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Curiosities and Oddities 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 5 (https://stevejonesgbh.com/2026/03/05/re-visiting-auburn-universitys-louise-kreher-forest-ecology-preserve-and-nature-center/)

 

Fellow retired forester Chris Stuhlinger, retired videographer Bill Heslip, and I visited Marshall Forest Preserve on April 5, 2026. Established as Georgia’s first National Natural Landmark, near Rome, Georgia, the Preserve is recognized by the Old Growth Forest Network (https://www.oldgrowthforest.net/). The preserve encompasses ~300 acres of undisturbed upland pine and hardwood forest. Our wandering began as persistent overnight rain ended, rewarding us with trunks stem-flow-darkened and bark surfaces beautifully algae-patterned in the relatively limited light under low clouds. The dampened woodland seemed to accent the curiosities and oddities I highlight in this weekly photo essay.

MFP

 

A twisted, stunted, dwarfed black cherry tree presented a gnome-arch trailside near the trailhead. Were I younger and more nimble, I may have made a ceremonial entrance on hands and knees. However, were I not incessantly young at heart, I may not have viewed the natural scupture as a fairy gateway!

MFP

 

A forked chestnut oak provided an eye-level sightline into the forest. There is nothing unusual about a forked oak. I include this tree only as a prop for the interesting photo that follows.

MFP

 

A bark-stripped standing dead loblolly pine had recently yielded to gravity, snapping three feet above the ground, vectoring gently enough that its bole neatly lodged in the forked notch of an adjacent oak, not unlike the lower-forked oak above. What were the chances? Perhaps within five of the 360 degree circumference available to it. The fallen stem leans at a perfect 45-degree angle. I wonder how long the laws of Nature will hold the pine trunk aloft before it slams to the ground, where agents of decomposition will act more earnestly. Ashes to ashes; dust to dust; an inevitable end game for life on Earth.

MFP

 

I love seeing Vaccinium arboreum, the only tall shrub/tree form of the blueberry genus. I encounter it most often on rocky slopes and cragggy exposed sites. Its orange-striped, twisted stems compel me to take a closer look, engage my imagination, and snap a photograph. Its physical form, distinctive bark color, and common names demand more than a casual glance. How can I resist sparkleberry, farkleberry, and winter huckleberry!

MFP

 

Resisting being out-contorted by sparkle/farkle/huckleberry, this understory black cherry insists not to comport by the natural laws of geotropism and phototropism. It seems to live indepedent of the laws generally applicable to its main canopy brethren that reach straight and tall in opposition to gravity and drawn by sunlight above.

RomeRome

 

Only its distinctive cornflake shredded bark and emerging spring leaves belie its identity as Prunus serotina.

Rome

 

Nature is amazingly resilient, valiantly attempting to survive impact and injury to eventually produce seed and extened its genetic lineage. Some force (a branch from above, a tree, or a heavy snow or ice load) slammed a sapling black cherry to horizontal several decades ago. The fallen stem activated a shoot from a dormant (adventitious) bud 15 feet from the overturned base. The vertical shoot may produce seed, achieving its ultimate purpose.

RomeRome

 

I marvel at Nature’s endless novelties. However, even as I classify these phenomena as new or unusual (i.e. novel), I admit that I never fail to discover tree form oddities and curiosities wherever I wander forests. Are these features deserving of special recogntion as novel, odd, curious, or unusual? A question worth pondering. I believe the answer is, yes, any circumstance that prompts me to wonder about the cause that led to a visible result is worthy of a special recognition moniker: oddity, curiosity, novel…

Leonardo da Vinci observed 500 years ago that natural phenomena can be explained by the universal laws of nature.

There is no result in nature without a cause; understand the cause and you will have no need of the experiment.
and
Nature never breaks her own laws!

Albert Einstein would have concurred:

I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious.

and

The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing.

 

Dead and Down Woody Debris

 

Significant biomass in dead and down woody debris is one distinguishing feature of old-growth forests. The resin-saturated pine skeleton below is the interior lightered core of a long dead pine. The outer dead wood that was not decomposer-resistant worked its way into the carbon cycle decades, if not centuries, ago.

Rome

 

The distinct pine knots will litter the forest floor for many years hence.

Rome

 

My companions agreed with me that this fallen pine corpse retains a dragon head reaching to the trail edge.

 

A standing dead pine snag retains a curious cupped depression three above ground. The wound looks mechanical, yet I’ve never seen a chainsaw create such a scoop mark. We noted the novel appearance…and moved along the trail, content that even we could not discern a cause for every result.

MFP

 

This veteran oak sported a porcine snout 20 feet up its bole. An old branch stub, the snout likely opens to a hollow core.

MFP

 

This wound on another oak clearly opens to a hollow interior. The misshapen swollen trunk is a sure indication of rot and fungal infection.

RomeRome

 

Yet another oak shows the signs of decay, suggested by an open branch stub portal, also signalling a hollow decayed core. A large burl also attracts attention. The rarity in this forest my be trees without distinguishing oddities, curiosities, and novelties.

Rome

 

A total anomaly, this black cherry tree comported with none of the identifying criteria listed in species keys.

RomeRome

 

The conspicuous lowland gorilla face did not assist our musings.

Rome

 

We marveled at an agrobacterial oak crown gall. I reminisced on the two years when I was responsible for procuring hardwood sawlogs for a Union Camp (my employer 1973-1985) hardwood lumber mill near the Virginia/North Carolina coastal plain border. Nearly every novelty I’ve mentioned would have been a defect rejecting delivery to the mill yard. Union Camp did not reward my latent talent for pondering tree form curiosities, oddities, and novelties!

Rome

 

I find beautiful patterns, especially on rain-wetted bark, this loblolly pine as an example. Bark crevices, with their associated microclimates, support fissure-colonies of algae, highlighting the plate margins with pale green.

Rome

 

I saw only a single tree example of this loblolly pine with a unique shredded, shed-bark trunk collar phenomenon, which shouted out for my attention. I suppose that the shredded bark skin at its base is resistant to decay (dry-layered above the moist mineral soil), even if very flammable. This segment of th MFP has not burned, at least for decades. Sometimes seeing a curiosity accomplishes little more than spark my interest in being on the lookout for seeing it again. Repetition may open my eyes to seeing it often enough to foster understanding and explanation.

