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Mid-June Exploration on Trails New to Me on Lake Guntersville State Park!

/in /by

NOTE: Some of my GBH photo essays were not routinely distributed from mid-February through mid-June. I will resend those one by one, beginning the first week of July. Here is my Post from April 21 (https://stevejonesgbh.com/2026/04/21/brief-form-post-57-reflection-in-on-beaverdam-tupelo-swamp-wheeler-national-wildlife-refuge/)

 

On-site to attend the Alabama State Parks Foundation board meeting (June 18, 2026), at Lake Guntersville State Park, I arrived the prior morning to explore trails I had not yet wandered. I enjoyed a sweeping loop that covered the Terrell Connector, Terrell Trail, Graveyard Road, Service Road, Cave Trail, and Lodge Road, then returned through Terrell Trail and the Terrell Connector. No, I refuse to claim mine was a hike. Like John Muir, I sauntered these forest trails and park roads to experience yet another northern Alabama second-growth Cumberland Plateau forest. I walked within the forest…not through the forest. I was absorbing all I could discover hidden in plain sight, not to reach benchmarks, score miles, and log elevation gain. Come along with me virtually.

The entire route transited second-growth forest. However, second-growth is a broad characterization encompassing nearly every acre of forest in the eastern USA. Very little of the original pre-Columbian forest escaped domestication, settlement, logging, and other disturbances. Although all second-growth, the LGSP forest is anything but uniform.

 

Entering a Forest Stand with an Ancient Aura

 

The Connector Trail transits a rich bottomland forest exhibiting old-growth characteristics: large-diameter towering hardwoods, abundant dead and down woody debris, and tiered canopy. I felt I had entered an ancient forest.

Lake GSPLGSP

 

A planked boardwalk kept my boots dry.

Lake GSP

 

A channel directed water through the bottomland. The waterway appeared to be human-made, suggesting a dragline or backhoe excavation drainage ditch through fertile farmland prior to the Corps of Engineers or TVA acquiring the basin property for Lake Guntersville. I have often observed that every parcel of forest has a story to tell. I can discern some of the tale from hints, allegations, and evidence on site, yet there is a juncture where conjecture blurs from certainty.

Lake GSP

 

Tufts of Christmas fern highlighted the fertile bottomland near the channel. Dense shade reduced understory growth, leaving the fern standing in isolation…alone in the gloam.

Lake GSP

 

I continued beyond the ancient feel of the Christmas fern glade.

 

Exiting the Apparent Old-Growth

 

The Connector Trail brought me to a spaghetti intersection. Several hours later I worked my way back to this loblolly pine tree, and then on to my car.

Lake GSP

 

The remainder of my transit stayed on uplands. Long ago when I was managing company-owned forest land, I would have subdivided the property into management units. Such was not the intent of my LGSP wanderings. I sought not to understand, differentiate, or consolidate…nor to consider the forest. I wanted only to discover the beauty, magic, wonder, awe, and inspiration that linked one marvel, curiosity, and oddity to another. This trail segment served as matrix, revealing nothing special… just a peaceful, quiet stretch that offered no distractions. This stand of mixed oaks and associated upland hardwoods seemed to fall within the age range of 80 to 110 years, typical of northern Alabama.

Lake GSP

 

A little further along, the fun began. The seeming even-aged matrix of 80-110-year-old forest was peppered with significantly larger, older, disfigured, and decayed  individuals, like this chestnut oak. I offer an explanation for this apparent two-aged forest. Loggers harvested commercially valuable individuals about a century ago, leaving unmerchantable trees behind. This chestnut oak will never secure a berth on a logging truck, yet in this public park setting, the tree’s non-forest-product value may be nearly incalculably high.

Lake GSPLake GSP

 

 

 

Among other benefits, the tree produces vast quantities of mast (acorns for animal consumption). The tree is hollow and likely has been since the logger noticed it was not worth felling early in the twentieth century. This oak occupies land, air, and soil covering at least one-fifth of an acre. Think of the vast quantities of organic matter processed by the tree, associated organisms (micro and macro), and energy flowing through this single tree ecosystem.

Lake GSP

 

And nearby a healthy, vibrant, ~90-year-old hickory reached high into the canopy, its bark revealing vigorous growth, distinct from the old denizen in the turtle-head massive monster image below.

Lake GSP

 

 

I recorded this 59-second video along the trail.

 

Again, imagine this gnarled hickory ignored by the forest sawyer so many years ago. Every tree has a story to tell. I’d like to hear this unique individual’s tale.

Lake GSP

 

I recorded this 60-second video of the gnarled hickory:

 

Eyes closed, the turtle (or is it a dragon!) relaxed as I snapped photographs and recorded the short video.

Lake GSP

 

A black oak signaled internal decay with its severly swollen branch stub at chest level above the trail surface. I’m reminded of the 12 weeks of bi-weekly physical therapy I endured following my April 13, 2026, total left shoulder reconstruction. People with braces, recent scars, bandages, and gimpy, healing limbs surrounded me. Nine weeks after surgery, here I was at LGSP in the midst of trees bearing wounds, injuries, infections, and diverse infirmities and imperfections!

Lake GSP

 

Even among the affected trees, including this blemished black oak, a glance upward revealed the beauty, promise, and inspiration of the sun smiling through its crown.

Lake GSP

 

A nearby white oak stood among the stricken, its decay-swelled old branch stub opening a portal to its hollow core.

