wetlands Archives - Steve Jones Great Blue Heron

Buckeye Impoundment in Early October on the Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge (Part One)

December 5, 2024/in Updates /by Steve Jones

On October 6, 2024, a little longer than six weeks since my total right knee replacement surgery, I ventured to Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge to gently explore Buckeye Impoundment, Blackwell Swamp, and Rockhouse Bottom by automobile and dirt road strolling. Not yet ready for woodland trail wandering, I welcomed the fresh air, seasonal transition signs, and diverse meadow, swamp, and Tennessee River.

Because the three ecological units are too much to stuff into a single photo essay, Buckeye Impoundment will serve as Part One of my October 6 exploration.

Buckeye Impoundment

On an August 2023 aerial tour, the impoundment appears as a mosaic of agricultural fields, meadows, and marsh vegetation. On the recent on-the-ground visit I parked within the forest where the east/west HGH dirt road emerges from the east. I walked south to about the edge of the photograph.

I photographed the winter-flooded impoundment on January 6, 2020, when the flooded wetlands attracts waterfowl vacationing from frozen northlands.

The impoundment is a complex and diverse ecosystem that ebbs, flows, and fluxes with the Corps of Engineers-controlled flooding. Marshland water remained in spite of an extended late summer dry period. Although beyond my roadside reach, the meadow vegetation is lush. The forest edge shows no sign of coloring.

I recorded this 60-second video before exiting into the impoundment:

I left the car and the forest shade behind. Bright sun greeted me; the woodland mosquitoes remained behind.

Native vegetation along the road shows the signature of seasonal senscence and dryness. Small birds, grasshoppers, and dragon flies foraged among the drying grasses and herbs.

Some areas seemed oddly wet after such an extended period of limited rainfall.

I soon discovered that the entire impoundment has water control devices that are already impeding natural drainage.

Late in the season, an evening primrose is still flowering at the edge of this marshy area.

I recorded this 60-second video of marsh, primrose, and background crows calling:

Red-centered hibiscus refused to release summer.

I recorded this 56-second 360-degree turn around the impoundment, magnifying one of the two spectacular hibiscus flowers:

I found the diverse herbs fascinating, but with knees still too unstable to allow botanizing beyond the road edge, I settled for photos, videos, and a few generalizations. Aldo Leopold, in my view the nation’s premier conservation philosopher, hinted at my surgery-hobbled wanderings. I covet digging deeply into the plants, communities, and ecosystems I explore. I lean toward perusing the things of Nature…peruse, which contrary to common view of the term, means to study deeply.

Our ability to perceive quality in nature begins, as in art, with the pretty. It expands through successive stages of the beautiful to values as yet uncaptured by language.

The photos I captured do not express beauty so much as a diverse and rich ecosystem I am only superficially appreciating from afar.

A lonely fire ant hill stood at the road edge. I pondered the summer exposure of its location in baking sun. Imagine a powerful July thunderstorm rushing across the impoundment with rain pelting, lightning flashing, and winds howling. Or picture the absolute and isolated loneliness during the dormant months when the Corps raises the impoundment water level to leave a thin north/south strip of gravel road surface between twin lakes of waterfowl habitat.

I wonder do the raccoons that just several weeks before deposited persimmon-laden stools frequent the road surface in winter?

Does the coyote that also fed heartily on Diospyros virginiana fruit venture into the winter impoundment? Perhaps a better question is what creature eats the seeds that pass trough raccoon and coyote?

The dead red swamp crawfish on the gravel hints at another element of the impundment foodchain. I observed but was unable to photograph both a great blue heron and great white egrets, delighted consumers of raw crayfish morsels.

Suffice it to say that Buckeye Impoundment is worthy of ecological study far deeper than I was capable of performing in early October. I’d like to return with knees rehabilitated in the company of a wetand ecologists, herbaceous botanists, and other related specialists. My terrestrial ecology and forestry expertise does not serve me well in the impoundment setting, even when my knees are well!

Regardless, I found delight in consuming the observable ecological and aesthetic morsels on my knee-hobbled outing. Healing progress is palpable…day by day…week by week. I am a unabashed enthusiast for Nature-Buoyed Aging and Healing, and a physical therapy zealot. A former athlete, I believe that every effort warrants training equivalent to prepping for the next race, game, match, etc. Healing is reward sufficient to the effort.

Thoughts and Reflections

I offer these observations:

Our ability to perceive quality in nature begins, as in art, with the pretty. It expands through successive stages of the beautiful to values as yet uncaptured by language. (Aldo Leopold)
A novice at wetlands ecology, I’ve learned enough to inform me that I know nothing!
A former athlete, I believe that every effort warrants training equivalent to prepping for the next race, game, match, etc. Healing is reward sufficient to the effort.

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

Note: Unless otherwise noted, all blog post images are created & photographed by Stephen B. Jones. Please circulate images with photo credit: “©2024 Steve Jones, Great Blue Heron LLC. All Rights Reserved.”

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

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

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

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

Vision:

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

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

Steve’s Four Books

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

I began writing books and Posts for several reasons:

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

Photo from my August 2023 aerial observation.

Brief-Form Post #34: Late April Birding Exploration at Madison, Alabama’s Creekwood Park and Indian Creek Greenway!

July 11, 2024/in Updates /by Steve Jones

I am pleased to add the 34th of my GBH Brief Form Posts (Less than five minutes to read!) to my website. I tend to get a bit wordy with my routine Posts. I don’t want my enthusiasm for thoroughness and detail to discourage readers. So I will publish these brief Posts regularly.