Rome

Rome

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We’ve all heard the admonition about not seeing the forest for the trees. Across many chapters of my life and career, I saw the forest and the trees. Only later in this retirement life-chapter did I begin focusing on curiosities, novelties, oddities, and mysteries. Like Albert Einstein, I have evolved into a creature of passionate curiosity.

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. (Leonardo da Vinci)

  • Death is a powerful and ubiquitous part of forest life. Ashes to ashes; dust to dust; an inevitable end game for life on Earth. (Steve Jones)

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

 

 

 

 

 

The Nature of the Wings Over North Georgia Airshow!

/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 February 25 (https://stevejonesgbh.com/2026/02/25/early-december-nature-explorations-along-the-natchez-trace-parkway/)

 

On April 4, 2026, two retired friends and I attended The Wings Over North Georgia Airshow near Rome. Normally, I focus these weekly photo essays on wildland forays, principally woodland ventures. I did not anticipate finding a Great Blue Heron Post topic during a day at the regional airport. However, my Dad, a WWII Pacific theatre Army Air Corps veteran, instilled in me a love of flight and weather (as well as Nature). The variable weather on April 4 prompted me to see the Nature of Wings Over North Georgia as a GBH Post topic.

The local forecast called for frontal rain to arrive near sunset. However, the first convective pop-up shower arrived soon after we set up our viewing lawn chairs without rain gear, a quarter-mile from the car! We toughed it out, thinking this was a rogue shower. The sky to the west, upstream in the firmament, looked bright and mostly clear. Fear not!

 

The show began, umbrellas transitioned from rain-shields to sun-brellas. Brilliant sunshine encouraged a few darkening cumulus to develop.

 

The crowd enjoyed a spectacular performance by an F-15 squadron of the Louisiana Air National Guard.

 

 

I recorded this 14-second video as one of the jets screamed down the flight line. My friends did not notice that behind my sunglasses I watched with tears in my eyes, my long-deceased Dad standing with me.

 

An innocent looking cumulus entered from the west, dropped a brand new rain curtain as we watched, and soaked us for no more than five minutes. The shower deepened and the sky darkened as it moved east-northeast into the north Georgia Appalachian foothills, providing a perfect backdrop for the looping smokeplane!

 

 

 

I recorded this 56-second smoke stunt plane video.

 

Climate and weather are the fundamental essence…the prevailing substrate…for every facet of Nature that drew me into foresrty and that powers me through retirement. There are those who wonder why anyone would waste time talking aimlessly about the weather. I can’t think of anything I’d rather discuss!

The weather held through more stunt and novelty performances. We all awaited the main act, the US Air Force Thunderbirds.

I recorded this 59-second video of the Thunderbirds taxiing out. I nervously watched cumulus building upstream to the west.

 

Rain drops peppered us as the six Thunderbirds reached the far end of the runway.

 

Never one to miss a good downpour, I recorded this 16-second video of the drenching shower.

 

It was far too late to return to the car for raingear. I took solace that my skin has never leaked; I’ve been wet many times before!

 

Mild temperatures and the promise of returning sunshine eased the discomfort for those who’d prefer to watch rain through a window.

 

I recorded this 31-second video as the rain ended.

 

Finally, the birds flew! I recorded this 37-second video (three segments spliced).

 

Still dripping from my rain-soaked hat and hair, I masked the emotion-triggered tears as these incredible flying machines powered over Rome, Georgia.

 

 

Deep memories, sweet nostalgia, the power and beauty of flight, and the magic and science of our dynamic weather lifted me high into the spring sky.

Dad died 30 years ago. I delivered his eulogy, including John Gillespie MaGee, Jr’s High Flight, Dad carried a copy in his wallet.

High Flight

“Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
of sun-split clouds, — and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of – wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air….

Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace.
Where never lark, or even eagle flew —
And, while with silent, lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
– Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.”

High Flight is a 1941 sonet written by war poet Magee, inspired by his experiences as a fighter pilot of the Royal Canadian Air Force in World War II. Magee began writing the poem on 18 August, while stationed outside London He mailed a completed manuscript to his family on 3 September, three months before he died in a training accident.

You may recall President Reagan referencing High Flight in memorializing the Challenger crew.

Nature comprises the firmament, the soil, the terrain, and all life that abounds…and all that has come before, that is, and that will be. I relished a few hours experiencing high flight, variable spring weather, good friends, and sharing time with the man who shaped my Nature-psyche and lives within me yet…until I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth!

 

Thoughts and Reflections

 

I offer these observations:

  • I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace.
    Where never lark, or even eagle flew. (John Gillespie Magee)

  • Deep memories, sweet nostalgia, the power and beauty of flight, and the magic and science of our dynamic weather lifted me high into the spring sky. (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

 

 

 

 

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 February 18 (https://stevejonesgbh.com/2026/02/18/mid-november-25-year-return-to-alabamas-chewacla-state-park/)

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. Our wandering began as persistent overnight rain ended, rewarding us with trunks stem-flow-darkened and bark surfaces beautifully algae-patterned in the relatively limited light under low clouds. I’m a big fan of National Natural Landmarks!

Bill and Chris stood at the traihead monument, a provocative stone symbol, rich with imagined meaning.

MFP

 

The stone graphic and concentric metal totem below hinted that the forest itself may pose mysteries and puzzles for us to ponder.

MFP

 

I recorded a 60-second rain-dampened video of our entry to MFP.

 

Although the preserve forest falls short of the scale and sanctity of old-growth redwood and coastal Douglas fir stands, an eastern US perspective allowed me to appreciate this untouched upland ecosystem. A large loblolly pine reached well over one hundred feet above, spreading wide.

Rome

 

Nearby, a regal red oak stood fat and tall. Had a logging crew been given a chance (logger’s choice), this specimen would have been the first to grace a log truck mill-bound. We foresters commonly sleuth stand history by the quality of tress left, even long after severed stumps have decayed. I saw no evidence at MFP of prior high-grading, the practice of removing high quality standing timber and leaving less commercially valuable stems: smaller, degraded, lower desirability species, hollowed, and decayed.