Lake GSP

 

Not all oaks are misshappen, decayed, and physically disabled. However, all sourwood trees (Oxydendrum arboreum) rebel against growing in accord with the basic, fundamental dictates of negative geotropism and positive phototropism. Most trees grow opposite the attraction of gravity or directly toward the sun. Sourwood prefers sinuosity, a characteristic I’ve admired since first meeting the species in freshman Dendrology! Compare the curvy sourwood cluster below right to the three clumped yellow poplars beyond them standing at ramrod attention.

Lake GSP Lake GSP

 

Some Additional Curiosities:

 

Our native loblolly pines accumulate resins in core wood as they age and mature. The resin-soaked heartwood is decay resistant, as is evident from this old cut stump. Only the bark and the core remain.

Lake GSP

This corewood skeleton remains intact on the forest floor where it fell decades ago. When I fueled a fireplace in prior residences, I collected such lightered wood to start evening fires.

Lake GSP

So many stories to interpret, record, and later share as I sauntered through LGSP; so little reader’s time to consume!

 

Kings Chapel Cemetery

 

I abruptly entered a sacred opening, dropping back 100 years. The cemetery bordered a community then tethered to Kings Chapel and anchored to the Tennessee River. I found no interment that postdated Lake Guntersville’s 1939 completion.

Lake GSP

 

The Terrell and King families were prominent citizens. These individuals died in 1938 and 1927. Imagine the tremendous family, community, and economic tremors imposed by dam completion.

Lake GSPLake GSP

 

The King inscription reads: Their toils are past, their work is done, they fought the fight — the victory is won. Who now tends their graves? Who remembers them?

Friends, neighbors, and kinfolk, these King and Strange residents passed in 1918 and 1926. Did any still-adjacent trees witness their burial?

Lake GSP

 

The John and Willie Strange epitaph: We trust our loss will be their gain, and that with Christ they have gone to reign.

The Terrell memory lives on via a named trail. I can think of less favorable ways to be memorialized!

Lake GSP Lake GSP

 

Some Worthy Postscripts

 

Two lovely mushrooms appeared, the first this hintapink (Russula paludosa), a brightly colored, edible brittlegill. I harvested only one of several, mostly to secure an underside photo for identification. I cooked the morsel with butter, pepper, and salt, finding the flavor mild and pleasant, but not nearly enough to truly gauge whether I’d want a full-omelette measure.

Lake GSP

 

I saw a handful of this meaty ornate-stalked bolete, identified as edible with a caution that the species can be too bitter for consumption. I found it disagreeably acrid.

Lake GSPLake GSP

 

This violet-toothed polypore occupied an oak sapling snag, performing its dedicated decomposing mission. No, not edible!

Lake GSP

 

Pin cushion moss colonized a long decaying stump and trunk, both visible only as an outline of the organic matter remains of the downed woody debris.

Lake GSP

Lake GSP

 

A supplejack vine clings to its black oak anchorage. I admire its smooth green bark and tendency to wrap in sinuous coils on tree stems and adjacent supplejack vines.

Lake GSP

 

I leave you with an image of the LGSP Mabrey Rock of Ages, along the Service Road as I returned to to the Connector Trail.

Lake GSP

 

Alabama State Parks Foundation

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Thoughts and Reflections

 

I offer these observations:

  • Take heart, not all oaks are misshapen, decayed, and physically disabled. (Steve Jones)
  • However, all sourwood trees (Oxydendrum arboreum) rebel against growing in accord with the basic, fundamental dictates of negative geotropism and positive phototropism. (Steve Jones)
  • I only went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in. (John Muir)

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

 

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

Vision:

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

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

 

Steve’s Four Books

 

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

I began writing books and Posts for several reasons:

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

Brief-Form Post #64: Mid-June Visit to a WNWR Bottomland Forest and a Drying Buckeye Impoundment!

/in /by

NOTE: Some of my GBH photo essays were not routinely distributed from mid-February through mid-June. I will resend those one by one, beginning the first week of July. Here is my Post from April 15 (https://stevejonesgbh.com/2026/04/15/brief-form-post-56-quick-circuit-of-the-dallas-fanning-nature-preserve/)

 

I am pleased to add the 64th of my GBH Brief-Form Posts (Less than five minutes to read!) to my website. I get wordy with my routine Posts. I don’t want my enthusiasm for thoroughness and detail to discourage readers. So, I will occasionally publish these brief Posts.

 

I am fortunate to live just a dozen miles due north of Alabama’s 35,000-acre Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge, where I decided to wander for several hours on June 9, 2026. I searched in a familiar bottomland hardwood forest for wild edible mushrooms: early chanterelles, oysters, boletes, chicken of the woods, and black-staining polypores. Finding only non-edibles, I made acquaintance with a road-crossing river cooter, photographed new Singing River Trail signage, and explored the sights and sounds of the Refuge’s Buckeye Impoundment, an important wildlife management feature.

 

Bottomland Forest

 

 

Search my website Blog link (https://stevejonesgbh.com/blog/) for Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge; choose from more than 50 prior posts on aspects of this nationally significant refugium. Were the refuge a single mile wide, it would extend 55 miles. Here is the interior road (HGH Road) that runs east-west about a mile north of the Tennessee River (Lake Wheeler), just into Limestone County, adjoining Madison County to the east. I often bushwalk (bushwhack) through this rich bottomland, which if not for the TVA/COE purchasing land to buffer the 1936 Wheeler Dam inudation property, would now probably be in private agricultural production.

