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“Sharing My Story” with CoHort-II of RaMP-Woods to Water (W2W) at ACES Graham Center!

/in /by

I returned to Graham Farm and Nature Center at 7:30 AM on August 22, 2026. The ten Research and Mentoring for Postbaccalaureate, Woods to Water (RaMP-W2W) participants and three program staff arrived mid-afternoon the previous day. Staff stayed overnight in the GFNC Conestoga wagon accommodations; students overnighted in tents adjacent to the pavilion. I was here by invitation to observe, interact with the enrollees, and offer formal comments in the classroom. Administrative Support Specialist II Donna Sands asked me to “Tell them your story.”

Having first visited GFNC on July 4, 2026, I am already a champion for the place, its mission, and its special spirit. I welcomed the chance to spend a day with the RaMP-W2W program at this great learning and exploration facility in the heart of northeastern Alabama’s Paint Rock River Valley.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The University of Alabama-associated RaMP-W2W website narrative succinctly describes this 12-month dreamscape learning experience that bridges a bachelor’s degree to graduate school or a professional career.

Woods to Water (W2W)
​Training the Next Generation of Ecologists and Natural Resource Managers
Post-Baccalaureate Program

The Woods to Water (W2W) project is an experience-based post-baccalaureate learning program aimed at helping early career scientists understand critical linkages between terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. The program will provide a year-long, immersive, cohort- and field-based program in standardized methods and data science. 

The Woods and Water Program provides:

  • Stipend support and free housing.
  • Collaborative interactions with leading scientists, technicians, and researchers at The University of Alabama, the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON), and the Jones Center at Ichauway (JCI) 
  • Training in key field techniques that link water, carbon, and nutrient fluxes among ecosystems 
  • Comprehensive classroom, field experiences, laboratory, and independent research approaches to building skills and self-confidence in field research 
  • Opportunities to present and publish research and facilitate transition into the ecological workforce.
  • Development of skills required to succeed and stand out in today’s STEM job market 

The Research and Mentoring for Postbaccalaureates (RaMP) in Biological Sciences program is a National Science Foundation (NSF) program to establish networks to support full-time research, mentoring, and training for recent college graduates who have had few or no research or training opportunities during college.  Broadly, its goal is to create a competitive and highly representative science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) workforce in the U.S. with a focus on the biological sciences. Projects are expected to train individuals for a range of potential career pathways in the biological sciences, including: research-focused M.S. or Ph.D. graduate programs; entry-level positions in industry, federal, tribal, or state agencies, education and research centers, or not-for-profit science-based organizations; or other STEM careers. 

I recorded this 60-second video of the RaMP participants gathering before breakfast

 

RaMP-W2W is a competitive program; these are exceptional young men and women embarking on an exciting journey. The visit to GFNC officially launched the 2026-27 RaMP-W2W year.

 

The ten participants list their home addresses as follows:

     Lehi, UT; Oakland, CA; Auburn, AL; Santa Cruz, CA; Chattanooga, TN; Clarksville, OH; New Orleans, LA; Tuscaloosa, AL; Lexington, KY; Fairhope, AL

Widely dispersed geography, diverse topical interests, and varying career aspirations define the group. Their futures will lead in many directions. Their stories will share this common year-long bond and will diverge in whatever route they choose. Some know their intended path. Others are not so certain.

Center Director Mike Sims led the orientation session after breakfast.

What better way to begin the RaMP kickoff than a series of team-building challenges? Mike directed them through a series of challenges.

 

I recorded a sixty-second video of a team-building challenge.

 

Mike demanded that participants follow strict rules and guidelines, practice selfless teamwork, and share purpose and spirit. I enjoyed watching the process unfold from the comfortable shade under the pavilion canopy.

A late-summer cirrus sky over the Center backdropped the challenge.

 

Jonathan Nemati, Wildlife Programming, introduced the group to Center reptiles.

