fungi Archives - Steve Jones Great Blue Heron

Perfect Autumn Morning Hiking at Hickory Cove Nature Preserve

March 6, 2025/in Updates /by Steve Jones

On November 23, 2024, fellow retired forester Chris Stuhlinger and I co-led an OLLI (Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, University of Alabama in Huntsville) hike at Hickory Cove Nature Preserve near Huntsville. Owned and managed by the Land Trust of North Alabama, the preserve encompasses 146 acres of second-growth hardwood forest, rocky ledges, wet weather springs and falls, and a historic spring house. I previously visited the preserve in late July 2024 (just before my total right knee replacement surgery) accompanied by my two Alabama grandsons (see my September 10, 2024, Great Blue Heron photo essay: https://stevejonesgbh.com/2024/09/10/trees-of-the-hickory-cove-nature-preserves-legacy-loop-trail/).

Because Chris and I designated this trek as a Hike, our pace did not accommodate the sauntering that John Muir insisted upon and that my photography, videoing, and observations required. As a result, I caught up with the group only occasionally when they paused and at the end! Once in a while, someone would lag with me. I valued their presence but am accustomed to and comfortable with solitary treks. The group hiked (I sauntered) the 1.75-mile Legacy Trail, a delightful forest exploration from 860 feet elevation to 1,010 and return. Come along with me as I offer observations, reflections, 19 photos, and four brief videos.

The deck overlooks an old stone spring house. Justust 100 feet dowstream a stone water trough engineered after decades to still collect and hold water to the brim. Autumn does not barge into north Alabama. Even within a week of December, the crowns are not yet bare. The spring houuse tells part of the land domestication tale. Somewhere nearby, the wooden residence and farm structures served by the spring house lay in ruins (ashes?). Perhaps closer inspection would reveal a long-abandoned and decaying still.

A sauntering pace permitted me to seek and spend a little time with tree form curiosities and oddities. This white oak spoke to me, “Slow down old forester. Pay attention. Ponder why I am so large, aged, and of coarse limb.” I heeded his request (was it a demand?). Evidence and hints within the forest suggested former attempted domestication, including roughland tillage and pasturing. The white oak is considerably older than the forest we traversed. It enjoyed many years open grown, its coarse branch stubs indicating that it did not mature within a tightly packed closed forest. Was it a shade tree at the old homestead or within a hillside pasture? On my next visit I will search for clues.

Woody vines, like this supplejack, are a component of the overstory canopy in most of our north Alabama second-growth forests. Birds drop gut-scarified seed among the brush of a new forest, and ride on the growing stems as the eventual tree winners ascended 60, 80, and 100 (or more) feet above. Most commonly I find wild grape (muscadine and scuppernong); supplejack and wisteria also find their way into the canopy by the same route. English ivy (not native) and Virginia creeper may also be present but seldomly reach beyond mid-canopy.

I like the smooth green bark of supplejack. An online source offers high praise for this native woody vine:

Supplejack is a plant that provides food for wildlife. Its fruits are high in calcium and are eaten by songbirds, wild turkey, northern bobwhite, raccoon, and gray squirrels. The plant supports local ecosystems without disrupting them.

I recorded this 52-second supplejack video:

Once in a while the sauntering old forester caught up with the hikers just in time for them, well rested, to resume their faster pace. Some stretches of the preserve’s forest were better stocked, supporting taller mixed upland hardwoods (at right) still holding fall foliage.

I recorded this 44-second video of the group resuming its quicker pace, leaving me once again to my business of gathering fodder for a photo essay.

Fallen, standing dead, and failing live Eastern red cedar throughout the preserve evidenced past land use. Cedar is a north Alabama pioneer species, one of the first woody plants to colonize abandoned fields and pastures, as well as cutover forestland. You’ve heard the familiar refrain — birds deposit the scarified seeds in emerging brush. The seed sprouts, the seedlings thrive in the sun-rich environment, cedar dominates the stand’s first three to four decades, and then cedar begins to fade as the surrounding longer-lived hardwoods persist.

I recorded this 41-second video of the scrubby forest and a handsome ash tree, as a woodpecker tapped nearby:

I like the uniformly deeply furrowed pattern of green and white ash bark. Everything about the two species is regimented: the exceptional bark, the straight bole, and the species’ regal bearing and vertical posture. Ash trees remind me of the polished cadet corps at a military academy. In stark contrast, the shagbark trees are akin to a gathering of beach bums, their hair unkempt and their clothes and posture of little self-concern. The ash generates a glance of admiration and respect. The shagbark pulls me close for deep contemplation, whimsical imagination, and curiosity about the relative evolutionary advantages of the two forms.

The questions and musings aren’t suited to the hiker; the burden of discovery and investigation falls to the saunterer.

The group paused on the other side of a wooden bridge crossing a wet weather spring. Once again well rested, the group accepted my arrival as a trigger to resume their hiking.

Nearby, I recorded this 54-second video of two relicts (white oak and shagbark hickory) from a previous stand:

As with the white oak near the traihead, both of these indviduals bear coarse branching, large size, and a high crown ratio.

I discovered another tree form curiosity. A mockernut hickory stands within the grasp of a ground-forked sugar maple.

Will they prevail as a threesome? How intense is their competition for crown space (i.e. sunshine), soil moisture and nutrients, and even space for trunk expansion?

Although I have read some fanciful scientific recitations expounding on the wonderful and commonplace reciprocity, comensualism, and cooperation of Nature’s lifeforms, I resist such utopian scenarios. The sugar maple and hickory embrace above is not one of love and endearment. It’s one of coping with the unusual circumstance of both seeds germinating within a few inches and the two plants (the sugar maple I believe is a single forked tree) securing enough of life’s requirements to survuve for six to eight decades. They are engaged in fierce competition for those finite life resources. However, all three stems appear healthy; they are producing seed; their immediate future appears bright. I see no competitive advantage to such close proximity. I don’t anticipate out-living their proximal relationship. I can pledge only to spend more time with them on my next visit. Perhaps they will enlighten me in their own way.

I seldom compose my reflections and observations from these woodland rambles without generating more questions than answers. Rather than closing these pages with words of deep wisdom, I leave you with an image of pleasant woodland surroundings fitting for a late November midday…an invitation to return seeking insight and understanding from the forest. Every tree, every stand, and every forest have stories to tell. I’m still learning the language.

Thoughts and Reflections

I offer these observations:

Questions and musings aren’t suited to the hiker; the burden of discovery and investigation falls to the saunterer.
Every tree, every stand, and every forest have stories to tell. I’m still learning the language.
Ash trees remind me of the polished cadet corps at a military academy. In stark contrast, the shagbark trees are akin to a gathering of beach bums, their hair unkempt and their clothes and posture of little self-concern.

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.

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

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 (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

Early December Circuit of Jones Branch Trail at Shoal Creek Nature Preserve

February 26, 2025/in Updates /by Steve Jones

Fellow retired forester Chris Stuhlinger and I hiked the Jones Branch Trail on December 9, 2024, at the Shoal Creek Nature Preserve near Florence, Alabama. The preserve’s website:

The Shoal Creek Nature Preserve (dedicated by Forever Wild resolution as the Billingsley-McClure Shoal Creek Preserve) allows visitors to explore 298 acres of fallow fields, mature upland hardwood stands, and scenic creek bottoms in Lauderdale County. Waterways on the tract include Indian Camp Creek, Lawson Creek, Jones Branch and Shoal Creek. The tract was purchased in part through a Land and Water Conservation Fund grant awarded by the Alabama Department of Economics and Community Affairs, as well as through financial and in-kind contributions from the City of Florence and Lauderdale County.