I am a wanna-be birder, a lifelong Nature enthusiast with a Forestry BS and a PhD in Applied Ecology, and a woodland wanderer wherever my life and travels have taken me. I’ve lived in Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Georgia, Ohio, New Hampshire, North Carolina, West Virginia, and Alaska. I’ve journeyed to and through every state except Hawaii. International travels included Canada, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Kazakhstan, China, Japan, Germany, the Czech Republic, and Yugoslavia. I’ve heard and seen birds everywhere and wished to know their identity and story.

Finally, five years into retirement, I stepped toward learning more about the avian world. I enrolled in a University of Alabama in Huntsville OLLI (Osher Lifelong Learning Institute) North Alabama Birding course taught by Alabama A&M Professor Emeritus of Ornithology, Dr. Ken Ward. Our capstone field lab on April 25, 2024, took us to Madison Alabama’s Creekwood Park and adjacent Indian Creek Greenway, an area Ken described as a spring migration hotspot.

And so right he was! We (he) tallied 68 bird species seen, both seen and heard, or heard. You can review his comprehensive list at the end of this Post. I admit to deferring to his lifetime-trained ears for identifying species by call. He also spotted and identified fleeting images of treetop and brush inhabitants. I have a long way to go to become even an amateur birder. My knowledge and skills can go only in one direction. Ken and my classmates opened me to better ways of looking, hearing, and seeing.

I knew coming into the course that diverse habitats enrich species diversity, whether plants or all manner of living creatures. The Park and Greenway offered such diversity. Open meadows, mowed grass, woods edge, forest, stream, bog, and swamp comprised the areas we observed.

Our spirits soared on a perfect weather morning. Smiles and enthusiasm prevailed, along with a sense of wonder and awe for the avian variety we encountered.

Indian Creek had overflowed its banks more than once over the winter and spring. The forest below retained flood water not yet absorbed or drained, just one of the diverse habitats.

Indian Creek provided fresh flowing water. A mallard drake paddled contentedly at right.

I recorded this 60-second video of the stream at Creekwood Park

A willow thicket at the Park attracted throngs of cedar waxwings foraging willow seeds.

A small feeder freshet surged past butterweed blooms before emptying into Indian Creek.

I recorded this 30-second video of Indian Creek along the Greenway.

Beavers keep the wetland and swamp habitat intact south of the park along the Greenway.

The forester and tree enthusiast within me could not resist this park eastern red cedar, its roots tracing a comprehensive highway map.

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. Today, I borrow the words of John James Audubon:

If only the bird with the loveliest song sang, the forest would be a lonely place. Never give up listening to the sounds of birds.

NOTE: I place 3-5 short videos (15 seconds to three minutes) on my Steve Jones Great Blue Heron YouTube channel weekly. All relate to Nature-Inspired Life and Living. I encourage you to SUBSCRIBE! It’s FREE. Having more subscribers helps me spread my message of Informed and Responsible Earth Stewardship…locally and globally!

Appendix

Ken Ward’s tally for our excursion to Creekwood Park and Indian Creek Greenway, Madison, Alabama, US Apr 25, 2024 7:07 AM – 11:37 AM

Protocol: Traveling

4.5 mile(s)

68 species

Canada Goose 10 (species followed by number of individuals observed)

Mallard 6

Mourning Dove 8

Chimney Swift 4

Solitary Sandpiper 2

Great Egret 1

Great Blue Heron 5

Turkey Vulture 1

Bald Eagle 1

Red-shouldered Hawk 2

Belted Kingfisher 3

Red-bellied Woodpecker 14

Downy Woodpecker 10

Pileated Woodpecker 2

Northern Flicker 3

Eastern Wood-Pewee 4

Eastern Phoebe 5

Great Crested Flycatcher 1

Eastern Kingbird 2

White-eyed Vireo 8

Yellow-throated Vireo 1

Red-eyed Vireo 2

Blue Jay 10

American Crow 5

Carolina Chickadee 2

Tufted Titmouse 14

Northern Rough-winged Swallow 4

Barn Swallow 8

White-breasted Nuthatch 2

Blue-gray Gnatcatcher 5

House Wren 1

Carolina Wren 20

European Starling 10

Gray Catbird 4

Brown Thrasher 1

Northern Mockingbird 6

Eastern Bluebird 6

Wood Thrush 2

American Robin 30

Cedar Waxwing 35

House Finch 6

American Goldfinch 14

Chipping Sparrow 2

Field Sparrow 6

Song Sparrow 4

Eastern Towhee 1

Yellow-breasted Chat 1

Eastern Meadowlark 1

Orchard Oriole 1

Baltimore Oriole 1

Red-winged Blackbird 15

Brown-headed Cowbird 14

Common Grackle 27

Northern Waterthrush 2

Prothonotary Warbler 2

Tennessee Warbler 12

Nashville Warbler 1

Common Yellowthroat 2

Northern Parula 4

Yellow Warbler 2

Palm Warbler 1

Yellow-rumped Warbler 16

Yellow-throated Warbler 1

Summer Tanager 8

Scarlet Tanager 1

Northern Cardinal 25

Rose-breasted Grosbeak 1

Indigo Bunting 14

Early January Winter Grey Exploration at Marbut Bend Trail along Alabama’s Elk River!

May 16, 2024/in Updates /by Steve Jones

On January 4, 2024, Judy and I explored the trails at TVA’s Marbut Bend along the Elk River just upstream from its juncture with the Tennessee River (Lake Wheeler). This Post highlights the grey winter delights across the marshes, along the boardwalks, through the mudflats, and to the shoreline of the Elk River.