 

I recorded this 58-second video of the group interacting with Jonathan’s reptile discussion.

 

Snakes and box turtles highlighted the reptilian cast.

 

As summer’s heat fades to cooler temperatures, the outdoor classroom will have greater appeal.

 

Telling Them My Story

 

The August 22 weather was more conducive to offering my remarks in the Center classroom. That was the easy decision. More difficult: choosing which elements of “My Story” to share with these incredibly bright, enthusiastic, and ambitious learners. I came with a satchel of books, each flagged with Post-its marking relevant quotations. After spending the morning with the group, I had a good idea of where to start, and then let our one-hour interaction unfold through their reactions, questions, and interests.

I had recently read Ben & Me (Eric Weiner, 2024), a book commemorating our country’s 250th anniversary celebration and recognizing (and appreciating) Ben Franklin’s pivotal role. My copy of the book sprouts multi-colored Post-its marking kernels of wisdom and reflection worthy of revisiting. One stands out, and that is where I began my remarks;

Distrust not providence!

Written in Yoda-esque fashion, Ben opined in three words that the hand of providence guides, directs, counsels, and influences our journey… if we allow. In effect, Ben implored, Trust Providence! I have, and it has made all the difference. Some examples:

  • The spring I graduated high school, the local community college announced it would open a pre-forestry program in September.
  • The program Director and I stayed close for half a century. He opened the door to a Maryland Forest Service summer internship through my undergraduate degree.
  • The Director arranged a junior year transfer with full credit to the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry (SUNY ESF at Syracuse University).
  • A faculty mentor there steered me to a paper and allied products manufacturing company in the southeastern US.
  • My industrial forestry career advanced rapidly with assignments of increasing responsibility across 12 years in Virginia, Georgia, and Alabama.
  • A second SUNY ESF mentor encouraged me to eventually enter a Ph.D. program with him after gaining forest industry work and life experience. He pledged to hold up his end of the agreement if I committed to bring what he saw in me back to ESF. We completed the challenging, life-altering Ph.D. (Applied Ecology) pursuit in 36 months. My wife of now 54 years shared the journey with me, offering support, love, and adventure.
  • We chose from five diverse positions after the doctoral degree; one of them was a faculty position in the School of Forest Resources at Penn State University. The other four were outside of higher education. In essence, “Five roads diverged in a yellow wood.” (Robert Frost)
    Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
    And sorry I could not travel both
    And be one traveler, long I stood
    And looked down one as far as I could
    To where it bent in the undergrowth;
  • …..
    I shall be telling this with a sigh
    Somewhere ages and ages hence:
    Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
    I took the one less traveled by,
    And that has made all the difference.
  • We trusted providence then, and continued through the following 40 years, serving nine universities and in retirement.
  • I have stayed true to my natural resources passion, extending to my formal retirement mission:

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

I modeled my mission after words that Louis Bromfield used to describe his life’s passion for rehabilitating the old, worn-out farm he owned and tended near Mansfield, Ohio, in the mid-20th century:

The adventure at Malabar is by no means finished… The land came to us out of eternity, and when the youngest of us associated with it dies, it will still be here. The best we can hope to do is to leave the mark of our fleeting existence upon it, to die knowing that we have changed a small corner of this earth for the better by wisdom, knowledge, and hard work.

I urged the attendees to seek and secure fulfillment, reward, and purpose in the natural sciences… to find the power of passion for Nature in the service of reason

Albert Einstein observed that Nature holds the key to human and life permanence:

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

I encouraged them to recognize and appreciate their good fortune in being selected for this incredible learning and life experience. From my end-of-career, life-sunset perspective, I said, You are blessed! Providence has opened a door… a gateway to whatever awaits. Open your arms, your mind, and your heart to opportunity, adventure, and challenge. Don’t resist what emerges.