The preserve encompasses less than one-half square mile, yet we sauntered roughly three miles through what seemed like a far more extensive property, experiencing diverse terrain, varied cover, several small streams, and one stretch overlooking the Shoal Creek arm of Lake Wilson (Tennessee River). I attempt with this Great Blue Heron photo essay to introduce you to the preserve, sharing its story as I read it in the forest, the land, and human artifacts. Come along on this interpretive journey.

I first visited the preserve in August 2023, just eight weeks after my triple bypass. I ventured just a few hundred feet into the property, my photo essay reporting only on the abandoned fields: https://stevejonesgbh.com/2023/11/01/mid-august-2023-first-time-visit-to-forever-wild-shoal-creek-nature-preserve/

I focus this current essay on the forest cover, predominately second growth hardwood naturally regenerated on abandoned pasture or rough tilled cropland. The forest tells the history, even as it hints at the future. Both of these images contain beech saplings, clinging to marcescent leaves, this past summer’s foliage that will hold until spring. Understory beech tolerates shade and can persist there for decades until the overstory gives way to disturbance (e.g., ice, wind, disease, or old age), bringing sunlight to the beech, which will respond to emerge as a major overstory component in the next stand.

The trigger for release (whether beech or some other species in the understory or intermediate canopy) may come as a widespread blowdown or the loss of a single tree, like this 30-inch diameter red oak, whose massive crown covered more than a tenth of an acre. The crown opening will trigger a race to fill the void. The competitors? I have observed that the adjoining upper canopy occupants will close the gap faster than any understory or intermediate canopy trees can rush upward to fill the void. Stand replacement will require more than single tree disturbance. Trust me, the beech is in no hurry.

The hollow red oak appeared healthy and strong, but it no longer had the structural strength to withstand the undefeated forces of physics and gravity. The second-growth forest stands of northern Alabama bear the torment of widespread decay infested by old wounds from prior logging or farmstead activities.

I recorded this 45-second video at the crash site!

Nothing in Nature is static. Within two years the tree top will collapse from decay, beginning with twigs and small branches, and by year ten, only a deeply decayed trunk will remain.

We found a species of oak not familiar to either of us: blackjack oak (Quercus marilandica), a shrub to medium-sized tree found in central and eastern USA in fields, woodland edges, and dry ridges. It prefers better drained soils and is often found where other trees will not grow due to poor soils. We vowed to pay closer attention on our next visit to learn more about the species, its abundance and distribution on the preserve, and its site preferences..

Eastern red cedar is an early successional species, colonizing abandoned agricultural land, old fields, and cutover forests. They are relatively short-lived, unable to compete effectively long-term with the hardwood neighbors. We found ubiquitous dead and dying cedar as it drops out of these 60-90 year old second growth hardwood stands. The one below is dead and is among the larger individuals we encountered.

The cedar confirm my supposition that human disturbance and past use drove the direction of forest succession. Cedar wood is decay-resistent. This standing deceased individual may offer critter cover and nesting sites for decades.

As I’ve often observed, death is a big part of life in the forest. This old stump snag caught my attention. Like the toppled red oak, this snag is hollow. The ground beyond is littered with dead and downed woody debris. The carbon cycle is active.

Occasionally in my GBH photo essays I ruminate on tree spiral grain. Not all trees have it. This bark-free dead hardwood (species?) spirals clockwise at about 30 degrees. The spiral and staining create an atractive pattern. I have yet to find definitive answers to the spiral mysteries in the literature. A recent online article (The Gymnosperm Database, 2024), Why Do Trees Form Spiral Grain? edited by Christopher J. Earle adds to my own uncertainty:

Spiral grain is the helical form taken by xylem tissues in their growth along a tree trunk or limb. Spiral grain is often conspicuous in snags that have lost their bark, as shown in the photos on this page, and people love to speculate about it… Personally, I am skeptical… Finally, there doesn’t seem to be much known about how all this happens: what physiological stresses trigger which growth hormones, for instance, or what causes a reversal in the direction of the spiral. On balance, I still have a sense that the field is data-poor, and it’s possible to generate lots of plausible hypotheses.

Unless someone directs me to refereed evidence to the contrary, I will stay with my conclusion that spiral-grained wood is stronger, therefore offering a competitive advantage evolutionarily.

Regardless, spiraled clockwise or counter or straight grained, all trees will succumb, decay, and return to the forest soil. These colorful turkey tail mushrooms are the reproductive, spore-producing orgams of a decomposing fungus whose mycelia are feeding within the log.

Another fungus, this one a pathogen growing on live wood, black knot disease, infects black cherry, a native tree species across the eastern US. The tree seems to tolerate this particularly large knot.

If we had not read in the forest obvious indications of past disturbance and human influences, this long-abandoned ~1960 Ford station wagon would have told the tale. Left decades ago at the edge of a spent agricultural field or pasture, the carcass (pardon the pun) now is located in the forest interior.

We crossed many old farm paths and road beds. I imagine the preserve’s character 70-80 years ago, a failing farm with a few acres still tilled, large marginally productive pasture acreage, visible soil erosion, and extensive abandoned fields naturally regenerating to herbs, shrubs, and early successional tree species.

Water Features

Several streams pass peacefully through the reserve. Fittingly, I’m standing at the sign for Jones Branch Trail. Behind me a massive white oak fell across the trail this past summer.

I recorded this 54-second video at this pleasant location:

We walked along other stretches that rewarded us with gurgling water and a soothing setting.

I recorded this 57-second video of another stream section:

We enjoyed the views of the Shoal Creek arm of Wilson Lake (Tennessee River impounded by Wilson Dam) from the bluff 150-feet above lake level. The view is restricted to dormant season.

My predilection favors woodland exploration during the November through early April period when understory and main canopy foliage is absent, heat and humidity are memories, and nuiscance insects are inactive. I admit, however, that when spring wildflowers are abundant, I will gleefully embrace that season of renewal. And I will enthusiastically relish summer mornings and welcome the coming autumn. I simply love immersion in Nature’s wildness. Life is too short not to flourish in her beauty, magic, wonder, awe, and inspiration, whatever the season.

Thoughts and Reflections

I offer these observations:

Every forest (or Nature Preserve) tells its tale to those able to read its language. (Steve Jones)
In every true searcher of Nature there is a kind of religious reverence. (Albert Einstein)
I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious. (Einstein)
Death is a big part of life in the forest (Steve Jones)

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

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 (2024) 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

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

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

A First Circuit of the Lunker Lake Trail at Oak Mountain State Park!

January 9, 2025/in Updates /by Steve Jones

I often wander forest trails alone, content to saunter leisurely absorbing the sights, sounds, and feel of Nature. I relished having friends to share a November 7, 2024 hike with fellow retired forester Chris Stuhlinger, Tom Cosby, fellow former Alabama State Parks Foundation board member, and Dennis McMillian, an old friend from Fairbanks, Alaska now retired to his native Birmingham, AL. We explored the 2.8 mile Lunker Lake Trail at Oak Mountain State Park in Pelham, AL.

Dennis, Chris, and Tom left to right below left. That’s me in the vest below right. I’m ten weeks beyond my August 20, 2024, total right knee replacement. I maintained a pace that kept me within sight of the others! Lunker Lake and the trail stretch to the northeast behind us.

Three years earlier an EF-1 tornado ripped along the lake’s northwest shore.

Dennis and Tom grew up together and shared old stories with Chris and me as we walked. I believe many (some) of them were true! We paused at a tremensous upturned root ball, testament to the ferocity of the storm that spun off the tornado.

I am a student of tree form and bark patterns. Chris and I concluded that this hawthorne sported a particularly unusual and attractive bark, a design reminding both of us of Chinese elm. We wondered whether it is unique enough to propogate vegetatively as ornamental stock.

The old commercial industry forester within me never tires of seeing a fat loblolly pine with three clear 16-foot logs.