 

Mushroom Venture

 

I ventured for 90 minutes in the bottomland finding abundant mushrooms of various inedible species.

Amanita were scattered in the deep and damp understory shade. This one served as a luncheon buffet for underside invertebrates.

 

Amanita color hue and sharpness vary with age.

 

Yet another Amanita species.

 

Unlike the gilled Amanitas, all Boletes have spongy pores under their caps. This is known as bitter Bolete, a common name that suggests it may not be inedible, but it assuredly is not suitable for consumption.

 

This Caloboletus firmus, considered too bitter to consume, bears perfect leaf impression artwork.

 

Its pink underside shows the characteristic spongy Bolete pore surface.

 

 

A Mushroom Consumer

 

I stopped for a friendly river cooter gravel road crossing chat. The shell-shocked retile refused to share edible mushroom location secrets with me!

 

I recorded this 43-second video of my turtle friend.

 

Singing River Trail Thoroughfare

 

The Singing River Trail will be a 200+ mile greenway system once completed. The Refuge recently posted signage delineating the SRT route. I recorded this 60-second video introducing the route. My narrative incorrectly identifies the road as Jolly B. It is HGH Road, which ties in to Jolly B a mile to the east.

 

The sign below is at the northern entrance to the Refuge on Jolly B Road.

 

Buckeye Impoundment

 

Buckeye Impoundment lies just beyond the point where HGH Road turns north (where I recorded the SRT video). Here is my Great Blue Heron Post from my 2024 overflight of WNWR and the image below of Buckeye Impoundment: https://stevejonesgbh.com/2024/12/05/buckeye-impoundment-in-early-october-on-the-wheeler-national-wildlife-refuge-part-one/

 

I entered the aerial photo image above on June 9, 2026 where the straight N/S road candy-canes into Buckeye Impoundment from the bottomland forest to the east.

I recorded this 60-second Buckeye Impoundment video.

 

The views below are to the SSE and the SW. I plan to return to examine and compare end of summer vegetative growth to this early June visit.

 

The impoundment is drying after an extended dormant season of intentional engineered flooding.

 

Summer Wildflower Profusion

 

Here are my observed early summer flower highlights at the marge of the impoundment.

Carolina desert chickory

 

Wild potato vine

 

Annual fleabane

 

Carolina ruellia

 

A quick, low investment visit into Nature pays high dividents in peace of mind, satisfaction, exercise, and learning and discovery. John Muir nailed it:

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

 

Closing

 

I accept the challenge of distilling these Brief-Form Posts into a single distinct reflection, this one cut, modified, and pasted from above:

I am fortunate to live just a dozen miles due north of Alabama’s 35,000-acre Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge, where I decided to wander for several hours on June 9, 2026. A quick, low investment visit into Nature pays high dividents in peace of mind, satisfaction, exercise, and learning and discovery. John Muir nailed it:

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

 

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

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Brief-Form Post #63: Mid-Summer Osher Lifelong Learning Institute Nature Walk at the Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge!

/in /by

NOTE: Some of my GBH photo essays were not routinely distributed from mid-February through mid-June. I will resend those one by one, beginning the first week of July. Here is my Post from April 9 (https://stevejonesgbh.com/2026/04/09/mid-december-delights-and-mysteries-on-the-wnwr-hiking-and-bicycling-trail/)

_________________________________________________________________________________________

 

I am pleased to add the 63rd of my GBH Brief-Form Posts (Less than five minutes to read!) to my website. I get wordy with my routine Posts. I don’t want my enthusiasm for thoroughness and detail to discourage readers. So, I will occasionally publish these brief Posts.

 

Fellow retired forester Chris Stuhlinger and I co-led an OLLI (Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, University of Alabama in Huntsville) Nature walk on June 13, 2026, at the Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge in Decatur, Alabama. We planned to saunter through the rich bottomland forest along the Flint Creek Trail, slowly exploring the beauty, magic, awe, and inspiration of Nature hidden in plain sight. Three of us appropriately dallied, immersed in wonder, wandering within the forest, truly focusing on the intended discovery and learning. The other dozen or so participants yielded to resident bottomland blood-sucking mosquitoes. As a result, the three of us were persuaded to abandon the trek and head to the nearby Refuge Visitors Center instead. I’ll take you there with me.

 

I had arrived at the trailhead early enough to examine the parking area Refuge buffer of sowed wildflower mix. Bergamots were among the plants already flowering.

 

I recorded this 53-second video of the beds dominated at the moment by bergamots and black-eyed Susans.

 

Black-eyed Susans are among my favorite summer natives.

 

We began our trek within sight of the beds, by crossing the boardwalk, which carried us across a sunny, breezy, mosquito-free (a relevant point as I will soon reveal) passage into the forest.

 

I recorded this 59-second video as we approached the trail via the boardwalk.

 

Pond cypress, a water-tolerant deciduous conifer, stood in the Flint Creek inlet at the boardwalk trailhead.

Flint CrFlint Cr

 

 

My Musings on What Warrants Doing as Time Wanes

 

We entered the forest where wonders awaited some of us… and two-winged, six-legged terrorists inflicted intolerable annoyance on the others. Summer passage through certain northern Alabama ecotypes exacts a toll. The circumstances of this day lead me to pledge (to self) that I will heretofore exercise greater caution in agreeing to which particular OLLI (or any other) missions I shall choose/decide to accept. 