Nature’s beauty, magic, wonder, and awe can penetrate even a dense low overcast, cold northeasterly wind, and the dull grey of a winter marshland morning. I recalled the mid-summer contrast of the bright sun, persistent heat, whining insects, and crushing humidity. I embrace winter’s North Alabama touch, even when it hurries us into the wind and back to the car. Although I love the tirelessly explosive vegetative growth during our humid sub-tropical summers, I relish our brief deep winter season of dormancy and blessed plant rest. I find exquisite beauty in a dark early January day. At this latitude, we will gain 30 minutes of additional daylight during January, a clear signal that the Earth is spinning us toward spring. I appreciate the bleak underbelly of a winter day in this region…a northern Alabama region that will soon offer a spectacular spring regrowth!

The Marshes

I’m a sucker for boardwalk trails that invite me to explore ecosystems otherwise inaccessible. These marshlands have deep saturated and seasonally flooded mucky soils. They are capable of sucking boots from a human intruder’s feet. More importantly, such a booted biped invader could perpetrate lasting damage to these fragile ecosystems.

As a veteran of 13 interstate moves, I retired to north Alabama to be near our daughter and her two sons. We’ve lived previously in several northern zones (Pennsylvania; Upstate New York twice; Ohio; New Hampshire; Alaska), where real winter weather visits and often is reluctant to leave. I’ve mentioned to many northern friends that winter drops into our north Alabama region occasionally, but that generally our winter amounts to an autumn that slowly transitions to spring. I mention that now to admit that our morning at Marbut Bend chilled me to the core. Temperature in the low 30s; persistent breeze from the northeast; harsh dampness; low stratus blocking even a hope for the sun’s warming glow; a deep bleakness. Okay, I won’t continue beating this dead horse. I will return again this winter when warmer weather and bright sun will permit (even encourage) lingering to truly enjoy the sight, sound, and other treats of this magnificent ecosystem.

Here’s my 45-second video from the boardwalk near trailhead.

As long as I can remember, I’ve loved cattails, a plant common in wetland and marshes across North America. Growing up in western Maryland, I knew the plant as cat-o-nine tail, a moniker I have not heard here in north Alabama. We referred to the still closed seedheads as torches. Even during those adolescent years, I knew the torches were seedheads, and I understood that their winter disintegration released untold legions of seed.

As we penetrated more deeply into the preserve via the boardwalk, I recorded this 40-second video.

The ice along the marsh corroborates my claim of deep chill. I admit, however, that I failed to don adequate winter gear, of which I have ample and appropriate from days living far to the north. I knew better…and deserved to suffer the consequences of being under-dressed!

I like Marbut Bend Preserve’s diverse habitats, including this pine stand on an upland strip separating wetlands from an meadow visible beyond the pine stand. I applaud TVA managers for employing prescribed fire to maintain the pine cover and prevent hardwood from encroaching.

The Elk River

We moved beyond the upland meadow to cross another boardwalk segment that reached across a mudflat where an oak had fallen during the summer while still in leaf. The mudflat expresses the TVA’s practice of holding the winter pool at Lake Wheeler at five feet below full, allowing storage space to abate downstream flooding from heavy seasonal rain. Although Marbut Bend fronts the Elk River, we are proximate to where the Elk enters the Tennessee River (Lake Wheeler), thus the Elk level here is consonant with Wheeler Lake. At summer levels this boardwalk will cross a side arm of the Elk.

These views look both ways from the boardwalk, which in summer will be open water.

Here’s a view ahead to the Elk River. The boardwalk’s terminal deck is visible to the left.

These two photographs view the Elk in both directions from the deck (upstream left).

I recorded this 52-second video from the deck along the river.

John Muir captured the elegance of water in its river form:

A river is water in its loveliest form; rivers have life and sound and movement and infinity of variation, rivers are veins of the earth through which the lifeblood returns to the heart.

I couldn’t resist this closer look into the shallow water in the mud flat. I expected greater evidence of more robust life. Instead, excepting scattered patches of green growth, the flat appears barren. As a terrestrial biologist (a forester), I have little insight to offer.

The Field

As we reentered the field habitat, Judy snapped this assemblage of vines, a fungi-infected suspended branch, a brown discarded leaf, and the bark of a standing tree trunk. The photograph and Judy’s interest reminds me that every element of Nature tells a story.

Yet another habitat type, the field completes the rich ecological tapestry of Marbut Bend, stretching from Route 99, the state highway fronting the property’s east side, back to the forest edge along the Elk River. I am curious how TVA intends to maintain the meadow. Rather than speculate, I leave you with these images and the video below. My hope is that TVA will manage the field as grassland, encouraging native meadow and grassland plant species and the wildlife drawn to such habitat.

I recorded this 41-second video from mid field:

We walked onto an octagonal wooden deck behind a wooded edge to the south. As with several other points along the Marbut Bend Trail, I would like to have sat on one of the benches to observe the comings and goings of life, hear the rustling breeze, and identify the calls of birds. Again, I dressed inadequately for the morning jaunt. I vow to return when life and warmth return.

The deck reaches into a sizeable mudflat.

I recorded this 41-second 360-degree video from the deck:

Warm weather and a return to summer pool level of Lake Wheeler will treat observers to a surrounding lake from this vantage point.

Marsh, meadow, mudflat, the river, upland forest, and riparian hardwood quilt the habitats that compose the Marbut Bend Tapestry. Rare is the local Nature enthusiast who is familiar with Marbut Bend. Perhaps my photo essay will draw a few more visitors to this rich ecosystem quilt.