MFP

 

Like the loblolly, the oak occupies a dominant canopy position.

Rome

 

Old-Growth vs. Undisturbed Forest

 

I’ve been guilty a few times by my own persistent stereotype that the term old-growth implies an ancient forest of magnificent large trees, heavily-shaded understory, mossy ground cover, and fairy tale images fleeting among wisps of fog and vapors. I’ve seen such forests in west coastal rain forests, from northern California redwoods to Oregon’s Douglas fir to the western hemlock and Sitka spruce of southeastern Alaska. I’ve wandered into an occasional dreamscape, magical stand here in the eastern US under the right conditions of landscape, weather, light, and mood (my mood!). I relax my criteria for the reality of our eastern forests.

I also distinguish old-growth from undisturbed forest. Marshall Forest Preserve is undisturbed according to the historical narrative that supported its classification as a National Natural Landmark. Likewise, I cannot contest that it is old-growth. I make the distinction because I routinely visit two local north Alabama disturbed forests that are crossing the threshold (and may have already entered) from late mature to old-growth. One is an 80-90-year-old bottomland forest on the Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge. A second is what I call the Cathedral Forest on Monte Sano State Park. The WNWR stand regenerated naturally from abandoned farmland. I believe the Cathedral Forest regenerated naturally following a combination of natural disturbance and timber harvesting.

 

Additional Old-Growth Evidence

 

Allow me to attempt conveying additional evidence of the old-growth character of MFP. I’ll borrow photos from two places on prior occasions to make my point. The 22-inch diameter loblolly pine below stands in a  rich riparian abandoned agricultural field on the Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge near Huntsville, Alabama. The tree is ~80 years old. I am sure that the annual growth rings are wide, evidencing rapid diameter growth. The bark furrows are deep, also suggesting vigorous radial expansion.

 

This loblolly, planted less than 30 years ago on an old field converted to a disc golf course on the North Alabama Land Trust’s Chapman Mountain Nature Preserve has grown rapidly across its short life. Thinned at least once, the forest is growing audibly (okay, I’m exagerating a bit). Prescribed fire is holding vegetative competition at bay. Nothing could be further from exhibiting old-growth character than this intensively managed forest.

 

Perhaps 30 inches in diameter, this MFP loblolly tells a different tale. It’s shallowly furrowed broad platy bark suggests an extended period (many decades) of mature radial expansion. This old sentinel is content for now. There is no need to secure additional moisture, nutrients, and space. Its shredded, shed bark trunk collar is a phenomenon I have seldom seen, yet it shouted out for my attention. I suppose that the shredded bark skin at its base is resistant to decay (dry-layered above the moist mineral soil), even if very flammable. This segment of th MFP has not burned, at least for decades.

Its spreading flat-top canopy stands beside a massive dominant oak.

Rome

 

 

Another dominant loblolly pine stands tall, with crown space separating it from adjacent hardwoods, another indication perhaps that the old, mature stand has achieved a level of equilibrium. No longer does fierce competition among trees rule the day.

Rome

 

I recorded this 60-second video of a large white oak and adjacent loblolly tree near the trailhead, expressing the same characteristics of main canopy stability.

 

Another reverent white oak monarch stands watch on a preserve hillside.

MFP

 

Large ancient trees are absent across much of the preserve. Every acre does not portray the old-growth label. In fact, I wonder whether without having read the MFP history and its desgination as a National Natural Landmark, I would have immediately declared, “This forest is unquestionably old-growth.”

MFP

 

Old-growth or not, spring was erupting on the preserve.

 

I shall never tire of seeing mountain azalea proclaiming the vernal season in our southern forests!

RomeRome

 

I recorded this 59-second, a celebratory homage, as the sun broke through the persistant stratus.

 

Succulent oak gall wasp ovipositors have riddled these fresh oak leaves with visible postules.

Rome

 

Life in the forest ecosystem is complex, layered among its richly diverse floral, fauna, food chains, consumers, decomposers, competitors, symbionts, and life forms, and agents of death and renewal.

An Enigma

 

I’ll end with a full portfolio of old forester embarrassment. I spotted a strange growth (fungal; bacterial; alien life form; extraterrestrial???) on the side of an old sweetgum. Odd grey matter with a green wig-like shroud, and some lateral orange highlights.

Rome

 

I snapped a few photos, including close-ups. My colleagues were forging ahead. I didn’t take time to feel, probe, or handle. I thought I could identify later with iNaturalist and reference books, or perhaps a query with relevant FaceBook groups.

Rome

 

If nothing else, I felt that I may have discovered a new or rare life form. My reference books, internet search, and iNaturalist efforts yielded nothing. So I shifted to Facebook groups. Several folks pointed to nothing more exciting than some former woods traveler had bound the younger sweetgum with a colorful nylon or polypropylene rope; the tree grew around it; and only the cut ends protrude from the tree. Perhaps my camera managed to capture fairy tale images fleeting among wisps of fog and vapors. 

Albert Einstein would have chastized this old forester:

Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.

I failed to look deeply into these strange organisms. I’m embarrassed, yet not fully convinced that an old-growth forest sweetgum could scam me with a modern rope protruding from its ancient core. Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. I want to go back for a second, deeper look!

 

Thoughts and Reflections

 

I offer these observations:

  • I shall never tire of seeing mountain azalea proclaiming the vernal season in our southern forests! (Steve Jones)

  • I’m a big fan of National Natural Landmarks! (Steve Jones)

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

  • Don’t be fooled by fairy tale images fleeting among wisps of fog and vapor. (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

 

Rome

 

 

 

 

Red Buckeye, a Colony of Aphids, and a Swarm of Tadpoles: Spring in Our Midst!

/in /by

I met with friends Chris Stuhlinger, Marian Moore Lewis, Bill and Becky Heslip, and Ben Hoksbergen on the morning of March 26, at the Taylor Road entrance to Huntsville, Alabama’s Goldsmith-Schiffman Wildlife Sanctuary. The five of us wanted to learn more from archaeologist Ben about the Native American history he gleaned from a prior survey he conducted on the Sanctuary. Rather than share the fascinating history, I offer you our never-disappointing ecological saunter through the Sanctuary, revealing seasonal spring discoveries.

