped by several indicated locations. I present an overview of our afternoon ramblings, keeping the narrative brief and technically superficial.

The eagle at the lodge set the tone for our scouting venture.

 

We enjoyed lunch at the lodge restaurant, our table overlooking the lake.

 

Cabins Shoreline

 

Our first suggested viewing spot was the shoreline adjacent to the cabins. We were to search the opposite bank for a summer-foliage-obscured nest. We did not find it, yet we spotted a pair of eagles soaring above us, an adult and an immature.

Lake GSP

 

The photo at left shows the opposite shoreline, where the eagle’s nest, we were assured, lies hidden to our eyes. Regradless, who could not appreciate the cerulean sky, bright sunshine, and comfortable early autumn temperature!

Lake GSP

 

 

Here is my 58-second video from the cabins lakeshore.

 

I’m a sucker for tall loblollies and shoreline vistas.

Lake GSP

 

I wanted to revisit the nearby Cave Trail, hoping to quickly photograph the oak burled in the distinctive Big Foot image.

 

Brief Saunter at the Cave Trail

 

Here is my July 18, 2018 photo:

 

I intended to insert the new image here. However, just as there are days when I cannot remember what I had for lunch the day before, I failed to navigate us back the the infamous tree! I will try another day when we have more time for frivality. However, in searching, I did find a very unattractive, yet photo-worthy canker along the Cave Trail.

I recorded this 58-second grotesque Halloween canker video on an elm tree.

 

I sampled a twig from the elm and offer a still photo.

Lake GSPLake GSP

 

Town Creek Boat Launch

 

Our second viewing location forced us to look across the lake directly into the late afternoon sun. We imagined how much better the spot would be with the morning sun at our backs. However, the location kindly presented us with a great blue heron buffeted by persistent winds and surrounded by whitecaps.

I recorded this 59-second video of the windy great blue heron. Pardon the wind drowning out my narrative.

 

Unfortunately, the heron took graceful flight when I stopped recording.

 

As regular readers know, I am a huge fan of great blue herons.

 

Sunset Drive Greenway in Guntersville, Alabama

 

We drove to a final suggested site, this one off the State Park along Sunset Drive Greenway in the town of Guntersville. The shoreline and greenway are lovely. I intend to visit with Judy during the coming months, to enjoy a mid-morning stroll followed by lunch in Guntersville.

Lake GSP

 

A highlight for such a stroll will be the massive eagle’s nest in a grand loblolly pine.

My 60-second Sunset Drive Eagle’s Nest.

Ours was not an outing requiring months of planning, air travel, and expensive lodging. We needed no reservations. Instead, we boarded Chris’ car after adjouring our 10:00 to 11:30 AM National Parks (LearningQuest) class session at Hampton Cove, drove 45 minutes to the park, grabbed lunch at the lodge, and began our scouting. I am a firm advocate of enjoying Nature near at hand…making the most of special places and everyday Nature!

Closing

 

I accept the challenge of distilling these Brief-Form Posts into a single distinct reflection, a task far more elusive than assembling a dozen pithy statements.

I cannot offer a quote more poignantly apropos than this anonymous statement:

The strength of the bald eagle lies not just in its wings, but in its unyielding spirit…its symbol of purity, grandeur, wildness, mastery, freedom, independence, integrity, and Americanism. 

 

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