The trail leg leading us back to the parking lot ran along an old embedded farm road, entrenched through repeated dragging (scraping) to remove mud to three feet below the original ground level. Microtopography tells the story of past use to the inquiring eye.

Coral tooth fungus mushroom brightened our passage, clinging ornately to a dead branch trailside. This tasty edible enticed the forager in me, but I resisted the temptation given its presence along a well traveled route.

The open hardwood stand welcoed the early afternoon sun and the trekkers passing beneath. It would have been a glorious time and place to lean against a tall oak reflecting on the pleasure delivered by healing knees and a day of retirement releasing me from faculty issues, budget difficulties, enrollemt shortfalls, and miscellaneous nuiscances associated with leading a university. I labored with love over a rewarding career in higher education administration, yet I am enriched by the freedom of time without pressures, restrictions, and deadlines.

Henry David Thoreau captured the essence I felt:

Our life is frittered away by detail… simplify, simplify.

Our path returned us to Lunker Lake, reopening our vista to placid waters and a cerulean sky adorned with scattered cumulus.

When I retired from my fourth university presidency, I worried about how I would handle retirement. Would I find challenge and reward. Would I stay busy in useful pursuits. I admit that shifting gears required adjustment. Yes, I missed the urgency, high-level engagement, and even the sense of imporatance and attention associated with being in charge. However, I adapted…learning in time to relish the freedom and luxury to focus on what is most important to me and the mission I have embraced:

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

Once again, I turn to Thoreau:

As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler; solitude will not be solitude, poverty will not be poverty, nor weakness weakness.

Alabama State Parks Foundation

I’ll remind you that although I serve on the Alabama State Parks Foundation Board, 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:

As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler; solitude will not be solitude, poverty will not be poverty, nor weakness weakness. (Henry David Thoreau)
Our life is frittered away by detail… simplify, simplify. (Thoreau)
In retirement I am enriched by the freedom of time without pressures, restrictions, and deadlines. (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

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

Reading Signs of Big Winter Winds at Joe Wheeler State Park

October 31, 2024/in Updates /by Steve Jones

I’m drafting this photo essay on Saturday morning, September 28, 2024, just five-and-one-half weeks after my August 20, 2024, total right knee replacement surgery. I ventured into Nature last on August 19, 2024. My backlog of pre-surgery observations, reflections, photos, and brief videos is nearly depleted, and I’m not sure when I can recharge my inventory. My knee recovery is on pace, but questions of timing remain. Therefore, I am returning to a set of photos and brief videos I compiled on a March 2023, trip to Joe Wheeler State Park, where I discovered lots of winter wind damage. [NOTE – I am publishing this photo essay on October 31, 2024. I am now about 85 percent recovered and returning to the woods!]

My recollection of what I wanted to convey with each image is fresh. The theme I intended to explore remains relevant to The Nature of North Alabama and Nature-Inspired Life and Living. I suppose we can blame my failure to follow through earlier on a series of health issues after March 2023: triple bypass surgery; total left knee replacement surgery; bilateral inguinal hernia repair; kidney stone removal; and total right knee replacement surgery. I know…such minor inconveniences may seem a lame excuse!

Two Hardy Senior Forest Denizens

Our forests are ever-changing. Seldom do I enter a forest without seeing a fresh blwodown. However, I frequently encounter senior citizens that have persevered. In an 80-90-year-old stand at Joe Wheeler, this nearly four-feet diameter sugar maple is likely a century older, perhapss formerly standing along an old property line or fence row, withstanding the test of time, wind blasts, lightning strikes, or ice storms.

This massive yellow poplar likewise beat the forces of time. Larger than three feet in diameter and topping 100 feet tall, it may stand another century, or crash to the ground tomorrow. I wonder if Las Vegas oddsmakers will entertain gambling on tree-toppling? I hope not. The only bet I would place is that gravity will remain undefeated!

I am eager to return to the Park this coming dormant season to check on these two denizens.

A Series of Winter 2022-23 Windthrow Casualties

Perched on bluff overlooking the body of Wheeler Lake within sight of the dam, this large hollow red oak yielded to the irresistable force of wind and gravity. An arborist’s rule of thumb states that when the combined thickness of wood rind is less than one-third of the tree’s diameter, the tree is subject to breakage and windthrow. This one failed the hollow tree windthrow threshold test. Interestingly, the trunk shows no externl evidence that it is hollow.

Here’s my 3:16 narrated video of this shattered oak. This giant left a void…one that Nature will fill. Tons of organic woody debris will inexorably recycle to soil and new life.

The now prostrate trunk points east, evidencing the westerly wind that leveraged the tree beyond its strength threshold.

As I’ve incessantly observed in these photo essays, nothing in nature is static. Decay fungi consumed wood fiber across the decades, annually expanding the hollow. The large-canopied crown continued to build mass, compounding the leveraging force of wind and gravity. The oak will live on through the carbon cycle as decomposers reduce wood to soil organic matter and other life forms.

The trunk of this hackberry giant did not fail. Instead, the wind used the tree’s mass to twist and wrench the roots from the soil. Once loosened, the tree acted as the first in a hackberry domino series. Wind combined with the multi-ton mass momentum of the swaying tree served as an irresistible force. Physics is a big part of life…and death…in the forest, whether determining if a tree stands or falls, and regulating fluid transport within the tree.

The hackberry brought several smaller downwind trees to the ground.

As I often note, a short video (this one 3:31) tells the tale better than my feeble prose.

John Muir spoke of the physical and ecological interconnectivity of all elements of an ecosystem:

Tug on anything in nature and you will find it connected to everything else.

The hackberry-toppled stand epitomies the physical interdependence.

This oak tree shattered at the stump. Decay fungi mushrooms signal that decomposers are hard at work.

Again, nothing in Nature is static.

Our State Park trails demand ongoing maintenance attention. A fallen hickory crossed the trail.

My 3:12 video captures the the windthrow jumble and gives a sense of how the wind flows across the lake and buffets the forest, even on a fair weather spring day.

Not all crashing trees knock their neighbors to the ground. The top of a windthrown tree pulled this smaller pole-size tree into a nearly horizontal position just ten feet above the forest floor. I’ve seen such trees survuve for decades. I often photograph the survivors as what I refer to as tree form curiosities and oddities. Let’s come back and visit this one in 20-40 years. Well, perhaps I may not be up to it at ages 93 to 113!

I love contemplating Nature’s forest wonders and mysteries!

Alabama State Parks Foundation

I’ll remind you that although I serve on the Alabama State Parks Foundation Board, 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)
The calm of a fine spring day belies the brutal winds that can ravage a winter forest.

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: “©2023 Steve Jones, Great Blue Heron LLC. All Rights Reserved.”

Another Note: If you came to this post via a Facebook posting or by an another route, please sign up now (no cost… no obligation) to receive my Blog Post email alerts: http://eepurl.com/cKLJdL

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

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

Exploring the Forest along Lake Wheeler at Point Mallard Park!

October 22, 2024/in Updates /by Steve Jones

On September 29, 2024, I co-led a University of Alabama in Huntsville OLLI (Osher Lifelong Learning Institute) Nature Walk at Point Mallard Park in nearby Decatur, Alabama. We departed a picnic shelter at 3:00 PM as a shower associated with superstorm Helene was abating.

The Park borders Dinsmore Slough and Flint Creek on the west extension of the Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge, on the south side of the Refuge. The Tennessee River (Wheeler Lake) and the Refuge reach some 20 miles upstream to Ditto Landing, on the north side of the river southeast of Huntsville. I view the Refuge as one of my go-to places for Nature wandering. The view below to the east and southeast looks exclusively over the west end of the Refuge.

Randy and Kim’s hat and umbrella evidence that the rain had not yet ceased as they provided foreground to the expansive lake and Refuge forest edge at the far shore.