Thoughts and Reflections

I offer these observations:

Nature’s local menu lists a veritable banquet of habitat selections.
I love the Marbut Bend dormant season with magical views across the marshes, wetlands, mudflats, fields, and the river itself.
Each visit whets my appetite for a return, especially when spring triggers new life…and promises warmer days.

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

Note: Unless otherwise noted, all blog post images are created & photographed by Stephen B. Jones. Please circulate images with photo credit: “©2024 Steve Jones, Great Blue Heron LLC. All Rights Reserved.”

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

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

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

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

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

Vision:

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

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

Steve’s Three Books

I wrote my books Nature Based Leadership (2016), Nature-Inspired Learning and Leading (2017), and Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits: Stories of Passion for Place and Everyday Nature (2019; co-authored with Dr. Jennifer Wilhoit) to encourage all citizens to recognize and appreciate that every lesson for living, learning, serving, and leading is either written indelibly in or is powerfully inspired by Nature.

I began writing books and Posts for several reasons:

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

All three of my books (Nature Based Leadership; Nature-Inspired Learning and Leading; Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits) present compilations of personal experiences expressing my (and co-author Dr. Wilhoit for Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits) deep passion for Nature. All three books offer observations and reflections on my relationship with the natural world… and the broader implications for society. Order any from your local indie bookstore, or find them on IndieBound or other online sources such as Amazon and LifeRich.

I now have a fourth book, published by Dutton Land and Cattle Company, Dutton Land & Cattle: A Land Legacy Story. Available for purchase directly from me. Watch for details in a future Post.

Goldsmith-Schiffman Wildlife Sanctuary Exploration with My Alabama Grandsons!

May 2, 2024/in Updates /by Steve Jones

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

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

Forest Wonder Potpourri

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tupelo Swamp

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A Few Living Critters!

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

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

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

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

Thoughts and Reflections

I offer these observations:

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

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

Note: Unless otherwise noted, all blog post images are created & photographed by Stephen B. Jones. Please circulate images with photo credit: “©2024 Steve Jones, Great Blue Heron LLC. All Rights Reserved.”

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

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

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

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

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

Vision:

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

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

Steve’s Three Books

I wrote my books Nature Based Leadership (2016), Nature-Inspired Learning and Leading (2017), and Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits: Stories of Passion for Place and Everyday Nature (2019; co-authored with Dr. Jennifer Wilhoit) to encourage all citizens to recognize and appreciate that every lesson for living, learning, serving, and leading is either written indelibly in or is powerfully inspired by Nature.

I began writing books and Posts for several reasons:

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

All three of my books (Nature Based Leadership; Nature-Inspired Learning and Leading; Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits) present compilations of personal experiences expressing my (and co-author Dr. Wilhoit for Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits) deep passion for Nature. All three books offer observations and reflections on my relationship with the natural world… and the broader implications for society. Order any from your local indie bookstore, or find them on IndieBound or other online sources such as Amazon and LifeRich.

I now have a fourth book, published by Dutton Land and Cattle Company, Dutton Land & Cattle: A Land Legacy Story. Available for purchase directly from me. Watch for details in a future Post.

Brief-Form #30: Dormant Marshland at Marbut Bend Trail along Alabama’s Elk River!

April 29, 2024/in Updates /by Steve Jones

On January 4, 2024, Judy and I explored the trails at TVA’s Marbut Bend along the Elk River upstream from its juncture with the Tennessee River (Lake Wheeler). This Brief-Form Post highlights the grey winter delights across the marshes that Marbut Bend Trail transits. No winter sunshine brightened the bleak winter morning. The temperature hovered near freezing, a consistent breeze sharpened the damp chill. I regretted not layering a hooded sweatshirt. Although we resided for four years in the brutal cold of Fairbanks, Alaska, we left that domicile 16 years ago. Yet I stubbornly, if not foolishly, cling to the fantasy that I remain cold weather hardened. At the ripe old age of 72 years, my blood and its tolerance to cold have thinned consistent with my current residential latitude of 34.71 degrees North, a far cry from Fairbanks’ 64.84 North!

Grey winter delights? Surely I jest. The day is drab. Only a hint of green punctuates the meadows. Even the loblolly pine appears more black than green on this colorless, heavily clouded morn. I recorded this 360 degree 45-second video across the seeming barren landscape. Seeming barren, yes, but life abounds. The video captures a few plaintive bird whisperings, as though the sources were reluctant to express their joy of life so distant from the spring equinox.

The weathered boardwalk reached behind me (below left) to a near-vanishing point at the roadside trailhead, invisible beyond the copse of loblolly pine trees. A deciduous forest rises with the hillside beyond the pine and across the hidden highway. The grey planks extend beyond me to another stand of pine (below right), where the trail veers to the left before continuing to yet another boardwalk that crosses an extensive mudflat to the Elk River.

I feigned physical comfort in my pose below left. My teeth chattered and my left hand clutched the trekking pole longing for the gloves I left in the car! Mostly out of sight, small birds skittered among the cattails surviving on seeds. I wondered what other small creatures foraged beneath the radar on this crisp sunless morning.

Marsh-water ice corroborated the chill, and accented the mood. I’ve observed often in my essays that nothing in Nature is static. Return to Marbut Bend a dozen times…she will show a dozen faces, each one distinct and worth the trip. The most favorable mood would not be nearly as precious absent the contrasting memory of such a morning as January 4, 2024!

What good is the warmth of summer, without the cold of winter to give it sweetness. (John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley: In Search of America)

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. Today, I borrow a relevant reflection from Andrew Wyeth (1917-2009), a modern day realist painter, who I believe would have appreciated and amplified the stark winter magic of Marbut Bend:

I prefer winter and fall, when you feel the bone structure of the landscape. Something waits beneath it; the whole story doesn’t show.