Red buckeye showed its colors amid the morning vapors above Hidden Spring.

 

I recorded this 59-second red buckeye video.

 

Hidden Spring lies 30-feet below the entrance deck and shelter. Something within the deepness beckoned me, but the steep descent and the vegetative jungle compelled me to stay at the bluff to capture the Hidden Spring magic from above. What would have been a quick descent, brief exploration, and return scamper to the brim at age 45, is now daunting 30 years hence. Such a possibiliy is now reduced to a Southern term: “usedtocould“!

 

A still photograph and my 59-second video will have to satisfy my curiosity for a closer look.

 

Hidden Spring Brook collects and channels the Hidden Spring flow, beginning its jorney to the Flint River.

 

Here’s my video of Hidden Spring Brook.

 

Approaching Jobala Pond, Hidden Brook is terraced by a beaverdam. Ever the habitat-modifying stream engineers, beavers insist on having it their way!

 

A city crew rectifying a drainage issue temporarily muddied Jobala Pond with sediment inflow.

 

 

 

 

I’ve been monitoring a large and rapidly expanding burl five feet above ground on a water oak at the Jobala Pond outlet for eight years. I always snap a photo, wondering what is the endgame for this unusual growth.

 

Nearby, a pileated woodpecker is creating a high-rise apartment complex. I could not get close enough to see whether there are different unique compartments…or separate entrances to the tree’s hollow interior. The woodpecker’s excavations serve a self interest. Does the bird know/understand/care that in pecking away to secure food (insects and grubs) that it is performing a valuable ecosysten function? How many mammals, birds, reptiles, insects, fungi, and other lifeforms interact with the bird’s ratta-tat-tat drumming?

 

John Muir appreciated the essential interdpendency of all things earthly:

When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe.

AND

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.

 

Butterweed’s season exalts across three glorious early spring weeks. She tends her stored sunshine secretively through our southern winter. Suddenly after the requisite threshold of degree days, she lets loose, explosively…from drab dormancy to lasered brilliance emanately from roadside ditches.

 

Most specimens along the main sanctuary trail were pest free, this heavily black-bean-aphid-infested plant an exception.

 

Oh, the ecological lessons in plain sight on a three-hour spring saunter, like this silky field ant tending black bean aphids! Ants and aphids share a well-documented symbiotic relationship, which means they both benefit mutually from their working relationship. Aphids produce a sugary food for the ants, in exchange, ants care for and protect the aphids from predators and parasites.

 

A small flowered buttercup expressed spring’s urgent call to action. Summer’s rampant vegetative growth will rapidly smother this harbinger of spring. Her call is to get it done now, while the gettin’ is good!

 

Bulbous cress is another early spring ephemeral whose window will soon close.

 

We puzzled a few minutes over the streamside identity of buckthorn bully. I love the interplay of enthusiastic Nature enthusiasts clamoring, researching digitally, testing with iNaturalist, and even arguing (good naturedly) to see who can claim the identity summit. The competition was so savagely engaged that I already forget who prevailed!

 

One of us noticed a roadside puddle thick with tadpoles. I recorded this 60-second tadpole video.

 

I pondered the fate of the tadpoles. Did rain replenish the puddle long enough for frogs or toads to emerge? Will predators prevail?

 

 

 

 

 

We proceeded to the wetland mitigation area, where I recorded a video.

 

The project’s intent is to restore the agricultural fields to their original hydrology and to restore bottomland hardwood forest species. The tree shelters protect planted wetland hardwood seedlings.

I’ll close this post with a repeat from a prior recent photo essay. I’m drafting this narrative 25 days after major left shoulder replacement revision surgery. Recovery includes lots of physical therapy and encourages walking. Walking on the sidewalk and greenway variety! Woodland excursions are weeks away for a less-than-sure-footed 75-year-old. My Doc discourages falling, jarring, and stressing the prosthesis! I chose to once again employ the closing. I’m not yet at the end of my forest hiking/sauntering, but one day we all will reach that juncture when we’ll hike again with old friends, long gone. Until then, I will trek my haunts while I have the chance…until I can’t.

Closing

 

I recalled and reflected upon the lyrics of a beautiful, haunting, sobering song written by Cody Johnson and recently re-released by Kid Rock:

If you got a chance take it
Take it while you got a chance
If you got a dream chase it
‘Cause a dream won’t chase you back
If you’re gonna love somebody
Hold ’em as long and as strong and as close as you can
‘Til you can’t

Here’s Kid Rock’s performance: https://video.search.yahoo.com/search/video?fr=mcafee&p=kid+rock%27s+til+you+can%27t&type=E210US752G91913#id=1&vid=65bad198429e2f998a60294e98819e09&action=view

 

After wandering forests for three-quarters of a century, I was struck with the notion that I intend to continue doing so…until I can’t. A day will come when I can’t. I look at my wife, kids, grandkids, friends, and colleagues through the same reality filter. A day will come… when I can’t.

I recall the dawn…my dawn…from a growing distance. I sense the evening gloam approaching. I ask myself, do I want to invest a single woods venture by racing with a group from one place, through the woods, to another, with virtually no time for inter-personal, social intercourse? And certainly too little time to harvest photo essay fodder. I relish each step at my own pace, embracing the beauty, magic, wonder, awe, and inspiration?

I shall remain a dedicated servant of encouraging informed and responsible Earth stewardship...Until I can’t…

 

Thoughts and Reflections

 

I offer these observations:

  • When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe. (John Muir)

  • I shall remain a dedicated servant of encouraging informed and responsible Earth stewardship…Until I can’t… (Steve Jones)

  • Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world. (Albert Einstein)

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

 

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

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

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

 

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

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

Mission: Employ writing and speaking to educate, inspire, and enable readers and listeners to understand, appreciate, and enjoy Nature… and accept and practice Earth Stewardship. Until I can’t!

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 #62 : Bringing the Outside In at Nashville’s Gaylord Resort!