Nature alone provides amusement and sparks curiosity and imagination. Over the past 13 millennia, since Native Americans first populated this region, the Tennesee River provided food, transportation, and sites for gathering and habitation. Humans have left the mark of their occupation in countless ways across those 130 centuries. I wonder how many Native men, women, and children leaned a stone against a young sycamore tree, and then witnessed the tree slowly grow around it, a seeming act of consumption. Maybe none. However, one of our recent inhabitants propped a five-foot slab of cement against this sycamore 10-20 years ago. Darrell and Kim stood near it for scale. Certainly the effect is amusing, curious, and sparks immagination…but the result is not Nature acting alone.

Rain pften enriches my forest wanderings, even as it dampens the way and soaks my garb. Since retiring to northern Alabama, I’ve grown fond of the perrenial green and smooth bark of supplejack vine. I don’t recall ever seeing the wetted vine showing prominent white vertical striations. I’ll henceforth pay more attention. This may turn out to be a unique individual or perhaps this is a common feature hidden in plain sight without the accent provided by the earlier shower.

The eight-inch diameter sycamore below left likewise drew my attention…and camera lens. The half-green and white trunk punctuated with brown flecks would, without the recent wetting, have been nothing special. I hadn’t noticed one of our OLLI group walking along the trail in the distance until I examined the photo. The background elements enhance the image of the tree.

The nearby 10-inch-diameter sycamore, backdropped by the slough, does not project the same attractive bark countenance.

Always on the lookout for tree form curiosities and oddities, I found intrigue and mystery in water oak. The bloated, convoluted form signals internal decay…or alternatively viral and or bacterial infection emanatring from an old wound. In reality, I can’t say for certain. The tree is grossly mishapen due to some combination of physical and biological factors. The tree may be hollow…or it may have exotic wood grain within. Were I a bowl-turner of wood craftsman, I might have greater interest in what lay hidden beneath the bark.

Here is my 51-second video of the contorted water oak:

Although we classifed our OLLI outing as as a Nature Walk, the group soon advance beyond me in the damp afternoon. I was content to proceed at a Nature Walk pace, seeking novelties hidden in pain sight.

Woodland Fungi

Numerous and varied mushrooms attracted my attention. Oysters, one of my favorite edibles, grew on a downed trunk just off the trail. I harvested a cluster, with a primary purpose of showing the group far ahead what they had missed as they commited the unpardonable sin of walking through the forest rather that sauntering within the forest. I admit to a secondary purpose — making sure that I protected enough of the cluster to saute with tomorrow morning’s eggs!

Not nearly as large and conspicuous, trooping crumble cap mushrooms appeared to live uo to their name, marching across the sodden litter.

I failed capture a decent photo of the large colony of amber jelly mushrooms we encountered after we connected with the full OLLI group as we returned to the parking lot. All local jelly mushrooms are edible. I the interest of Nature education and interpretation, I collected a handful of the jellies. These were among the largest individuals I have found. Were I foraging on a property where I had permission to harvest, I could have collected a bucketful of both amber jelly and oysters. Here are my educational samples cleaned and ready for simmering, should my interpretive purposes be fulfilled!

Only during retirement have I begun my pursuit of edible mushrooms, beginning with oysters and evolving through a currect set of nearly one dozen species more or less common in northern Alabama. Lion’s mane is my favorite; I don’t find it as often as I would like. I love morrels, but I am afriad that we lie south of their preferred range. I even like the common puffballs and meadow mushrooms that I find in neighborhood lawns and athletic fields. I hold fast to several foraging rules I have adopted:

Eat only those species for which my certainty is 100 percent
Never consume an uncooked mushroom
Clean harvested mushrooms to remove most of the associated insect and slug protein
Urge potential foragers to do extensive homework — don’t take my word for anything
Don’t chew off more than you can bite — a twist on the more common advice to not bite off more than you can chew

The process of foraging, cleaning, cooking, and packaging is time consuming. At the completion of this chanterelle foraging venture three years ago, I felt like I had chewed off more than I could bite!

Mushroom foraging is an active hobby, and a great way to learn about new facets of the forest ecosystem. Both oysters and jellies are the reproductive organs (spore-producing), chanterelles are associated with myc0rhizal fungi which form essential symbiotic relationships with tree roots.

Clearing Sky

We’ve watched the news of Helene’s devastation from Category Four impact at Florida’s Big Bend to its record-setting rainfall and flooding through Georgia, the Carolnas, Virginia, and Tennessee. Much of the most flood-ravaged region lies within the upper Tennessee River Basin. Almost without exception, the storm delivered from five to 30+ inches upstream from Chattanooga, including the French Broad Basin and Asheville. I measured just 1.51 inches in my Madison, Alabama backyard gauge. We were fortunate to be far west of the track. The clearing sky at Point Mallard revealed no damage…only the damp beauty of parting clouds.

I recorded this 46-second video of promising evening freshened by the departing showers.

I great egret likewise welcomed the drying weather. With the slough behind me, the egret stands in a wetland pondadjacent to the Park golf course. Egrets and herons elevate the esthetic value of such recreational venues, and amplify the ecosystem integrity and ecological complexity of revirside Park.

I felt blessed just five weeks after total right knee replacement surgery to return to Nature’s glory on such a placid evening on gentle trails. I’m rekindld, rejevenated, and grateful!

Thoughts and Reflections

I offer these observations:

Gloomy skies and rainy days can lift routine Nature to a level of exceptional beauty.
Nature’s ferocity (i.e. Helene in the southern Appalachians) often displays a softer side, in this case, three days of gentle showers in the Huntsville area.
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. (John Muir)

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

Note: Unless otherwise noted, all blog post images are created & photographeerved.”

And Third: I am availabd by Stephen B. Jones. Please circulate images with photo credit: “©2024 Steve Jones, Great Blue Heron LLC. All Rights Resle for Nature-Inspired Speaking, Writing, and Consulting — contact me at steve.jones.0524@gmail.com

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 (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

Fungi and Other Discoveries along the Hickory Cove Nature Preserve’s Legacy Loop Trail

October 8, 2024/in Updates /by Steve Jones

July 30, 2024, my two Alabama grandsons accompanied me on my first visit to the Land Trust of North Alabama’s Hickory Cove Nature Preserve northeast of Huntsville. We sauntered along the 1.75-mile Legacy Loop. I set the slow pace making observations and snapping photographs of mushrooms and other interesting features along the trail. They alternately surged ahead and fell behind, mostly the former.

Every north Alabama trail is rich with human history. Native Americans occupied these lands for 13 millennia, leaving few obvious traces. European settlers left their mark more visibly and indelibly. A few hundred feet into the forest, a side trail directed us to the spring house, a sure indication of prior domestication, and a clear suggestion that Hickory Cove is not wilderness by the untrammled by the hand of man definition. Wildness, certainly; wilderness, no.

Sam stands at the old spring house foundation, likely an early 19th Century refrigeration construct for surviving here in the deep south prior to electricity and modern food preservation. The concrete trough (right) sits 100 feet downhill, still at brimful. I wondered whether our Native antecedents tapped this natural water source.

Trailside Fungi

I repeat often my observation that death is an essential facet of life in the forest. Sometimes an agent of tree death and always a primary decomposer, fungi are ubiquitous in our north Alabama forests. Usually invisible inside wood, among ground-level organic matter, and within forest soils, fungi hyphae are active year-round. They periodically manifest as mushrooms, their reproductive organs, spewing billions of spores to generate new colonies. A curry bolete drew our attention, its red cap waving a banner.

Most boletes are mycorhizal, sprouting from hyphae within the soil adjacent to roots (ectomycorrhizae) or alternatively within tree roots (endomycorrhizae), often symbiotically engaged with fine roots and root hairs of trees. This group of fungi includes neither pathogens or decomposers.

We also identified violet-grey boletes.