None of us knows how many woodland excursions lie ahead. I do know that the window eventually closes. The clock continues ticking. I love my deliberate, succinct retirement 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.

Mightn’t I have been better advised to persue a Nature jaunt of my own design, intent, passion, purpose, and ken, rather than one where the participants are easily dissuaded from the effort? As I draft this text, I will enter my fourth quarter of a century in two days. Chances are slim (to none) that a fifth awaits me (Well, maybe it’s with partaking a fifth of Old Forester that my chance improves!).

Without belaboring my disappointment, allow me to point out that at least eight of our 14 participants wore short-sleeve shirts/blouses, despite our advance suggestion to avoid attracting unwanted insect attention and voracious feeding.

 

An Abbreviated Woodland Exploration

 

The bottomland forest presented abundant mushrooms for those of us not flushed ahead by the pesky skeeters. Rather than escort you with deep narrative, allow me to introduce our welcoming fungi. Lactarius psammicola gave us palm-size shrooms.

Flint Cr

 

Golden-gilled gerronema showed their characteristic biege funnels.

Flint Cr

 

Although very attractive, the species is not considered edible.

Flint Cr

 

Bolete mushrooms are a group of fungi with spongy pores under their caps instead of gills, including some edible species. I’ve reached a point in my foraging where I’m gaining enough knowledge and confidence to begin selecting certain boletes. This individual is in an advanced state of decay, rotting with a bolete mould.

Flint CrFlint Cr

 

Nearby we spotted dog vomit slime mold, a fungus that has a moniker that, even if it were edible, would discouraged human consumers.

Flint CrFlint Cr

 

I spotted an unfamiliar understory plant, whitenymph. By this point of progress, the mosquito-spurred group had raced way ahead of us.

Flint Cr

 

 

 

I felt compelled to photograph Carolina ruellia, a lovely little ground-hugging early summer wildflower.

Flint Cr

 

 

Quick Trip across the Highway to the Visitors Center Cypress Pond

 

The larger group hailed us before we had traversed half the distance they covered. We agreed to return to our vehicles, and then leave to the visitors center about a mile away, across the highway, where we anticipated far fewer human-blood-consuming insects. Some of the original group did not transfer to the visitors center.

I’ll touch briefly on our mosquito-abatement alternative. I always enjoy the bald cypress pond and boardwalk near the visitors center.

Cypress Pond

 

Stems are packed tightly and reach high. Cypress knees perform their function, whether securing incremental anchorage or assisting in gaseous exchange.

Cypress Pond

 

I recorded this 60-second video within the cypress pond, adding a little Righteous Brothers accompaniment.

 

I always glance heavenward from the boardwalk. The dense trunk-stocking suggests crowded, intersecting and overlapping crowns. Instead, cypress expresses crown shyness… faithfully, maintaining space-margins and no-touch zones separating one crown from another! Is it my own certifiable introvert personality that explains my admiration of sylvan crown shyness?

Cypress

 

Perhaps I overreacted to our change in plans; perhaps not. However, in no small part owing to my seminal life benchmark (75 years!), my angst and pique were real… and persist. I shall be recalibrating priorities. From a time-of-life-dawn, the brim-full hour glass left plenty of room for judgement error. Today, with a setting sun ahead, the sand grains rush unceasingly. The relative cost of each one amplifies. My maternal grandmother, a country girl from Appalachian-region West Virginia, said as much: “The older I get, the faster time goes!”

 

Closing

 

I accept the challenge of distilling these Brief-Form Posts into a single distinct reflection, this one cut, modified, and pasted from above:

None of us knows how many woodland excursions lie ahead. I do know that the window eventually closes. The clock continues ticking. I love my deliberate, succinct retirement 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.

Mightn’t I have been better advised to pursue a Nature jaunt of my own design, intent, passion, purpose, and ken?

 

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

 

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

 

Flint Cr

Understory and Ground Cover at Marshall Forest Preserve National Natural Landmark in Rome, Georgia!

/in /by

NOTE: Some of my GBH photo essays were not routinely distributed from mid-February through mid-June. I will resend those one by one, beginning the first week of July. Here is my Post from March 18 (https://stevejonesgbh.com/2026/03/18/brief-form-post-55-auburn-universitys-college-of-forestry-wildlife-and-environment-crooked-oaks-nature-resort/)

Fellow retired forester Chris Stuhlinger, retired videographer Bill Heslip, and I visited Marshall Forest Preserve, established as Georgia’s first National Natural Landmark near Rome, Georgia, on April 5, 2026. Recognized by the Old Growth Forest Network (https://www.oldgrowthforest.net/), the preserve encompasses ~300 acres of undisturbed upland pine and hardwood forest. I focus this photo essay on the forest understory and ground cover we observed on the preserve.

The entrance sculpture suggested to me a maze, a puzzle, a secret hidden within, although nothing in signage or on the MFP website revealed its intended meaning. I’ll stick with my interpretation because it aligns with what every one of my woodland rambles divulges:

In every walk with nature, one receives far more than he seeks. (John Muir)

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

MFP

 

Overnight-rain-wetted Asian wisteria clogged the trail and dampened our clothing as we penetrated its dense growth from ground to ten feet.