/in /by

 

I am pleased to add the 62nd of my GBH Brief-Form Post (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 normally restrict my weekly photo essays to “wild” Nature, urging readers to Venture into the Out There! Allow me to stray with this brief-form post to Bringing the Outside In at the Gaylord Opryland Resort near Nashville. We’ve been married 54 years, high time for a different level of weekend escape. I’ve published some 500 Great Blue Heron photo essays. Nature wildland purists may scoff at my departure. Romantics will sigh, pleased that the old folks tried something different. We stayed at the opulent hotel March 8-10, 2026.

A water feature within the tropical gardens highlighted a great blue heron, my totem, and my Dad’s avatar. Nothing beats the majestic bird flying and fishing in the wild and free, yet I found magic even in the inside out-there.

 

I vowed to enjoy the beauty, magic, wonder, awe, and inspiration of our mesmerizing tropical botanic gardens. Contrasting such a manmade, sculpted environment to the delights of wildness will yield only self-fulfilling dissappointment. Alabama’s Cheaha Mountain will always pale to Denali, or Mitchell, or Hood. When my soul stirs within the cathedral hardwood forest along Monte Sano State Park’s Sinks and Wells Trails, I refuse to dampen my joy with too-distant forest dreamworlds (Sequoias, coastal redwoods, and Douglas fir).

Here is the 60-second video I recorded within the incredible enclosed garden.

 

I’ve learned across 75 years to cherish the moment, the place, the home, the wilds, the weather, my friends, my work, the meal in front of me, and the love of my life. How could I not but revel experiencing two days in tropical wetland luxury just a couple of hours drive from our home?

Gaylord

 

I won’t burden you with tiresome narrative. Soak up the magic of the place…as we did.

Gaylord

 

Plants everywhere, masterfully tended by gardeners with the touch, green thumbs, and unrivaled passions.

Gaylord

 

I recorded this 47-second video from boat that toured the indoor river.

 

I recently reread Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. No Big Muddy or Mighty Mississippi within these glass walls!

Gaylord

 

This is the view from our hotel room balcony. Not bad, but I’ve unhesitantly returned to my woodland haunts several times since then. My indoor adventure-spoiling proved temporary.

Gaylord

 

Sunset shadowed even our sheltered environment, another personality of our manufactured haven.

Gaylord

 

We had a ball, even as I secured a sabbatical from my own wildness puritanism. Like so many wise ones have counseled, the change did me good!

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 normally restrict my weekly photo essays to “wild” Nature, urging readers to Venture into the Out There! Allow me to stray with this brief-form post to Bringing the Outside In at the Gaylord Opryland Resort near Nashville. We’ve been married 54 years, high time for a different level of weekend escape. When we were newlyweds, we camped in a small tent, cooked on an open fire, and applied a far different scale for assessing adventure! Trust me, through my mid-70s lens, to everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven.

 

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

 

Curiosities, Oddities, Mysteries, and Seasonal Features on The N AL Land Trust’s Oak Park Trail!

/in /by

I co-led a North Alabama Land Trust Nature Hike on December 13, 2025, at Monte Sano Nature Preserve. I had never trekked the Oak Park Trail, which climbs ~300 feet up the north side of Monte Sano Mountain. We returned via a counter-clockwise circuit to the trailhead. I didn’t know what to expect, but my focus on woodland curiosities, oddities, mysteries, and seasonal features yielded plenty to cover in this photo essay!

 

Always alert for unusual tree forms and features, I spotted this agrobacterial crown gall about 20 feet up the trunk of a yellow buckeye.

Oak Park Trail

 

This triad of pole-size hickory, paulownia, and hackberry (left to right) struck me as peculiar with three distinct species clustered so tightly. Winter honeysuckle serves as basal greenery. A Virginia creeper vine, with air roots clinging to the stem, grows diagonally along the paulownia.

Oak ParkOak Park

 

Paulownia is native to east Asia. Common names for paulownia include princess tree, royal paulownia, and butterfly tree. Its bark, flowers, and leaves are distinct.

Oak Park

 

People often see Virginia creeper’s prominent air roots and mistake the vine for poison ivy, which has finer, more hair-like air roots.

Oak ParkOak Park

 

An Indian marker tree? No, this white oak was an acorn long after resident Native Americans were wildland residents in what is now Huntsville. Instead, something from above crashed upon the oak when just a sapling, bending its stem to 90 degrees at three feet above ground. The crushed stem sent a shoot vertically and another at the stub end of the bent and broken top. Sure, the bent stem points to something, but only coincidentally.

Oak Park

 

This elbow-bent white oak likewise suffered injury from above. My imagination, ofttimes a little too vivid, sees a deer face glancing to my left.

Oak Park

 

Perhaps it is I, rather than these curious tree form features, who is the anomaly…the oddity. I seldom meet other Nature enthusiasts so enamored with woodland mysteries as I.

Let’s call this a sweetgum war club! Emerging from a limestone crevice, the tree sports a burl seeming to rest at its base, secured by the stone fissure. Burls result from fungal, bacterial, or viral infection, alone or in combination, triggering physiological abnormalities, much like a benign tumor in humans or other animals.

Oak Park

 

Known as Buzzards’ Roost, this exposed limestone ledge overlooks the cove and its wet season stream below. The ledge hosts a terrarium depression holding moisture, mosses, and shallow soil, and supporting a colony of herbaceous and woody plants. Does the scant isolated growth meet my criteria for oddity, curiosity, or mystery? I suppose that Nature sets no limits for standard, normal, and possible. Because I write the rules for these weekly Posts, if it catches my eye or piques my interest, a vegetated rock ledge depression qualifies.

Oak Park

 

There’s nothing unusual about a moss-covered stone bedded in a brown leaf carpet, yet it did catch my eye and encourage a seasonally appropriate image. This is winter in our North Alabama woods. Don’t wait for a snowy forest floor scene. We average only two inches of snow annually. A warm sunny next day afternoon will not spoil this visual expression!

Oak Park

 

Any port in a storm may best account for these saplings finding suitable anchorage and succor atop a limestone outcrop. The storm consists of high seed predation, mice and other nibblers consuming germinants, physical stressors (desiccation, freezing, sunscald), insects, and diseases. Will these seedlings secure sustenance by extending roots to exploit mineral soil beyond the barren stone surface?