Six inches across, wood mushrooms demanded that we stop to examine and photograph.

Pale yellow Amanita had begun to fade and break apart; even decomposing fungi produce mushrooms subject, as are all organisms, to biological breakdown. It’s the common tale of ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

Examining the photo above right, I spotted a rock-critter lurking behind the Amanita. What is this woodland denizen? I asked my immediate family. They saw a bear, dog, bighorn sheep, and turtle. Such it is with clouds, forest limestone rocks, and oddly shaped trees!

I’m reminded once again of Albert Einstein’s delightful fascination with imagination:

Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.

Fairy parachute mushrooms encircle the base of this dead cedar tree. An invasionary airborne fairy battalion dropped in the night prior, now huddled around the cedar awaiting a call to action.

My iNaturalist hesitantly identified these as turkey tail mushrooms (Trametes versicolor), also listing several species from the Stereum genus as possibilities. Rather than declare turkey tail, I will go with genus Stereum. This colony appears to be thriving on a recently fallen red oak.

Toothed crust mushrooms coat this mature hickory. A single deer mushroom stands at the edge. Tree moss clings to the trunk at the far left margin. I recall hiking within the rain forests of southeat Alaska, where nary a forest surface is absent some kind growth. We do not qualify as rain forest, albeit 55 inches annually is a lot of rain.

A closer look at the crust mushroom corroborates its moniker.

We found Trametes cubensis growing among tree moss on the deeply furrowed bark of a chestnut oak.

An edible mushroon, white-pored chicken of the woods visually decried its presence near the trail. The Land Trust prohibits collecting anything on its preserves. The boys and I made our observations, snapped a photograph, and left the mushroom behind.

Many of our native vines (muscadine, scuppernog, Virgina creeper, and poison ivy) ascend into the upper canopy by attaching their air roots to rising tree stems and branches. Supplejack instead climbs by spiraling with companion vines or woody branches of trees and shrubs. I love the weakly striped perennially green stems.

Sam found two whitelips snails flourishing along the trail. We stopped to examine them. They continued along their merry way, at what we assessed as faster than a snail’s pace!

Many trees in our second (or third) growth forests are survivors from the prior generation. Imagine a prior landowner harvesting firewood, fenceposts, pulpwood, and scattered sawlogs around the time of the Second World War. The operation did not remove every tree, leaving hollow snags such as this red oak. It survived until this spring when its thin wood rind could no longer resist the forces of wind and gravity. Sam stands at left beside the hollow shell stump, which half-houses the accumulation of composted organic matter collected over a century or more. Just across the trail, Sam poses at the tree’s top where it leans almost vertically against another tree.

I took delight when Sam discovered the carcas and understood its story. I recorded this 58-second video at the scene. I’ve observed previously in these photo essays that a picture is worth a thousand words, and a brief video is priceless!

Nearly every north Alabama forest I explore dates its origins back 80-90 years. This 12-inch diameter green ash fell across the trail this summer. Crews made a clean chainsaw cut to remove it. Ash rings are very easy to discern and count. This cross-section, just a foot or two above the root collar, reads 86 years!

There are many stories revealed by a walk through the woods with grandsons. Knowing that Pap was scheduled for knee replacement surgery on August 20, the boys tried to stay within sight. My right knee hobbled me, subjecting me to unsteadiness and an inability to recover when and if I stumbled. About halfway, I did lose my balance and go down…it seemed to happen in slow motion. I’ve been stumbling in the woods for 70 years. I was unruffled; they were concerned. It seems just a few turns of the years that I was introducing their Mom (daughter Katy) to woodland wanders, then a few years when I carried these young men as babes when hiking, and now it is they who helped me back on my feet and offered assistence when the footing looked tenuous.

Einstein’s wisdom extended far beyond theoretical physics. Relative to my musings on my relationship to chldren and grandchildren, he observed:

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.

Thoughts and Reflections

I offer these observations:

Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand. (Albert Einstein)
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)
Death and decomposition are a big part of life in the forest.

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: “©2024 Steve Jones, Great Blue Heron LLC. All Rights Reserved.”

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

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 (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

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.

Nature’s Delights Along the New Karst Trail at Alabama’s Rickwood Caverns State Park

July 18, 2024/in Updates /by Steve Jones

I sauntered Rickwood Caverns State Park’s new Karst Trail on May 15, 2024 with Park Manager Bridgette Bennett, Northwest District Naturalist Amber Conger, and fellow Alabama State Park Foundation Board member Tom Cosby (and his wife Gail).

Although we met to discuss Board business, I focus this photo essay to our Nature discoveries along the trail. As with most of our State Parks, Rickwood welcomes visitors with attractive signage.

Our Board business related to discussing Bridgette’s vision for a modern playground at Rickwood and other parks. Rickwood’s is aging, falling short of visitors’ expectations and demands.

Equipment is functional, but merely adequate.

I recorded this 42-second video at the playground and picnic area:

The pool remains a major crowd pleaser.

Karst Trail

As promised, I will focus this Post on the new Karst Trail, constructed to transit the Park’s recently acquired 57 acres, rich with maturing forest and distinctive karst (limestone) topography.

The trail is gentle, relatively flat, and generally free of toe-stubbing roots and ankle-twisting rocks, important features for a guy still recovering from left knee replacement and anticipating replacement for his ailing right knee.

I recorded this 60-second video along the trail:

We dealt with the other worldly thrum of the 13-year cicadas for the entire trek.

Wildflowers and Special Understory Plants

Because I tallied and photographed an impressive array of natural delights, I won’t burden readers with excessive text. In most cases, I will simply offer an identification.

Striped wintergreen presents speckled, white-striped, deep green leaves and the promise of its pearly white flowers, still enclosed by its tight buds.

Small’s sanicle presented its fully open greenish-yellow flowers.

The much more showy and brilliantly white redring milkcap merits my day’s award for floral excellence!

Even the mournful thyris moth expressed hearty approval and appreciation for the flower’s beauty and nectar!

I award rusty blackhaw my shrub with the glossiest leaves recognition.

I am a tireless fan of resurrection fern, an aerial clinging plant that is deep green and turgid when rains moisten trunks where it grows, and desiccates deathlike when dry weather prevails.

This catalog of interesting plants was not exhaustive.

Mushrooms (and friend), Moss, and Lichens

Likewise, I will present just a few of the fungi we encountered. appropriately named, we spotted several clusters of jellied false coral

I find trooping crumble cap mushrooms fascinating. Appearing as helmeted soldiers in formation, the trooping moniker is apropos.

Poised for assault of the trunk, the mushrooms seem enforced by the white oak tree’s mossy skirt.

One of my favorite edible mushrooms, jelly tree ear mushrooms colonized this downed log.

Closer examinations of the wood ears revealed this button snail (our special friend) enjoying either the mushroom or something growing on it.

We identified another mushroom bearing the term troop in its name: cross-veined troop mushroom, similarly massing in formation on a dead standing hardwood snag.

Nature creates unlimited artwork with lichens and mosses on this sugar maple sapling.

Rock moss in spring-dappled sunshine lighted our way, allowing me to introduce and spotlight the Alabama Park System’s first ever Northwest District Naturalist Amber Coger…responsible for education and interpretation staff and programs at Rickwood Caverns, Cathedral Caverns, Lake Lurleen, Joe Wheeler, and Monte Sano State Parks.

A Very Special Treat

I’ve been traversing our Alabama State Parks for seven years without spotting a timber rattlesnake…until this saunter at Rickwood Caverns!

We stopped when we completed our Karst Trail circuit, reflecting on our saunter. I looked down at just one more cicada corpse and noticed at trailside a magnificent timber rattlesnake, lying still with nary a rattle. We admired its beauty, snapped a few photos, and recorded a video, then hurried along without disturbing it.