MFP

 

The scarce ground cover under the massive oak is typical across the preserve.

MFP

 

The two images below reveal one cause of the spartan ground cover. Both show a distinct browse line to five to six feet above ground, typical in hardwood forests with high deer density.

MFP

 

Muscadine grape seedlings hug the ground. Deer will feed on the new foliage, thus keeping the muscadine constrained to an understory carpet. We saw very few hardwood tree seedlings, another clue to excessive deer density.

MFP

 

Although we hiked during the height of spring wildflower season, we noted a dearth of spring ephemerals, yet another nod to over grazing.

MFP

 

I recorded this one-minute video of the sparsely vegetated ground cover dominated by muscadine grape seedlings.

 

We noted an oak surrounded by a circle of seedling wood sorrell. I’ll classify this one-of-a-kind novelty as unexpected, peculiar, and worthy of explanation…yet none of us could fathom why we found this unique, isolated concentration.

MFP

 

A single striped wintergreen found a means of penetrating and standing above a thick carpet of last fall’s oak leaves.MFP

 

An American giant millipede grazed microrganisms on that same oak leaf forest floor.

MFP

 

Ever on the lookout for mushrooms, especially edibles, I found only this lonesome clump of trainwrecker mushrooms, a basidiomycete parasite of coniferous trees. The species is tough enough to resist creosote and grow even on railroad ties. Online resources indicate that they are edible when young. Let’s see, tough enough to grow on creosote-treated railroad ties…is edible! I am not ready to place a checkmark on my future foraging list. Regardless, they are handsome.

Rome

 

Bill borrowed my iPhone to photograph me strolling along a moss-carpet trail section.

 

White moss occupied trunk collars and windthrow hummocks, mounds, and pillows.

Rome

Rome

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The carbon cycle is continuous, ranging from a recent windfall, to last year’s leaf drop, to a decades old downed tree well along to reincorporating with the soil.

Rome

 

Eight days after exploring Marshall Forest Preserve, I reported to a Huntsville, Alabama surgery center for scheduled left shoulder replacement revision, prosthesis reversal. Fifty-two days (as I compose this narrative on June 4) of physical therapy later, I am ready to return to woods-wandering. I am once again feeling vibrant. Yet, I think of an anonymous conservationist quote, “A tree’s role is to add a little new wood each year.” My wood-incrementing pace is fading. I used to measure hikes in miles per day. Today I revel in logging observations, reflections, photos, and brief videos per hour. Distance itself holds lesser and lesser significance and value. What I see, feel, discover, and ponder ignite my passion, fuel my wanderings (and wonderings), and lead me to add a little new wood each year, even if at a reduced pace.

 

 

Thoughts and Reflections

 

I offer these observations:

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

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

  • What I see, feel, discover, and ponder ignite my passion, fuel my wanderings (and wonderings), and lead me to add a little new wood each year, even if at a reduced pace. (Steve Jones)

 

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

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

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

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

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

Vision:

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

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

 

Steve’s Four Books

 

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

I began writing books and Posts for several reasons:

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

 

 

 

 

 

Brief-Form Post #60: Oddities, Curiosities, and Mysteries in a Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge Bottomland Hardwood Forest

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I am pleased to add the 60th of my GBH Brief-Form Posts (Less than five minutes to read!) to my website. I get wordy with my routine Posts. I don’t want my enthusiasm for thoroughness and detail to discourage readers. So, I will occasionally publish these brief Posts.

I once again entered the Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge bottomland hardwood forest south of HGH Road on January 15, 2026. I sought a break from writing, reading, and preparing for the two courses I’ll be teaching in the winter term at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at the University of Alabama in Huntsville and at LearningQuest, a similar program offered through the Madison County Huntsville Library. Each time I explore this extraordinarily fertile and rich WNWR forest, I seek the beauty, magic, wonder, and awe that I always find hidden in plain sight.

Temperature still in the upper twenties; these oyster mushrooms are frozen solid, adorning a downed hickory trunk, their mycelia decomposing the cellulose within. I’ve found that oysters are early saprophytes, flourishing within three years of tree mortality. I know nothing about cultivating oysters with home kits, much less commercial production. I harvested a few of these for omeletts, the first time I gathered frozen specimens.

 

Nearby I recorded this 59-second video within the forest,  including a big oak.

 

The oak’s diameter breast height (4.5-feet above ground; DBH) exceeded three feet.

 

When still a supple sapling, this sweetgum suffered an impact from above, slamming it to the ground, yet maintaining its roots’ connectivity to the soil. The concussive force broke the now horizontal stem, where the gaping mouth remains today. A doramt bud erupted, sending a new stem/trunk vertically (left). The entire horizontal portion is hollowed by decay. The larger opening (right) is where the sapling roots still reach downward. The blowhole 18 inches from the severed topside root basal opening adds character and mystery to this woodland ogre.

 

I recorded this 59-second video of the fallen and somewhat recovered sweetgum and the similary tortured yellow poplar just 30 feet beyond.

 

The same toppled signature and fate. Both trees survive through natural resilience. Forest objects have been crashing onto hardwood saplings for thousands of generations of sweetgum and yellow poplar. Evolution has prepared both species (and many others) for striving beyond catastrophe to ensure seed production to extend the individual’s gene pool. The poplar at left fell toward the photo point. The other view is from the root end.