Oak Park

 

Speaking of ports in a storm, what self-respecting chipmunk would not welcome the shelter of a near-ground white oak cavity, which likely extends into the trunk many feet above?

Oak Park

 

Peek into this three-feet-high red oak hollow. Soft interior debris evidences that critters have made a home. Reptile, bird, or mammal? Does it matter? I remind you that a tree does not a forest make. A tree is just one element of the entire ecosystem.

Oak Park

 

John Muir made the vast global life system complexity and interdependence clear:

When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe.

Just as all living things are interconnected, life and death are a continuum. The labelled pignut hickory’s life has thrived in part on the decayed organic remains of prior life. Likewise, the fungal-hollowed tree’s decaying wood is already nurturing vegetation surrounding it. The carbon cycle spins without end.

Oak ParkOak Park

 

Our woodland roaming 12 days before Christmas revealed many hidden mysteries and delights. Some anticipated…some not!

Oak Park

 

John Muir distilled Nature into one succinct observation on a grand scale:

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.

 

 

Thoughts and Reflections

 

I offer these observations:

  • Just as all living things are interconnected, life and death are a continuum. (Steve Jones)
  • Perhaps it is I, rather than these curious tree form features, who is the anomaly…the oddity. (Steve Jones)
  • 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: All blog post images created & photographed by Stephen B. Jones unless otherwise noted. Please circulate images with photo credit: “©2026 Steve Jones, Great Blue Heron LLC. All Rights Reserved.”

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

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

 

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

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

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

Vision:

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

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

 

Steve’s Four Books

 

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

I began writing books and Posts for several reasons:

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

 

Oak Park

 

 

 

Brief-Form Post #61: Mid-February OLLI Eagle Safari at Lake Guntersville State Park

/in /by

I am pleased to add the 61st 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.

 

Along with fellow retired forester Chris Stuhlinger, I co-led a University of Alabama in Huntsville OLLI (Osher Lifelong Learning Institute) Eagle Observation Safari on February 14, 2026, to Alabama’s Lake Guntersville State Park (LGSP). Alabama State Parks Northeast District Naturalist Erik Cline and Park Naturalist Anna Crow presented the program, leading us to two nest observation sites in the Park and another along the Sunset Greenway in Guntersville, AL. Come along to experience the tour stops the 55 of us enjoyed as we spotted ten eagles!

Unfortunately, because my trusty iPhone cannot capture images of eagles nesting or in flight, well enough to post in these photo essays, I’ll rely on you to imagine the magnificent eagle safari stars. I intend to demonstrate the remarkable enthusiasm that a low-intensity, half-day Nature outing within sixty minutes of campus can inspire among mostly retired, eager learners. Count me among them! Moreover, my retirement life mission impels me to employ writing and speaking to educate, inspire, and enable readers and listeners (and eagle safari participants) to understand, appreciate, and enjoy Nature… and accept and practice Earth Stewardship. Thus, through my OLLI engagement, I am reaching and inspiring concerned Earth citizens to observe, understand, feel, and act on behalf of our pale blue orb.

Chris stands under the iconic Park Lodge Bald Eagle on October 23, when we scouted for the February excursion: https://stevejonesgbh.com/2025/12/15/brief-form-post-52-late-october-afternoon-scouting-for-eagles-and-nests-at-lake-guntersville-state-park/

 

Our group convened in The Gathering Place indoor social hall in the Park campground at lakeside. The Lodge stands ~300 feet above us atop the plateau rim.

Lake GSP

 

The Gathering Place kept us snug and warm as Anna effectively oriented us to eagle biology and ecology.

Lake GSP

 

I recorded this 34-second video from the Gathering Place, viewing the lakeshore, panning the audience, then sweeping out the opposite side, and bringing the lodge down to our level.

 

Who could ask for a finer place to launch our safari?!

Following lots of questions and eager discussion we drove to our first observation site at the Park cabins, where we aimed our binoculars, spotting scopes, and cameras to an occupied nest 200 yards across the inlet. This first nest, as were all three nests we visited, was firmly anchored in a large-crowned loblolly pine tree. We logged a single mature eagle nest-setting. We spotted no mate nor eaglet.

We showed few signs of cracking under the chilling mid-40s clouds and dampness, although I heard a few grumblings and witnessed signs of efforts to maintain body heat. The eagle sighting kept our attention.

 

I recorded this 59-second video with narrative as the group anticipated what lies ahead.

 

The group of seasoned learners paid the price of a chilly, cloudy spring morning for the pleasure of inhaling Nature’s elixir and seeing multiple individuals of a species on the brink of disaster earlier in our lifetime.

 

Here is my 58-second video of the stop without narrative.

 

Our second observation point, also along the lakeshore with target nest some 200 yards across the lake rewarded us with six sightings: an adult in the nest, another adult in a nearby tree, two matures in flight and alighting in the nest tree vicinity, and two more flying by above the lake nearer to our shore. That took us to seven. Elation describes our mood.

We retreated to the lodge for lunch and warmth. I’ve visited LGSP many times, never tiring of the special Nature of the place: the lake, her hills, wooded trails, wildlife, wildflowers, seasonal variations, and the embrace of its soothing moods and themes.

I snapped these photos on a May 2025 visit. Afternoon image from the lodge (left) and dawn from the Mabry Overlook, one-quarter mile east of the lodge, still on the rim above the lake.
LGSP

LGSP

 

Following a leisurely lunch, we caravaned to Sunset Drive Greenway in the city of Guntersville. Eagles have maintained and reared young in this unlikely congested location for at least the past eight years. I am standing at least 200 feet from the tree’s base, located within a copse of pine trees beyond the observers.

Lake GSP

 

I admit to decades associating eagles to wild, remote, natural settings, distant from the hustle and bustle of urban life and living…until we lived four years in Alaska. Seeing this 1,000+ pound nest 70-feet up a pine tree between a greenway heavily traveled by walkers, runners, skateboarders, and bicyclists, and a busy roadway, however, still strikes me as surprising. An adult stayed on the nest during our hour on-site. Some in our party had already departed when two adults performed a beautiful fly-by!