NOTE: I place 3-5 short videos (15 seconds to three minutes) on my Steve Jones Great Blue Heron YouTube channel weekly. All relate to Nature-Inspired Life and Living. I encourage you to SUBSCRIBE! It’s FREE. Having more subscribers helps me spread my message of Informed and Responsible Earth Stewardship…locally and globally!

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

April 17, 2024/in Updates /by Steve Jones

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

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

I welcomed the dry surface of the greenway.

The Flint River Tamed

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

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

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

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

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

Spring Ephemerals

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

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

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

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

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

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

Panoply of Routine Spring Woodland Delights

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Good afternoon, friends,

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

Fun Facts

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

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

Thoughts and Reflections

I offer these observations:

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

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

Note: Unless otherwise noted, all blog post images are created & photographed by Stephen B. Jones. Please circulate images with photo credit: “©2024 Steve Jones, Great Blue Heron LLC. All Rights Reserved.”

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

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

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

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

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

Vision:

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

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

Steve’s Three Books

I wrote my books Nature Based Leadership (2016), Nature-Inspired Learning and Leading (2017), and Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits: Stories of Passion for Place and Everyday Nature (2019; co-authored with Dr. Jennifer Wilhoit) to encourage all citizens to recognize and appreciate that every lesson for living, learning, serving, and leading is either written indelibly in or is powerfully inspired by Nature.

I began writing books and Posts for several reasons:

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

All three of my books (Nature Based Leadership; Nature-Inspired Learning and Leading; Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits) present compilations of personal experiences expressing my (and co-author Dr. Wilhoit for Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits) deep passion for Nature. All three books offer observations and reflections on my relationship with the natural world… and the broader implications for society. Order any from your local indie bookstore, or find them on IndieBound or other online sources such as Amazon and LifeRich.

I now have a fourth book, published by Dutton Land and Cattle Company, Dutton Land & Cattle: A Land Legacy Story.

Brief Form Post #29: Mid-March Attempt to Enter the Flint River-Flooded Goldsmith-Schiffman Wildlife Sanctuary

April 2, 2024/in Updates /by Steve Jones

I am pleased to add the 29th of my GBH Brief Form Posts (Less than three minutes to read!) to my website. I tend to get a bit long-winded with my routine Posts. I don’t want my enthusiasm for thoroughness and detail to discourage readers. So I will publish these brief Posts regularly.

Brief-Form Post on a Flooded-Out Tour of the Goldsmith-Schiffman Wildlife Sanctuary

Fellow Nature enthusiast Jim Chamberlain and I taught a spring term Huntsville, Alabama LearningQuest course on the Streams of Madison County. After the term ended, we hosted an unofficial field trip to the nearby Goldsmith-Schiffman Wildlife Sanctuary along the Flint River, on Saturday morning, March 16, 2024. The flooding Flint River secured the sanctity and solitude coveted by all Sanctuary wildlife residents, protecting them from our planned educational intrusion.

Among other topics we incorporated in our course, we spoke often of the tendency of our streams to flash with the heavy rains that treat our Cumberland Plateau region with 55-inches of rainfall annually. Wouldn’t you know it, a persistent front loaded with Gulf moisture dumped 2.34-inches the day before our outing. The flooding Flint River blocked our west-side entrance less that a quarter-mile from the Taylor Road parking lot.

The group posed in the photos above just in front of the red iron gate (see grandson Sam below during a far drier visit) where the trail takes visitors into the 400-acre floodplain Sanctuary.

Refusing to be deterred, we caravanned to the east entrance, where the Flint greeted us within sight of where we parked!

The still-rising River provided a clear signal that our Sanctuary sauntering would of necessity await a different stage in the life of the flashy Flint River.

I recorded this 31-second video before we departed for a substitute ramble along nearby Big Cove Creek Greenway:

I returned to the Sanctuary March 23, 2024, exploring a much more forgiving Sanctuary environment. I would have been at least knee deep looking northwest on the east entrance greenway 200 yards from where the group stood with the muddy floodwaters beyond, evidencing again the flashy nature of the Streams of Madison County.

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. Today, I borrow a relevant reflection from Aldo Leopold’s A Sand County Almanac, a book I rank as a premier collection of conservation and Nature-philosophy essays:

There are degrees and kinds of solitude. I know of no solitude so secure as one guarded by a spring flood; nor do the geese, who have seen more kinds and degrees of aloneness than I have.

NOTE: I place 3-5 short videos (15 seconds to three minutes) on my Steve Jones Great Blue Heron YouTube channel weekly. All relate to Nature-Inspired Life and Living. I encourage you to SUBSCRIBE! It’s FREE. Having more subscribers helps me spread my message of Informed and Responsible Earth Stewardship…locally and globally!

Hidden Spring: Flowing Strong During Extreme Drought!

March 28, 2024/in Updates /by Steve Jones

I visited Huntsville, Alabama’s Goldsmith-Schiffman Wildlife Sanctuary on November 14, 2023, with Dr. Marian Moore Lewis, author of Southern Sanctuary. We sauntered through the western side of the Sanctuary, observing and reflecting upon all manner of seasonal life we encountered from Hidden Spring to Jobala Pond to the wetland mitigation project underway in the mid-property meadows and fields. This Post focuses on Hidden Spring, still flowing strongly after an extended drought!