 

A peculiar red oak burl watched me approach. All of us, I posit, have playfully identified cloud shapes on spring and summer afternoons. I admit to engaging in the same pursuit with tree oddities. Can you do better than a praying mantis head with this one?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I may some day venture forth to capture images of these obscure, startling, and potentially evil growths in the dark of night…if I can get the nerve!

 

Washington Irving mused about the menace of darkness in The Legend of Sleepy Hollow:

There is nothing like the silence and loneliness of night to bring dark shadows over the brightest mind.

This sweetgum appendage matches the oak burl’s menacing scale! Shift the view angle by 90 degrees and get a completely different creature.

 

Subtle perspective shifts yield seeming endless varieties, especially when viewed through lenses of imagination. Again, try it in the dark!

 

Once again, Washington Irving (The Legend of Sleepy Hollow) saw the macabre and horror in such tree embodiments:

In the dark shadow of the grove, on the margin of the brook, he beheld something huge, misshapen, black, and towering. It stirred not, but seemed gathered up in the gloom, like some gigantic monster ready to spring upon the traveller.

This eight-inch DBH eastern hophornbeam (Ostrya virginiana) sports an impressive waist-high burl, a spherical benign tumorous growth triggered by viral, bacterial, or fungal (or a combination) infectuous agents. If I stretch my imagination, I see a full frontal countenance with two eyes, pug nose, puffy cheeks, and a closed, slightly frowing mouth.

HGH

 

Albert Einstein was a tireless proponent of both imagination and good humor!

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

The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education.

The bottomlands have shallow winter water tables. Windthrow is common, creating hummocks and hollows, mounds and pits, and pillows and cradles, colloquial expressions for the resultant microtopography. The hollows hold water until spring when evaporation and transporation increase to lower the water table. Many hold clear water. Critters are keeping this one muddy. Frogs?

 

Closing Observations

 

I spotted just a single cutleaf grapefern plant, fresh and colorful amid the stark brown leaves.

 

Before departing the refuge, I stopped by Blackwell Swamp along Jolly B Road. I leave you to enjoy the beauty of a sunny WNWR winter morning.

 

There is nothing dark, menacing, or gloomy about my morning Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge saunter.

 

Closing

 

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

I cannot offer a quote more apropos than Washington Irving’s observation from The Legend of Sleepy Hollow:

In the dark shadow of the grove, on the margin of the brook, he beheld something huge, misshapen, black, and towering. It stirred not, but seemed gathered up in the gloom, like some gigantic monster ready to spring upon the traveler.

 

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

 

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

 

Brief-Form Post #57: Reflection In & On Beaverdam Tupelo Swamp — Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge!

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I am pleased to add the 57th of my GBH Brief-Form Posts (Less than five minutes to read!) to my website. I don’t want my enthusiasm for thoroughness and detail to discourage readers. So, I will occasionally publish these brief Posts.

I returned to Beaverdam Swamp Boardwalk on the afternoon of January 4, 2026. In the vicinity with time to spare, I leisurely sauntered the half-mile to the boardwalk terminus at the creek. The Boardwalk transects a National Natural Landmark within the Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge. This ancient tupelo forest is one of my very special natural places in North Alabama, just a twenty-minute drive from my home. I visit it 3-4 times annually to witness changes across the seasons.

I offer a few observations, reflections, photos, and three brief videos. A mixed hardwood stand occupies the gravel trail approaching the boardwalk, which crosses the tupelo swamp.

BeaverdamBeaverdam

 

I recordedd this 58-second video beside a handsome green ash tree prior to entering the boardwalk.

 

I’ll spare you a detailed narrative. The elevated wooden walkway snakes through the ancient stand. I’ve seen the swamp nearly flush with the underside of the decking, perhaps 18″ higher than the current level.

BeaverdamBeaverdam

 

We’ve received almost three inches of rain since then. I will visit once more before winter’s flush ends.

This is my 59-second video of the swamp from the boardwalk.

 

The swamp is rich with reflections and ripe for the kind of mind, heart, body, soul, and spirit reflecting that most of us enjoy but too often push aside in the hurry and scurry of life and living.

Beaverdam

 

The buttressed tupelo trunk, draped in resurrection fern, etends downward in reflection and reaches high above.

Beaverdam

 

The tupelo forest canopy is uniformly high. There is little understory or intermediate crowns, contrary to most of our upland forests..

Beaverdam

 

A view upward reveals only the main canopy crown.

Beaverdam

 

Darkness comes early early January. By 3:30 PM the sun was dipping to its winter nadir at 30 degrees south of west.

Beaverdam

 

I recorded this 60-second video at the Beaverdam Creek terminus of the boardwalk.

 

The creek empties into Lake Wheeler’s Limestone Bay within a mile of the deck.

 

Death and Decay

 

A hollowed tupelo stands along the creek just upstream of the boardwalk terminus. Life and death dance breast to breast. One (always the same) will ultimtely prevail, returning tons of organic matter to the grand cycle of swamp and creek birth, decay, death, and rebirth.

beaverdam

 

Oyster mushrooms adorn a downed log. This common decomposer fungi, I’ve learned by observation, aggressively colonizes dead and dying trees, seeming to prefer hickories, hackberry, and elms.

Beaverdam

 

 

I also found an aging lions mane mushroom on a heavily decayed stump.