LGSP

LGSP

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

John Denver’s The Eagle And The Hawk shaped my earlier impression:

I am the eagle, I live in high country in rocky cathedrals that reach to the sky.
I am the hawk, and there’s blood on my feathers.
But time is still turning, they soon will be dry.
And all those who see me, and all who believe in me
share in the freedom I feel when I fly. Come dance with the west wind and touch on the mountain tops.
Sail o’er the canyons and up to the stars.
And reach for the heavens and hope for the future
and all that we can be, and not what we are.

Alaska opened my eyes and mind to a different bird, a magnificent predator and shameless scavenger, adept at both capturing live game in the wild and dumpster diving in Sitka, Alaska. Eagles are culinary (and nest site) opportunists, at home in both high, rocky cathedrals and the domesticated bustle of Guntersville, Alabama.

LGSP

LGSP

 

 

 

I remind you that nothing in Nature is static. Everything changes…every hour of every day across the seasons and over the eons. The same is true of my impressions, knowledge, and wisdom, such as it is. Eagles are just as noble, elegant, persistant, and rich-with-national-symbolic meaningful as ever. Back from near extinction, the eagle exemplifies the human ability to overcome our collective ignorance. As Louis Bromfield repeated, we are capable of changing some corner of our Earth for the better through wisdom, knowledge, and hard work!

A successful venture — ten eagles! My hope is that the OLLI Eagle Safari awakens all of us to our obligation to wisely steward our One Earth.

 

Closing

 

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

My retirement life mission impels me to employ writing and speaking to educate, inspire, and enable readers and listeners (and eagle safari participants) to understand, appreciate, and enjoy Nature… and accept and practice Earth Stewardship. Thus, through my OLLI engagement, I am reaching and inspiring concerned Earth citizens to observe, understand, feel, and act on behalf of our pale blue orb.

 

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

 

 

Early Signs of Spring on the Goldsmith-Schiffman Wildlife Sanctuary!

/in /by

I co-taught a Huntsville, Alabama LearningQuest session on America’s National Parks on the morning of February 12, 2026, at the Hampton Cove WellPoint Senior Community. Afterward, an exquisite early spring afternoon beckoned me to explore the eastern half of the nearby Goldsmith-Schiffman Wildlife Sanctuary. Walk with me as I share some early signs of wildland spring within the 400-acre reserve in the bottomlands along the Flint River.

The Flint generally runs high with winter rains. On this day, the river is shy of bank-full, yet is high enough to submerge this sycamore’s base.

 

Here is my 48-second video of the main channel a few hundred yards from the Sanctuary’s east side entrance.

 

I’ve scheduled a prior winter season hike at the Sanctuary following several days of winter rains, only to be turned back by the Flint River overflowing its banks and sending floodwaters to within a hundred feet of the gravel parking lot.

 

I recorded this 58-second video of side channel with narration, at a point opposite the cut-off island one-half mile from the lot.

 

The main river channel lies just downstream from where I stood.

 

Here’s the same view (51-second video) without my annoying narration.

 

The bottomland forests and meadows were saturated. Soaked areas welcomed male frogs already intent on attracting females. All critters are single-minded. Life is all about reproduction…sustaining the species…whether amphibian, reptile, bird, mammal, fish, human, or fungus.

 

This little guy is of lone voice, yet persistent. Is some lonely girl frog listening…tempted, lured, and approaching?

My 42-second video recorded the lone male calling plaintively.

 

I like the rustic signage, slowly yielding to time and decay, reminiscent of Sleepy Hollow!

 

Old agricultural fields, populated with sedges and various other meadow species are transitioning to forest courtesy of natural tree and shrub regeneration, as well as trees planted in seedling shelters, many of which are protecting seedlings that died when planted during an extended fall drought two years ago.

 

Here is my 60-second video of wetland mitigation efforts in the meadows.

 

The trail passes east from the mitigation fields through this meadow that is regenerating with volunteer, now shoulder-high sweetgum trees.

 

I recorded this 60-second video as I strolled along the trail.

 

Ironweed (left) and sweetgum line the trail.

 

Mature hardwood borders the meadow.

 

I repeat often that every tree tells a story. This American beech along the trail in the dense bottomland hardwood forest within hearing distance of Highway 431 traffic noise, supplies life-sustaining sustenance via root grafts to three living stumps, including the one below right at the tree’s base.

 

 

I reecorded this 61-second video with explanatory narrative of the beech and the three adjacent stumps.

 

Although still six weeks from the spring equinox, our peeper friend evidenced that spring was in the air. That’s a far cry from our time living in the far North.

 

Early Spring Ephemeral Bonus

 

I’m drafting my photo essay prose on February 26. This morning at 5:00 AM Central Time, when our Madison, Alabama temperature was 58 degrees, I checked the temperature in Fairbanks, AK, my home from 2004-2008. It was negative 37; that’s 95 degrees colder. The snowpack was 40 inches. I copied these images at 11:00 AM local time from the University of Alaska Fairbanks webcam atop the Geophysical Institute.

 

The Fairbanks ground will not be absent snow cover through most of April. Spring flowers may not appear until mid-May.

I’ve adjusted my calendar here in the South. Within the regenerating meadow, in mid-February, I spotted two Virginia spring beauty blossoms (one at left). The flowering cress (right) presented itself on the sandy shore across from the island.

 

 

 

I loved our four-year Alaska venture, even the deep winters. I could have stayed for many years, but both of our adult children blessed us then with our first two grandkids, who this May will graduate high school! Life itself is a rewarding adventure, enriched many fold by our time in The Last Frontier — The Big Broad Land Way Up Yonder!

 

 

Thoughts and Reflections

 

I offer these observations:

  • Life is all about reproduction…sustaining the species…whether amphibian, reptile, bird, mammal, fish, human, or fungal. (Steve Jones)

  • Spring work is going on with joyful enthusiasm. (John Muir)

  • Life is either a daring adventure or nothing. (Helen Keller)

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

 

November 2020

Me at right from a prior visit.

 

Lawson Branch Loop; Shoal Creek Preserve Spring 2026!