Here is that 36-second video:

I have too often heard ignorant and poorly educated outdoor recreationists say, “The only good snake is a dead snake.” I won’t attempt to disabuse those incurable malcontents in this Post. Instead I defer to John Muir’s wisdom:

Nevertheless, again and again, in season and out of season, the question comes up, “What are rattlesnakes good for?” As if nothing that does not obviously make for the benefit of man had any right to exist; as if our ways were Gods’ ways…. Anyhow, they are all, head and tail, good for themselves, and we need not begrudge them their share of life.

I turn also to Aldo Leopold:

The last word in ignorance is the man who says of an animal or plant, “What good is it?” If the land mechanism as a whole is good, then every part is good, whether we understand it or not. If the biota, in the course of aeons, has built something we like but do not understand, then who but a fool would discard seemingly useless parts?

The snake is a permanent resident; we are but visitors and interlopers. We must understand, respect, and revere life that resides within the ecosystems we visit.

Rickwood Cavern

I conclude with two photographs from the cavern…and offer them only with encouragement to visit the Park and experience its underground beauty, magic, wonder, awe, and inspiration!

Alabama State Parks Foundation

I’ll remind you that although I serve on the Alabama State Parks Foundation Board, in part because of my love of Nature and in recognition of 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 to provide 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:

We sauntered if for no purpose other than to discover what we did not anticipate.
Sauntering through the forest we discovered treasures sufficient to extend the day and multiply our delight.
I pity those trail travelers busied with their digital device and content only to count their steps.
The last word in ignorance is the man who says of an animal or plant, “What good is it?” (Aldo Leopold)

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: “©2024 Steve Jones, Great Blue Heron LLC. All Rights Reserved.”

Another Note: If you came to this post via a Facebook posting or by another route, please sign up now (no cost… no obligation) to receive my Blog Post email alerts: http://eepurl.com/cKLJdL

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

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 Three Books

I wrote my books Nature Based Leadership (2016), Nature-Inspired Learning and Leading (2017), and Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits: Stories of Passion for Place and Everyday Nature (2019; co-authored with Dr. Jennifer Wilhoit) 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.

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

All three of my books (Nature Based Leadership; Nature-Inspired Learning and Leading; Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits) present compilations of personal experiences expressing my (and co-author Dr. Wilhoit for Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits) deep passion for Nature. All three 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 now have a fourth book, published by Dutton Land and Cattle Company, Dutton Land & Cattle: A Land Legacy Story. Available for purchase directly from me. Watch for details in a future Post.

Mid-April Lakeside Forest Panoply at Alabama’s Joe Wheeler State Park

June 12, 2024/in Updates /by Steve Jones

Lakeside Forest Panoply

On April 17 and 18, 2024, I visited Joe Wheeler State Park for the quarterly meeting of the Alabama State Parks Foundation. Rather than present a single long Post from my wanderings during my free time, please look for four separate photo essays:

Reading evidence of past land use in the current 80-90-year-old forests
Tree form oddities and related curiosities
Lakeside forest panoply — this Post
Dawn from the lodge docks

I sauntered for nearly three hours (April 17) along the lakeside Awesome Trail, enjoying diverse attractions, many of them hidden in plain sight. Although the bird blind was in no way hidden, I felt compelled to look closely, which beckoned me to spend more time than I could devote, given the time-certain deadline to attend the late afternoon Foundation gathering at the Park Lodge. I often find in Nature that I want to linger longer than I’m able.

I concur with those autumn forest enthusiasts who are smitten with fall’s color palette. However, I am equally attracted to the seeming infinite shades of green that enrich spring forest ventures. I’m reminded of the title of yet another banal Hollywood blockbuster that I missed (or refused to see) on the big screen: Fifty Shades of Grey. Give me spring’s fifty shades of green and I will see the reel time after time!

The blind’s portals frame whatever fine image you select…each one unique and worthy of photo-capture.

The full Awesome Trail runs from the Park’s Boat Launch parking lot 4.1 miles to the Marina near the Lodge. I recorded this 37-second video to convey the mood, spirit, and nature of this soothing lakeside path, ideal for this woods-wanderer still recovering from the past ten months headlined by my June 19, 2013 triple bypass surgery, October bi-lateral inguinal hernia repair, and January 23, 2024 total left knee replacement!

I recorded the video at 1:37 PM:

The trail passes by this copse of yellow poplar trees, which features the most impressive timbers in this 80-90-year-old forest. When the TVA acquired this property in the early 1930s, the land was severely eroded, deeply-gullied, worn-out pasture, an affliction common across Alabama and the southeast in those Great Depression years. How much larger would this copse have presented had the original soil been protected from abusive agricultural practices?!

A patch of native rusty blackhaw enriched the trek with its profusion of large, showy flower heads!

Fungal Friends

Plants were not the sole features. This white-pored chicken of the woods cluster sprouted within twenty feet of the trail. I resisted the temptation to harvest this edible mushroom.

I spotted this five-inch pale oyster mushroom, another edible.

This foot-wide deer-colored Trametes mushroom (non-edible), has a rather dull beige upper surface, yet compensates with its fascinating underside of distinct open pores.

Two three-inch worms (I am note sure whether they are in fact “worms” — iNaturalist did not identify) found refuge and nourishment in the darkness beneath the bracket.

This ear-like mushroom covered a fallen decaying tree in a thicket too dense for me to capture a clear image. Instead, I gathered a small handful to show wood ear fungus, yet another edible.

I am committed to learning more about the wonderful Fungi Kingdom, which when I was an undergraduate was still part of the Plant Kingdom — oh, how things change over a mere fifty years! Who says lifelong learning isn’t necessary for an old forester who insists upon better understanding the secrets of Nature hidden in plain sight?

Oh, the Gall of This Wasp!

The new leaves on this white oak seedling opened just a week or two before I discovered and photographed them (below left). Already, the seedling stem bears a fresh wool sower gall (below right). During that short time, a wool sower gall wasp had oviposited its eggs into the stem. An NC State University Cooperative Extension bulletin tells the rest of the story:

The wool sower gall is a distinct and unusual plant growth induced by the secretions of the grubs of a tiny gall wasp, Callirhytis seminator. These wasps are about ¹/₈ inch long, dark brown, and their abdomens are noticeably flattened from side to side. The grubs are translucent to white, plump, and legless. Their heads are more or less shapeless blobs. The wool sower gall is specific to white oaks and only occurs in the spring. When the gall is pulled apart, inside are small seed-like structures inside of which the gall wasp grubs develop (the wool sower gall is also called the oak seed gall).

Nature never disappoints the curious naturalist. I offer most every audience, whether classroom or field trip, my five verbs for truly enjoying Nature:

Five Essential Verbs: Believe, Look, See, Feel, and Act.

- I find Nature’s mysteries and curiosities because I know they lie hidden within view — belief enables me to look and see
- Really look, with eyes open to your surroundings, external to electronic devices and the distractions of meaningless noise and data
- Be alert to see deeply, beyond the superficial
- See clearly, with comprehension, to find meaning and evoke feelings
- Feel emphatically enough to spur action — learning to seek understanding and awareness is an action

Alabama State Parks Foundation

I’ll remind you that although I serve on the Alabama State Parks Foundation Board, in part because of my love of Nature and in recognition of 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 to provide 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:

It is an incalculable added pleasure to any one’s sum of happiness if he or she grows to know, even slightly and imperfectly, how to read and enjoy the wonder-book of nature. (Theodore Roosevelt)
Vitality and beauty are gifts of Nature, for those who live according to its laws. (da Vinci)
Nature never disappoints the curious naturalist.

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: “©2024 Steve Jones, Great Blue Heron LLC. All Rights Reserved.”