The Spring emerges from a dispersed upwelling near the Taylor Road entrance to the Sanctuary, at the foot of a 20-30 foot rise beyond which the highway runs. A wooden observation deck looks out over the thick vegetation blanketing the wetland head and obscuring a clear view of a clear point of emergence. The hillside is visible and then gradually the upland transitions to a wetland with marshy vegetation.

I was not expecting a full flow. I had measured just an inch and one-half of rain since mid-August. Already, the wetland vegetation is dormant, in spite of persistent late summer weather.

I recorded this 32-second video of Hidden Spring, capturing the lush dry-season saturation and the sounds of abundant bird activity:

Two sets of three mallards, both with two drakes and a hen, entertained us.

I keep hoping to spot a wood duck at the Sanctuary. Although I have visited repeatedly over the past five years, I have seen just one. Hidden Springs slowly reshapes with distance, shifting from an ill-defined wetland to marsh and then to a stream channel and eventually to open water at Jobala Pond.

We could not have wished for a better sky to accent the spring-head, marsh, stream, and pond images.

There are times when I feel compelled to offer observation and reflection narrative to these photo essays. I am content with this one to say little. My theme is simple. Nature is anything but static…across time and space. The Spring emerges, gains definition and volume, attracts vegetation and critters, creates a defined stream channel, occupies the Jobala Pond basin, and eventually finds its way to the Sanctuary-adjacent Flint River.

I am impressed that the Spring seems oblivious to a sustained drought, one the National Weather Service characterizes as Extreme. Drought or not, the emergent stream is perfectly capable of its own reflecting, working Nature-magic with the firmament above.

I recorded this 32-second video where the Spring occupies the old borrow pit basin, excavated when road engineers found rich deposits of clay, sand, and gravel suitable for mid-20th Century road construction nearby.

Jobala Pond has naturalized from its origin as a borrow pit, a raw dirt-sided basin filled with runoff and the year-round spring. I’ve seen photographs of the property’s 2007 donor in the pond as a three-year-old, surrounded by the vegetation-bare pit. Nature is, if nothing else, resilient.

Perhaps there were those who observed 70 years ago that the borrow pit was a blight on the landscape, a permanent scar from which no redemption could be found. Look at the marsh today. John Muir so eloquently captured Nature’s resilience…her insistence upon healing wounds, of the land and her creatures:

Nature is always lovely, invincible, glad, whatever is done and suffered by her creatures. All scars she heals, whether in rocks or water or sky or hearts.

I recorded this 36-second video of Jobala Pond, viewing north, swinging to the east along the trail, and then back to north.

I’ve learned that while I enjoy providing narrative (and have some pride in my own words), the brief videos express far more with only the accompanying gentle sounds of Nature.

Hidden Spring, and its gradual transition to marshland, pond, and stream, is a Sanctuary gift steeped in mystery, rich with ecosystem wonder, and blessed with a soul-soothing aura of life and living.

The mystery begs pondering and resolution. Where do the raindrops fall that the aquifer retains? How can this underground store enable the Spring to yield apparent full flow after three months of extreme drought?

The ecosystem wonder draws from Nature transforming a surface mine (the term is a bit more truthful than referring to the depression as a borrow pit, a softer, less permanent term). Nature’s healing has naturalized the landscape blemish.

I feel blessed every time I visit the Sanctuary, my mind schooled in reading the landscape…my spirit elevated by the gentle hand of Nature. As a young Nature enthusiast, I would have rejected the notion that a city-operated “sanctuary” could scratch my Nature wildness itch. I would have seen the term city wildlife sanctuary as a paradox, an anomaly, a self-contradiction. Today, I embrace the idea, accept the term, and celebrate that the City of Huntsville, Alabama manages these 400 acres as a prized wildlife sanctuary!

Thoughts and Reflections

I offer these observations:

Nature is always lovely, invincible, glad, whatever is done and suffered by her creatures. All scars she heals, whether in rocks or water or sky or hearts. (John Muir)
I feel blessed every time I visit the Sanctuary, my mind schooled in reading the landscape…my spirit elevated by the gentle hand of Nature.
Nature is anything but static…across time and space.

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

Note: Unless otherwise noted, all blog post images are created & photographed by Stephen B. Jones. Please circulate images with photo credit: “©2024 Steve Jones, Great Blue Heron LLC. All Rights Reserved.”

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

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

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

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

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

Vision:

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

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

Steve’s Three Books

I wrote my books Nature Based Leadership (2016), Nature-Inspired Learning and Leading (2017), and Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits: Stories of Passion for Place and Everyday Nature (2019; co-authored with Dr. Jennifer Wilhoit) to encourage all citizens to recognize and appreciate that every lesson for living, learning, serving, and leading is either written indelibly in or is powerfully inspired by Nature.

I began writing books and Posts for several reasons:

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

All three of my books (Nature Based Leadership; Nature-Inspired Learning and Leading; Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits) present compilations of personal experiences expressing my (and co-author Dr. Wilhoit for Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits) deep passion for Nature. All three books offer observations and reflections on my relationship with the natural world… and the broader implications for society. Order any from your local indie bookstore, or find them on IndieBound or other online sources such as Amazon and LifeRich.

I now have a fourth book, published by Dutton Land and Cattle Company, Dutton Land & Cattle: A Land Legacy Story. Available for purchase directly from me. Watch for details in a future Post.

Autumn Fungi, Dead Snags, and Trophy Oak Burl at Goldsmith-Schiffman Wildlife Sanctuary!