/in /by

I hiked the Lawson Branch Loop Trail of Shoal Creek Preserve on March 6, 2026, with fellow retired forester Chris Stuhlinger and retired videographer Bill Heslip. Chris and I had previously circuited the Jones Branch Loop Trail (https://stevejonesgbh.com/2025/02/26/early-december-circuit-of-jones-branch-trail-at-shoal-creek-nature-preserve/). We sauntered a counterclockwise loop through the second-growth hardwood forest, noting the view above the Wilson Lake Shoal Creek Inlet, the tumbling Lawson Branch, and other notable natural features along the route.

Mixed oak, hickory, and other upland hardwoods populated the hillsides.

SCPSCP

 

We enjoyed the winter, foliage-free video of the inlet.

SCP

 

Summer’s full canopy will obscure the view when leaves return.

SCP

 

Here is my 58-second video from above the inlet.

 

Chris (left) and Bill  provide scale.

SCP

 

Mountain laurel graced the hilltop. I cut my youthful Ridge-and-Valley hiking teeth in the Central Appalachians, thick with this beautiful evergreen shrub. The valley view and the laurel transported me six decades aft temporally, to a period when I knew I would hike the trails, ascend the bluffs, and log the miles without end. A couple of months shy of 75 years, I am blessed to still cover Nature’s gentle woodland pathways, immersed in her endless beauty, magic, wonder, awe, and inspiration.

SCP

 

How could I possibly want for more than a spring stream, a wooden bridge, and a rustic bench for three seasoned seniors to rest a spell among the trees.

SCP

 

I recorded this 59-second video along Lawson Branch, referring to it incorrectly in the narrative as Jones Branch.

 

Spring sky, fresh waters, and absolute serenity and tranquility streamside are beyond compare.

SCP

 

I recorded this 40-second video of Lawson Branch.

 

Tumbling, gurgling, and singing require only an investment of time, energy expended, and woodland conversation. I’ve never played golf, but I sense that it breeds frustration, encourages drinking fermented beverages, provides exercise entailing getting on and off of a motorized cart, and leads to betting foolish sums of money. I know golf is referred to as a game that grownups play. I’ve witnessed too many miserable golfers to believe it is better than woodland rambling!

SCP

 

I recorded this 58-second video along Lawson Branch.

 

Golf courses are lovely summer places at dawn and after the daytime heat abates at gloaming. Otherwise, give me late summer woodland shade, preferably streamside!

 

Tree Form Oddities and Curiosities

 

I like scouting the forest rough for oddities and curiosities, not searching the brambles, vines, and snakepits for little white balls!

I am seldom disappointed when I seek strange critters like this dead snag with gaping maw, contorted jaw, and a single eye, daring the three old guys to approach the creek below.

SCP

 

I can never get enough of bizarre tree countenances, pattererned surfaces, and mossy complexions.

SCP

 

An imtermediate canopy black cherry with a prominent agrobacterial crown gall beckoned us to take a closer look.

SCP

 

Our Planet’s Most Essential Epidermis

 

I took two undergraduate courses in forest soils. As a practicing industrial forester in the southeastern US, I served 1975-79 as Project Leader for Tree Nutrition and Fertilization for our company’s 2.2 million forested acres (VA; NC; SC; GA; FL: and AL). My subsequent PhD explored soil-site relationships in the Allegheny Plateau of NE Pennsylvania and SW New York. I consider myself a forest soil scientist. Soil, whether forest, agriculture, urban, or anywhere is Earth’s essential membrane…all terrestrial life on our planet depends on this living and life-giving veneer. I seldom enter a forest where I don’t encounter a mature wind-toppled tree…having lifted its rooting mass and accompanying soil.

SCP

 

Bill is standing by an oak root ball lifted within the past few months. Although the regolith (the unconsolidated, loose, heterogenous superficial deposits covering solid rock) extends variously deeper below this lifted three-foot layer, this mantle is the essential stuff of life. Root penetration even on this large oak, ended at this depth. The exposed soil profile consists of a surface organic layer; an ‘A’ horizon of mixed mineral and organic matter (AKA topsoil); a zone of accumulation of leached organic and mineral components, the ‘B’ horizon. The root ball lifted at the boundary between the ‘B’ horizon and the ‘C’ layer of unweathered regolith.

SCPSCP

 

Such is the simplistic equation of life in the woods…the magic of chemistry and physics. The soil holds, recycles, and processes through its rich association of living organisms, moisture, and thermal fluctuations everything needed for life. As we walk along wooded byways, our attention is focused above ground and high into the canopy, where it’s easy to assume that biological activity concentrates. However, I recall from my extensive and exhaustive dissertaion literature search that 75 percent of carbon turnover (biological activity) occurs below ground, within the soil. Watch yourself, that biological hotbed may reach out and grab you!

Near the fallen oak, a handsome green ash reaches far into the canopy. I wonder whether it realizes that while its essentail life-energy derives from its solar partner, the real life action takes place below in the permanent darkness of its rooting zone. Is there a human parallel? An essential dimension of our human fulfillment that derives hidden from plain sight…a spiritual dimension that too often we shelter in darkness? I know I am guilty of reaching under the basket far too infrequently. I worry that the day will come when its too late to open the shutter.

SCP

 

I recorded this fifty-eight-second video near this green ash. I refer erroneously to the stream as Jones Branch. It is Lawson Branch.

 

Northern spicebush flowers early in the season, a delightful forebearer of spring ready to launch.

SCP

 

Spicebush seems a good place to close the narrative.

Thoughts and Reflections

 

I offer these observations:

  • I worry that the day will come when it’s too late to open the shutter to the things I hold dear. (Steve Jones)
  • Such is the simplistic equation of life in the woods…the magic of chemistry and physics. (Steve Jones)
  • Soil, whether forest, agriculture, urban, or anywhere, is Earth’s essential membrane…all terrestrial life on our planet depends on this living and life-giving veneer. (Steve Jones)

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

 

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

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

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

 

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

 

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

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

Vision:

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

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

 

Steve’s Four Books

 

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

I began writing books and Posts for several reasons:

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

 

Rome

 

 

 

 

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

/in /by

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