Another Note: If you came to this post via a Facebook posting or by another route, please sign up now (no cost… no obligation) to receive my Blog Post email alerts: http://eepurl.com/cKLJdL

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

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 Three Books

I wrote my books Nature Based Leadership (2016), Nature-Inspired Learning and Leading (2017), and Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits: Stories of Passion for Place and Everyday Nature (2019; co-authored with Dr. Jennifer Wilhoit) 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.

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

All three of my books (Nature Based Leadership; Nature-Inspired Learning and Leading; Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits) present compilations of personal experiences expressing my (and co-author Dr. Wilhoit for Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits) deep passion for Nature. All three 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 now have a fourth book, published by Dutton Land and Cattle Company, Dutton Land & Cattle: A Land Legacy Story. Available for purchase directly from me. Watch for details in a future Post.

Goldsmith-Schiffman Wildlife Sanctuary Exploration with My Alabama Grandsons!

May 2, 2024/in Updates /by Steve Jones

On November 22, 2023, my Alabama grandsons (Jack, age 16, and Sam, age nine) accompanied me to Huntsville, Alabama’s Goldsmith-Schiffman Wildlife Sanctuary. We enjoyed an unusually mild late-November mid-morning through early afternoon, entering from the east side, exploring the riparian hardwood forest, walking along the Flint River shoreline, and visiting the adjacent tupelo swamp. I offer observations, reflections, 27 photos, and four videos.

You can access 26 previous Great Blue Heron Posts from prior trips I’ve made to the Sanctuary. Search Goldsmith under the Blog banner at my website: https://stevejonesgbh.com/

Forest Wonder Potpourri

We discovered a potpourri of forest wonders. I’m grateful any time that the boys come along with me. Their lives and interests will in time diverge from their aging Pap’s. I am pleased that they still appreciate and learn from our forest wanderings. The Sanctuary remains one of our favorite destinations.

I never tire of finding a forest trunk draped in tree moss. This hickory, just 100 feet from the Flint River, evidences our moist temperate climate and its proximity to the morning fogs and heightened humidity along the river.

A nearby sugarberry trunk teems with life. Dense tree moss and a Virginia creeper vine adorn the stem below left. At the lower center of the photo at left and up the entire trunk within the photo at right, horizontal rows of yellow bellied sapsucker birdpecks portray a history of woodpecker insect foraging.

Virginia creeper literally clings to life on this sugarberry tree, its air roots grasping the trunk, assuring lifetime anchorage on its tree trunk lift to the upper canopy rich with direct sun to fuel life-sustaining photosynthesis. It bears repeating that Virginia creeper, wild grapevines, and supplejack do not climb trees. Instead, they grow up with the supporting tree. Imagine this Virginia Creeper germinating beside the sugarberry geminate. The creeper grew vertically at the same rate as the seedling, its leaves with each season remaining in full sunlight.

As with many organisms coexisting in Nature, Virginia creeper and sugarberry seem to have achieved some balance. That is, evolutionarily, the creeper has learned not to overgrow and suffocate the tree, for doing so would kill the vine’s highway to the sky. The vine enjoys a direct, full sunlight benefit from the tree. I am unsure of the reciprocal benefit to the tree from providing a lift to the vine. Without exploring the ecological literature for verification, I can only muse that the vine provides cover and access for birds and small mammals that feed on insects that consume sugarberry leaves. The vines might also ensure a canopy microclimate that deters fungi, viral agents, mold, and bacteria potentially harmful to the tree.

I am smitten by the cylindrical sugarberry birdpeck scars. So much of Nature’s beauty, magic, wonder, and awe is hidden in plain sight.

Resurrection fern, no longer in its drought-induced desiccated state, overhhangs the Flint River.

I recorded this 32-second video along the Flint River, amplifying the mood of peace and tranquility:

How can a naturalist not be attracted to such a beauty as this farkleberry (AKA sparkleberry), the largest member of our native blueberries (genus Vaccinium (arboreum)). Even its common names evoke mystery.

Nearby another handsome shrub drew us closer, a rusty blackhaw. I borrowed this description from an NC State University Extension online reference:

Rusty blackhaw is a deciduous multi-stemmed shrub or small single-stemmed tree in the Viburnaceae (haw) family. It is native to eastern and central USA and is found in most areas of NC growing in rocky or dry woodlands and forests, along streams and valleys. The name comes from the rusty brown hairs on the undersides of leaves, buds and stems.

Rusty blackhaw grows in dry to moist loams in full sun to partial shade slowly reaching a height and width of 10 to 20 feet. Clusters of small, white flowers mature in early spring followed by a blue drupe that matures in fall. The leaves have excellent fall color.

I love the dormant season with full understory visibility, no biting insects, and comfortable temperatures!

Tupelo Swamp

I recorded this 57-second video in the water tupelo swamp on the Sanctuary’s northeast quadrant. Recent rains were just beginning to rewater the swamp.

Tree moss skirts, clinging vines, buttressed trunks, swamp stain lines, and a forest floor bereft of vegetation characterize the Sanctuary’s tupelo stands. I am tempted to refer to these stands as special places, yet I could just as logically term dozens of other elements of the Sanctuary as special places.

Note the swamp water stain lines (on the tree at left) suggesting normal winter water depth). I wear my calf-high rubber boots when I visit mid-winter.

I recorded this 17-second video within the swamp. I am intent on making these grandson forays meaningful, educational, and fun.

I seek to inspire mindful reflection, even as I remain alert to Nature’s reflections. Both of these photographs express the purpose and realization of that goal.

I can’t add anything to the power of this photo essays by adding to the verbal narrative.

Here’s a 36-second video from the same location.

These graceful swamp residents pose dutifully, seeming intent to reward our visit with their majestic form and rhythm.

Back to the riparian forest, Sam poses with a hefty supplejack vine. The stem it had once wrapped is long since dead and decayed, leaving only the vine corkscrew. Yellow-bellied sapsucker birdpeck scars encircle the supplejack at right.

A Few Living Critters!

A mild late fall day, a rough greensnake surprised us, accommodating our disturbance and gentle handling. We anticipated we might see deer or squirrels, but did not expect to see a coldblooded critter. We bid the snake adieu.

As we examined the snake, I noticed a few still-green pipevine leaves nearby. Knowing the plant’s exclusive hosting relationship to the pipevine swallowtail, I looked more closely, discovering a troop of the butterfly’s caterpillars. Online literature suggests that the larvae will soon form a chrysalis suspended several feet above the ground.

I’ll bring closure with this image of Sam feigning a bite from the fruit (some call it a hedge apple) of an osage orange.

We three boys enjoyed a great morning and early afternoon. I can only hope that they will remember these Nature outings as highlights of their young lives, and that the experiences yield a lasting relationship with Nature.

Thoughts and Reflections

I offer these observations:

I am intent on making these grandson forays meaningful, educational, and fun.
I love the dormant season with full understory visibility, no biting insects, and comfortable temperatures!
The Sanctuary, as do most wild areas of my acquaintance, hosts many special places.

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: “©2024 Steve Jones, Great Blue Heron LLC. All Rights Reserved.”

Another Note: If you came to this post via a Facebook posting or by another route, please sign up now (no cost… no obligation) to receive my Blog Post email alerts: http://eepurl.com/cKLJdL

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

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 Three Books

I wrote my books Nature Based Leadership (2016), Nature-Inspired Learning and Leading (2017), and Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits: Stories of Passion for Place and Everyday Nature (2019; co-authored with Dr. Jennifer Wilhoit) 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.

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

All three of my books (Nature Based Leadership; Nature-Inspired Learning and Leading; Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits) present compilations of personal experiences expressing my (and co-author Dr. Wilhoit for Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits) deep passion for Nature. All three 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 now have a fourth book, published by Dutton Land and Cattle Company, Dutton Land & Cattle: A Land Legacy Story. Available for purchase directly from me. Watch for details in a future Post.