Beaverdam

 

This magnificent National Natural Landmark never disappoints, whether deepest January or during the dog days of August. I relish being so close to a special natural place

Robert Service, a Brit who spent time in the Far North 125 years ago, wrote in Spell of the Yukon:

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

It’s the forst where silence has lease;

It’s the beauty that thrills me with wonder,

It’s the silence that fills me with peace.

The Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge is not a great, big, broad land ‘way up yonder, but it does grasp me in its beauty, magic, wonder, awe, and inspiration:

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

And I want to go back–and I will.

The freshness, the freedom, the farness–

Oh God! how I’m stuck on it all.

 

Closing

 

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

The Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge is not a great, big, broad land ‘way up yonder, but it does grasp me in its beauty, magic, wonder, awe, and inspiration:

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

And I want to go back–and I will.

 

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

 

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

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

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

 

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

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

 

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

 

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

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

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

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

 

Tree Form Curiosities and Oddities

 

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

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

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

 

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

 

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

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

Here is my 59-second ghost stump video.

 

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

 

Woodland Decay as a Life-Force

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

Powerful Food Chain Impoundment Water Enters Flint Creek

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

Thoughts and Reflections

 

I offer these observations:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

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

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

Vision:

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

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

 

Steve’s Four Books

 

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

I began writing books and Posts for several reasons:

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanksgiving Eve Fungi Encounters at Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge

/in /by

Mushroom Potpourri

 

I ventured into the bottomland hardwood forest south of HGH Road, east of Jolly B. Road, on the Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge, Limestone County, Alabama, on the morning of Thanksgiving Eve, 2025. A chilly post-frontal breeze blew from the north-northwest under cloudless, cerulean skies. I hoped recent rains would bless me with a variety of mushrooms to view and catalog. Join me via this Post on my two-hour bushwhack discovery jaunt.

I am an old forester, learning in retirement to identify some regional fungi by their mushrooms, with special attention to common edibles, such as oysters, chanterelles, lion’s mane, puffballs, chicken of the woods, jellies, and a few others. I relish the rich tapestry of a vibrant forest, where death and life are interwoven in an elegant, intricate, and unending dance of carbon accumulation, decay, and recycling. Fungi are among the decomposers; mushrooms, their reproductive organs, disseminate billions of spores to ensure the cycle remains unbroken.

I am not a mycologist. Please don’t hold me to properly identifying the fungi pictured below. I rely on memory, limited referencing my several source books, and too much reliance on my close companion iNaturalist. I give you my best shot.

False turkey tail covers the surface of this downed red oak trunk. The bark hasn’t yet sloughed, owing in large measure to the brackets and mycelia holding fast.

HGH

 

Pear-shaped puffballs populated the oak. These had not yet ripened.

 

Some puffbals were ripe, emitting clouds of spores when poked.

HGH

 

I recorded this 22-second video of the finger-poked smoking puffballs.

 

I spotted a biodiversity cornucopia on another downed oak: snow jelly fungus, crowded parchment, and a white-lip globe snail on a carpet of seductive entodon moss. Wow, I’m getting chills just remembering the magic hidden in plain sight…a nature-enthusiast’s siren song!

HGH

 

Each time I enter any woodland, I strive to see magic hidden in plain sight. The mushroom/snail/moss menagerie congregated within a six-inch diameter circle. Add to the life assemblage that the snail is very likely consuming algae and organic detritus. A remarkable six inch circle of life. I wonder what I may have missed on my woodland circuit. I spotted the six-inch circle domain only because my wide, circuitous wanderings brought me within a few feet of the log.

I’m reminded of the intensive, scientific forest inventories I’ve conducted across my forestry career:

  • Maryland Forest Service, Savage River State Forest (1970-71) — two summers (after freshman and sophomore forestry years) systematically sampling fifth-acre plots
  • Union Camp Corporation (1973-1985) — sampling company forestland to prepare timber sales
  • UCC (1973-85) — regeration surveys to assess planted pine survival after the first growing season
  • Doctoral field research (1986-87) — sampling uncut second growth Allegheny hardwood forests in northwestern Pennsylvania and southwestern New York

I mention my professional inventories to contrast my informal, haphazard, unscientific wanderings seeking whatever caught my eye on a late fall saunter at WNWR. I wonder what a gridded sampling filling a full day would have revealed? I leave such a venture to a forest mycology graduate student…or maybe an artist/photographer intent on assembling a portfolio of Nature’s limitless delights.

Back to the six inch circle of diverse life. Each component of the miniature ecosystem warrants an individual photograph. I don’t recall previously seeing snowy jelly fungus. As its name suggests, it feels like Jello!

HGH

 

Crowded parchment is ubiquitous throughout our hardwood forests. It is a saprobic, wood decaying bracket fungus occurring on stumps, logs, and sticks of hardwood trees, especially oak.

HGH

 

The white-lip globe snail grazed peacefully, oblivious to the old forester observing it.

HGH

 

The seductive entodon moss offers a dense carpet, ideal for gathering and holding moisture and nutrients, and offering the snail a surface to scour with its rasping mouth parts. I love the seductive moniker. Perhaps seductive to the globe snail!

HGH

 

Club-like tuning fork mushrooms and Carolina shield lichen colonize this downed stem. Surely, an other worldly scene!