February 29, 2024/in Updates /by Steve Jones

Left Knee Replacement Recovery Update

I’m adding this single-paragraph prolog on Leap-Day, February 29, 2024. I’m reaching back to content I gathered four months ago. You might ask, why the long lag period? During the autumn months, I was dealing with deteriorating knees, with total left knee replacement anticipated in mid-January, a date not yet confirmed. I was scheduled initially for June of 2023, but my unanticipated June 19, 2023, triple bypass delayed knee surgery. Knowing bad knees and then recovery would limit my woods-wandering for an extended period, I banked photographs, reflections, and observations for several months. Thus, now 37 days since knee surgery, I am writing this prolog, still uncertain when I can resume my woodland forays.

Mid-November Sanctuary Wandering

I visited Huntsville, Alabama’s Goldsmith-Schiffman Wildlife Sanctuary on November 14, 2023, with Dr. Marian Moore Lewis, author of Southern Sanctuary. We trekked through the western side of the Sanctuary, observing and reflecting upon all manner of seasonal life we encountered from Hidden Spring to Jobala Pond to the wetland mitigation project underway in the mid-property meadows and fields. I focus this Post on the autumn fungi, dead snags, and a trophy oak burl we encountered.

This Ganoderma lobatum is a hardwood decay fungus, one of 80 Ganaderma species. Its genus name means shiny or lustrous skin, apparent below left. Note the grass growing through the specimen below right.

The mushroom (same species) below right is a prolific spore producer, coating surfaces near it with a thick beige dusting.

The oak below harbors oak bracket decay fungi. More than a foot across, the two fresh mushrooms have sprouted from one of the tree’s fluted trunk toes. The tree is living despite evidence of heavy infection. Like so much in Nature the decay infection and living tree are in a tenuous balance. The fungus consumes wood; the tree adds new wood. Eventually, gravity and other physical forces will prevail. That the tree will topple is inevitable. Decay is a crucial variable in the equation of life, death, and renewal.

I recall plant (tree) pathology courses in undergraduate forestry studies. Educated from a timber management orientation, I viewed forest pathology and specific fungal agents as elements of the dark side, negatively affecting tree vigor and wood quality and value. Retired and long removed from that timber value orientation, I view fungi through an entirely different lens…an ecosystem perspective. I often find relevant wisdom in John Muir’s words:

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.

The oak bracket fungus is oblivious to the relative timber value of oaks. It knows only that its sole function is to achieve life-vigor sufficient to produce viable reproductive spores to ensure successive generations, its contribution to the health and viability of life within that one great dewdrop. Responsibility for managing the forest for timber production, income generation, wildlife habitat, water yield, or sundry other objectives rests with the forester. The disease agent (the fungus) is one of the factors in the forester’s zone of influence and control.

Another nearby large oak bracket mushroom is exuding resinous beads.

Marian has located yet another oak bracket, exposing its polyporus underside (below right)

A nearby elm snag has seen its final summer. Decay fungi and marauding birds, squirrels, and other critters have weakened the snag. I can’t imagine the remnants resisting the pull of gravity through routine winter weather sure to bring soaking rains, strong winds, and maybe even snow and freezing rain.

This willow snag stands within the upstream end of Jobala Pond, where the Hidden Spring wetland emerges into the pond.

Fungi and snags go hand in hand, the snag is the final standing relic of decay fungi that likely began its decomposition decades earlier.

Trophy Water Oak Burl

Burls are not caused by decay organisms. I describe burls as benign tumors, triggered by some unknown biological agent (virus, bacterium, or fungus. Burls are often beautifully textured solid wood, treasured by wood-turning enthusiasts.

Because the oak grows at the Jobala Pond outlet, I visit it every time I enter the Sanctuary from the Taylor Road entrance.

Its growth is quite evident. I snapped this image June 20, 2020. That’s then 12-year-old grandson Jack’s hand.

I try to visit the Sanctuary every 2-3 months, monitoring change and discovering what Nature reveals,

Thoughts and Reflections

I offer these observations:

Nothing in Nature is static.
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)
Fungi and snags go hand in hand, the snag is the final standing relic of decay fungi that likely began its decomposition decades earlier.

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

Note: Unless otherwise noted, all blog post images are created & photographed by Stephen B. Jones. Please circulate images with photo credit: “©2024 Steve Jones, Great Blue Heron LLC. All Rights Reserved.”

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

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

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

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

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

Vision:

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

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

Steve’s Three Books

I wrote my books Nature Based Leadership (2016), Nature-Inspired Learning and Leading (2017), and Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits: Stories of Passion for Place and Everyday Nature (2019; co-authored with Dr. Jennifer Wilhoit) to encourage all citizens to recognize and appreciate that every lesson for living, learning, serving, and leading is either written indelibly in or is powerfully inspired by Nature.

I began writing books and Posts for several reasons:

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

All three of my books (Nature Based Leadership; Nature-Inspired Learning and Leading; Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits) present compilations of personal experiences expressing my (and co-author Dr. Wilhoit for Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits) deep passion for Nature. All three books offer observations and reflections on my relationship with the natural world… and the broader implications for society. Order any from your local indie bookstore, or find them on IndieBound or other online sources such as Amazon and LifeRich.

I now have a fourth book, published by Dutton Land and Cattle Company, Dutton Land & Cattle: A Land Legacy Story. Available for purchase directly from me. Watch for details in a future Post.

Three Mid-September Nature Stops at Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge!

November 29, 2023/in Updates /by Steve Jones

By September 16, 2023, nearly three months after my triple bypass surgery, I had healed enough to spend time alone at the nearby Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge…unaccompanied by a fellow Nature enthusiast. I enjoyed three distinct facets of the Refuge that afternoon: driving and stopping along Rockhouse Bottoms Road on the north shore of Lake Wheeler; exploring the northern edge of my favorite riparian hardwood forest just south of HGH Road; and experiencing the tranquility of Blackwell Swamp.