A Late March Return to Goldsmith-Schiffman after Flood Waters Recede!

April 17, 2024/in Updates /by Steve Jones

I returned to Huntsville, Alabama’s Goldsmith-Schiffman Wildlife Sanctuary on March 23, 2014, just a week after the flooding Flint River prevented my Huntsville LearningQuest class from touring the Sanctuary: https://stevejonesgbh.com/2024/04/02/brief-form-post-29-mid-march-attempt-to-enter-the-flint-river-flooded-goldsmith-schiffman-wildlife-sanctuary/

During the intervening week of fair weather, the Flint receded, spring advanced, and the Sanctuary beckoned me to explore the breadth of its eastern side. A week prior, I would have been knee-deep taking the photo at left, which looks northwest to the Blevins Gap Ridge, 800 feet above the valley floor. The view at right to the trailhead would have traced water to the entrance sign, where the tour group posed a week ago.

I welcomed the dry surface of the greenway.

The Flint River Tamed

At 10:30 AM a quarter of a mile from the entrance, the Flint flowed tranquilly at bankful, upstream at left and downstream to the right.

A short video (39 seconds) tells the river’s tale this fine spring morning…far better than my feeble words and still photos:

The natural upland levee along the flint stood above the flood waters the week before. I pondered what mood standing isolated there surrounded by floodwaters would have evoked.

A lifelong fan of esteemed conservationist Aldo Leopold, I turned to his writings (A Sand County Almanac) for an apt quotation:

There are degrees and kinds of solitude. An island in a lake has one kind; but lakes have boats, and there is always the chance that one might land to pay you a visit. A peak in the clouds has another kind; but most peaks have trails, and trails have tourists. I know of no solitude so secure as one guarded by a spring flood; nor do the geese, who have seen more kinds and degrees of aloneness than I have.

Spring Ephemerals

The woodland trail I transited parallels the river (to the right) and the deep riparian forest that stretches to the tupelo swamp several hundred yards to the left. The path, via debris deposited by the recent flood, evidences a foot of overflow a week prior.

These dwarf trilliums at full flower likely observed the flood through a watery lens if they had already emerged from the saturated forest soil.

Their cousin, a twisted trillium, is just opening. Spring ephemerals are my favorite forest botanical denizens. The term ephemeral implies the narrow temporal window they occupy. They flourish during the period beginning when the canopy-penetrating spring sun warms the soil and ending when overstory tree foliage prevents sunlight from reaching the forest floor. Spring floods this year punctuated the brief optimal period. Such are the vagaries of ephemeral gardening and spring field trips.

Among the plentiful trilliums, I spotted Virginia saxifrage (left) and rue anemone strutting their stuff.

Bristly buttercup (left) and blue phlox also welcomed me with a little strutting of their own.

Because I had not yet reached full woods-worthy rambling recovery from my January 23, 2024 knee surgery, I sauntered cautiously, wary of tripping vines and hidden depressions, taking care, too, not to exceed my still limited strength and endurance. I know that I could have catalogued dozens of wildflower species with a deeper exploration. Next spring!!

Panoply of Routine Spring Woodland Delights

I have never followed or even cared to know much about fashion of the human apparel kind. Instead, I wish you good luck prying me away from Nature’s seasonal garb. Every year she demonstrates mastery of the hues, tones, and incalculable shades of spring greenery. By mid-April she drapes fields, forests, meadows, and marshes with verdant wonder, color varieties in excess of known monikers. I’ve tried year after year to photographically capture the green varietal splendor, yet I fall short of target. Instead, I focus the camera on the sublime moss skirts, a routine woodland delight accented by spring rains, and common across our forests.

My Mom and her mother (Grandma Jacobs) fueled my youthful passion for plants, mainly flowering garden annuals. Little did I know that my enthusiasm would blossom into vocation, and lifelong avocation, oriented to trees and associated forest ecosystems. I never tire of musing on these vast three-dimensional living systems. The Sanctuary riparian trees reach 100 feet. The forest matrix and its life occupy 4,356,000 cubic feet per acre. I gaze with wonder into the forest side-view (left) and vertically (right). A hint of green presages another routine spring woodland delight.

Woodland delights are hidden in plain sight for those who know where to seek them. Honey locust, a native hardwood tree, sports wicked looking compound thorns.

The species also offers a bark pattern I have yet to recognize reliably, sometimes smooth, ranging to rigid vertical plating. I can’t yet come upon a honey locust and immediately declare its identity with certainty unless, of course, I spot the compound thorns.

In contrast, persimmon bark reaches out to me even from a distance, its blocky nearly black stem shouting, “Hey you dim-witted old forester, it’s me…persimmon. You surely remember me, Diospyros virginiana!”

Some other common Sanctuary species suggest their identity by bark and form. American beech trees have smooth elephant hide bark and wide spreading crowns, even broader than an oak of similar trunk diameter. Each forest tree offers its unique personality, its individual woodland delight.

Spring delights come in many forms and appeal variably according to the interests and passions of the woods wanderer. Compound thorns, moss skirts, and elm fungus mushrooms represent points along the complex circle of life within the Sanctuary’s forest ecosystem. Any single riparian forest acre spreads its delight-bounty within a 4.356 million cubic foot magical kingdom. I wonder what I did not see. What did I miss?

How fortunate was I to stumble at eye level across this member of the fungi kingdom? It’s common name: deer vomit mushroom.

I found information worth sharing (itself a special delight) on an obscure website called Mushroom Monday:

Good afternoon, friends,

This week’s fungus looks like spray paint, and it’s not even just one fungus; it’s a plasmodial soup of several different fungi and microorganisms referred to by the vile (and bile) name “deer vomit” (Fusicola merismoides). I learned about this last Monday on the New York Mycological Society zoom ID session and then found it on Saturday during a chainsaw training class I took in the Catskills. Sometimes referred to as a “fungal volcano” or a “fungal potpourri”, this spring-time slime is often found on the cut limbs of trees and native grape vines (Vitis labrusca and Vitis riparia).

Fun Facts

Every specimen of F. merismoides that has been DNA barcoded has come back with a different sequence which suggests that each slime is a unique complex of different organisms. Just like a snowflake, no two are the same. The orange color comes from the fungus Fusicolla merismoides (previously Fusarium merismoides), an ascomycete that consumes some of the other yeasts and microorganisms in the flux. The slime essentially has its own ecology where some species of fungi and microbes are growing symbiotically while some are parasitizing each other – but that’s not too different from what’s going on inside our own body.

I try to visit the Sanctuary every 2-3 months, monitoring change and discovering what Nature reveals. This trip proved especially rewarding. How else might I have encountered such a lovely example of a primordial soup; a fungal volcano!?

Thoughts and Reflections

I offer these observations:

Nothing in Nature is static — the Sanctuary is in constant motion.
Open your eyes to the magic and wonder of such delights as a primordial soup or a fungal volcano!
Can you imagine a simple delight more magnificent than our prodigious spring ephemeral wildflowers!?

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: “©2024 Steve Jones, Great Blue Heron LLC. All Rights Reserved.”

Another Note: If you came to this post via a Facebook posting or by another route, please sign up now (no cost… no obligation) to receive my Blog Post email alerts: http://eepurl.com/cKLJdL

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

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 Three Books

I wrote my books Nature Based Leadership (2016), Nature-Inspired Learning and Leading (2017), and Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits: Stories of Passion for Place and Everyday Nature (2019; co-authored with Dr. Jennifer Wilhoit) 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.

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

All three of my books (Nature Based Leadership; Nature-Inspired Learning and Leading; Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits) present compilations of personal experiences expressing my (and co-author Dr. Wilhoit for Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits) deep passion for Nature. All three 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 now have a fourth book, published by Dutton Land and Cattle Company, Dutton Land & Cattle: A Land Legacy Story.