HGH

 

Carolina shield lichen, a primary decomposer, seems to possess this dead and downed hardwood stem. Although I may assume it is understood by many, I will risk stating the obvious. A lichen is a composite organism composed of a fungus and an alga (singular of algae) growing communally. An online source strays from my simplistic explanation: a lichen is a hybrid colony of algae or cynobacteria living symbiotically among filaments of multiple fungus species, along with bacteria embedded in the cortex or skin, in a mutualistic relationship. 

HGH

 

I do not aim with these weekly photo essays to demonstrate how much I know. Leonardo da Vinci captured my approach to communicating complexity:

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.

I reported to several boards over my senior administrative career. When preparing for quarterly board meetings, I coached my staff to Keep it Simple. Present as though board members were sixth graders, not because they were either unable to understand complex issues, quantitatively limited, or unfamiliar with higher education. Instead, board members have lives, businesses, and many distractions, and then meet only four times a year, jumping into our boiling university cauldron. Forcing you (staff) to keep it simple assures that you will edit, condense, and summarize the essential, key elements more concisely, precisely, and powerfully. I keep my Great Blue Heron prose at the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level 10.

Oak bracket mushrooms can be massive, growing at the base of living and dead oaks. Other common names include weeping conk, warted oak polypore, and weeping polypore. Note the thick amber, honey-like liquid secretions

HGH

 

My beauty-of-the-day designation goes to coral-pink merulius, a colorful decomposer of dead woody debris.

HGH

 

Ganaderma sessile, a type of laquered saprobic polypore bracket fungus, decomposes dead hardwood logs, stumps, and other debris. One oneline site refers to the species as a beautiful polypore, yet I am not persuaded to elevate it to beauty-of-the-day! I recall from my long-ago forest pathology course hearing the moniker bear’s tongue fungus. I see the resemblance.

HGH

 

I have doubts about this being deer-colored Trametes (Trametopsis cervina), yet iNaturalist seemed at least marginally confident. I like this individual’s powder puff appearance, which drew me to powderpuff bracket (Postia ptychogaster), which is found in both Europe and North America.

HGH

 

Autumn is the season for bulbous honeytop, a delightful edible. I have found large colonies of honeytop mushrooms elsewhere. I don’t remember seeing bulbous honeytop. The photo at right shows the conspicuous swollen stem base.

HGH

 

 

 

 

The late autumn forest carbon cycle was in full gear, a surging, steaming stewpot of life, death, and renewal.

 

Other Lifeforms

 

I snapped the below left photo of the bracket fungi and coral-pink merulius, only to find the white-banded fishing spider later when I examined the image, which explains why the enlarged spider image at right is not in focus. The spider was indeed hidden in plain sight.

HGHHGH

 

 

 

 

 

Resurrection fern shows full life during the moist North Alabama dormant season. Partridgeberry likewise displays vibrant green winter foliage, combined with its bright red berries. Some people complain of our winter dreariness and incessant drabness. Contrarily, I delight in its stark simplicity, exquisite contrasts, and unlimited delights. Summer woods present a visual maelstrom that can overwhelm an old forester seeking isolated delights. Dormant season performances present on isolated stages.

HGHHGH

 

I’ll end with another gelatin mushroom, American amber jelly, which I found on the gravel road near my car. The infected dead twig fell from the canopy overhead. The background is my tailgate. I have harvested and consumed these uniquely-textured shrooms occasionally.

HGH

 

Thanks for accompanying me virtually. It didn’t match a six-mile circuit of Jenny Lake in the Tetons, but it offered everyday Nature delights almost in my backyard (15-mile drive), absent the time and expense visiting a world class National Park.

 

Thoughts and Reflections

 

I offer these observations:

  • Fungi deepen forest exploration mystery and intrigue. (Steve Jones)
  • There are some who can live without wild things and some who cannot. (Aldo Leopold)
  • Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. (Leonardo da Vinci)

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

 

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

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

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

 

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

 

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

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

Vision:

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

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

 

Steve’s Four Books

 

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

I began writing books and Posts for several reasons:

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

 

 

 

Early December Nature Explorations along The Natchez Trace Parkway

/in /by

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

 

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

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

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

 

As the sign notes:

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

 

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

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

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

 

 

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

Water is the driving force of all Nature!

I recorded this 59-second video at Sweetwater Branch.

 

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

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

 

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

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

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

 

I recorded this 59-second video at Glenrock Branch.

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

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

 

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

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

Thoughts and Reflections

 

I offer these observations:

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

 

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

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

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

Vision:

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

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

 

Steve’s Four Books

 

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

I began writing books and Posts for several reasons:

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

 

 

 

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

/in /by

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

 

My Hesitant Working Hypothesis

 

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

HGH

 

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

 

 

My Rationale for Accepting  an Abandoned Farmland Origin

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

 

Evidence Casting Doubt on My Abandoned Farmland Hypothesis

 

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

 

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

 

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

HGH

 

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

 

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

HGH

 

Here is my 47-second video of the individual.

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

Here’s another view of the oak.

HGH

 

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

 

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

 

Temporary Closure and a Revised Hypothesis

 

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

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

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

Thoughts and Reflections

 

I offer these observations:

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

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

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

  • As with most elements of Nature, the more I learn, the less I know. (Steve Jones)

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

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

Please circulate images with photo credit: “©2025 Steve Jones, Great Blue Heron. All Rights Reserved.”

 

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

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

 

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

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

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

Vision:

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

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

 

Steve’s Four Books

 

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

I began writing books and Posts for several reasons:

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

 

HGH Road