Rockhouse Bottoms

I felt the liberating force of venturing alone into wildness, regaining confidence in myself, even if all three micro-explorations kept me within a few hundred feet of my vehicle. As they say, one step at a time! The Corps of Engineers and TVA tamed the Tennessee River 90 years ago. Lake Wheeler varies no more than five feet in elevation (water level) over a calendar year. The river no longer ebbs and flows with seasonal freshets, spring tempests, and extended droughts. Commercial tugs and barges ply its waters with assured full-pool ease.

Threatening clouds offered a hint of rain, yet my home rain gauge would not record a drop the remaining two weeks of September. Not to worry,…Lake Wheeler will continue to serve navigational (and power generation) needs. I watched a gentleman cast for game fish off-shore from his kayak. He landed several fish that I could not identify beyond most likely as bream. I had not brought my binoculars. The I-65 bridge crosses the river downstream just out of sight.

I recorded this 31-second video as the fisherman worked his bait offshore. My mind traveled back many decades to fishing with Dad and my brother along the rivers and creeks among western Maryland’s Central Appalachians. I regret not bringing along a folding chair to while away an hour enjoying the river and breathing in the summer afternoon’s soothing elixir.

I recorded this thirty-two second video along the Tennessee River:

I remind myself that these sandy river terrace floodplain fields are fertile, well-watered, and richly productive. This field is among the 4,000 acres of the Refuge that are under a Cooperative Farm Agreement.

I recorded this 0:31 video of Cooperative corn farming along Rockhouse Bottoms Road:

Under contract with the US Fish and Wildlife Service the producer manages the crop, leaving 15-18 percent of the harvest for wildlife consumption.

HGH Road: Thunder Echoes

The heavier (less sandy) soils inland nearly a mile, similarly fertile, support the riparian hardwood forest that I frequently bushwhack north to HGH Road. I spotted this recently bolted and scarred red oak as I cruised along HGH Road. Evidence suggested that the strike occurred the prior week when a cluster of thunderstorms raked Madison and Limestone Counties. This strike reached from the tree’s base as far into the crown as I could see. Long strips of bark and stout slivers of wood spear the ground within 50 feet of the bole.

This was a powerful blow! Will it be fatal? I’ve seen trees similarly struck that survived for decades. Others lost foliage within a week. Where do I place my bet? I don’t look for it to leaf out next spring. I stood in awe, camera in hand recording this 31-second video, sensing the absolute power of Nature’s ferocity just a week prior.

Because the tree stands within 50 feet of HGH Road, I will track its progress frequently.

Blackwell Swamp

Blackwell Swamp lies along Jolley B Road midway between the river and HGH Road. I love the habitat and ecosystem diversity represented by the open lake water along the river, the adjoining agricultural fields, the deep riparian hardwood forests along HGH Road, and the saturated swamp riverine habitat at Blackwell. Every ecosystem at Wheeler tells a compelling story.

I recorded this 31-second video as I enjoyed the sounds, visuals, and summer mood of the swamp:

I will revisit the Refuge trifecta once autumn weather takes a firmer grip on northern Alabama.

I grew up in country far removed from the Tennessee River. My Central Appalachian Ridge and Valley roots offered nothing remotely akin to the three stops I experienced September 16. Yes, I miss autumn in western Maryland…and on up into New England…where vibrant colors, sharp-edged weather shifts, and wide temperature swings prevailed. I also yearn for a little deep winter, lamenting that here our chances are slim. However, I refuse to succumb to memories that inflate the wonder of deep, fanciful recollections of falling and drifting snow, a roaring fireplace, and the pure frosted white a fresh blanket of snow brings to a sparkling dawn.

I need only remind myself of my mid-June triple bypass surgery and the reality that even if I resided in the land of blizzards and Hallmark winters, my spouse of 51 years would declare my snow shovel off-limits! So, I’ll occasionally welcome a bit of weather melancholy…and embrace our northern Alabama winter weather delight that counters our hot summers. I tell people who may not be familiar with our dormant season that fall ever-so-slowly grades into spring, sprinkled now and again with a day or two of winter.

I am ready for our extended fall-to-spring to begin.

Thoughts and Reflections

I offer these observations, from a single Louis Bromfield quote (Pleasant Valley):

By September 16, 2023, nearly three months after my triple bypass surgery, I had healed enough to spend time alone at the nearby Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge.
I felt the liberating force of venturing alone into wildness and regaining confidence in myself. As they say, one step at a time!
Every one of the diverse ecosystem elements at the Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge tells a compelling story.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Vision:

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

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

Steve’s Three Books

I wrote my books Nature Based Leadership (2016), Nature-Inspired Learning and Leading (2017), and Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits: Stories of Passion for Place and Everyday Nature (2019; co-authored with Dr. Jennifer Wilhoit) to encourage all citizens to recognize and appreciate that every lesson for living, learning, serving, and leading is either written indelibly in or is powerfully inspired by Nature.

I began writing books and Posts for several reasons:

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

All three of my books (Nature Based Leadership; Nature-Inspired Learning and Leading; Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits) present compilations of personal experiences expressing my (and co-author Dr. Wilhoit for Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits) deep passion for Nature. All three books offer observations and reflections on my relationship with the natural world… and the broader implications for society. Order any from your local indie bookstore, or find them on IndieBound or other online sources such as Amazon and LifeRich.

I now have a fourth book, published by Dutton Land and Cattle Company, Dutton Land & Cattle: A Land Legacy Story. Available for purchase directly from me. Watch for details in a future Post.