Distrust not Providence! This year-long RaMP-W2W adventure at the University of Alabama, the National Ecological Observatory Network, and Georgia’s Jones Center at Ichauway (a half-year at each for the ten participants split into two groups) can and will shape their future.

Learn from the conservation great ones, like John Muir:

It’s always sunrise somewhere; the dew is never all dried at once; a shower is forever falling; vapor is ever rising. Eternal sunrise, eternal sunset, eternal dawn and gloaming, on sea and continents and islands, each in its turn, as the round earth rolls. 

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.

Flourish on your one great dewdrop… your infinite storm of beauty! Serve humanity through your devotion to understanding the natural sciences. I wish you well.

 

Thoughts and Reflections

 

I offer these observations:

  • Distrust not providence. (Ben Franklin)

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

  • Flourish on your one great dewdrop… your infinite storm of beauty! Serve humanity through your devotion to understanding the natural sciences. I wish you well. (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 compile personal experiences expressing my deep passion for Nature. They offer observations and reflections on my relationship with the natural world… and the broader implications for society. Order any from your local indie bookstore, or find them on IndieBound or other online sources such as Amazon and LifeRich.

I began writing books and Posts for several reasons:

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

 

 

 

 

Late August Query at Nearby Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge — Is It Really Old Growth?

/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 June 16 (https://stevejonesgbh.com/2026/06/16/brief-form-post-62-bringing-the-outside-in-at-nashvilles-gaylord-resort/)

 

Since establishing a permanent retirement residence in Madison, Alabama, in 2018, I’ve explored the Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge bottomland hardwood forest west of Jolly B Road and south of HGH Road two to four times every year. Search my GBH Blog website (for Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge) to locate the dozens of related weekly photo essays. I’ve debated whether this particular stand meets old-growth criteria.  I am declaring certainty! Yes, this is old-growth forest!!! Join me as I share observations, reflections, photos, and brief videos from my exploration of the stand on the morning of August 27, 2026. Again, the subject stand is old-growth, but I do not suggest it is original growth.

The 1937 aerial photograph (below) shows the HGH Road as a red line; the dark vertical mark separates Limestone (left) and Madison County (east). The penned vertical hash on the HGH Road denotes the area I discuss in this Post. The photo shows a fully developed hardwood forest 89 years ago. Individual crowns are apparent even then, indicating trees older than juvenile. I believe the stand in 1937 was at least 40-50 years old and is now 130+ years old, meeting one generally accepted criterion for old-growth.

HGH

 

Let’s review what the US Forest Service published three years ago that should have cleared up any doubt I may have had about whether the subject stand is old-growth.

USDA Forest Service Mature and Old-Growth Definition

April 2023 (https://www.fs.usda.gov/sites/default/files/mature-and-old-growth-forests-tech.pdf)

Mature and Old-Growth Forests: Definition, Identification, and Initial Inventory on Lands Managed by
the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management

Old-Growth Forest Narrative Framework

1). Old-growth forests are dynamic systems distinguished by old trees and related structural attributes. Old-growth encompasses the later stages of stand development that typically differ from earlier stages in a variety of characteristics, which may include tree size, accumulations of large dead woody material, number of canopy layers, species composition, and ecosystem function (USDA Forest Service 1989).

2). In addition to their ecological attributes, old-growth forests are distinguished by their ecosystem services and social, cultural, and economic values. Old-growth forests have place-based meanings tied to cultural identity and heritage; local economies and ways of life; traditional and subsistence uses; aesthetic, spiritual, and recreational experiences; and Tribal and Indigenous histories, cultures, and practices. Dialogue with stakeholders and Tribal Nations, and the integration of local and Indigenous Knowledge with evolving scientific understanding, are critical to identifying and stewarding old-growth forests.

Paragraph one offers some insight but falls short of providing incontrovertible criteria. The second paragraph may assist managers of Federal lands. It does nothing to help me wrestle with the stand in question.

In broad summary, the new USFS publication doesn’t help. If you can tolerate a wee bit of sarcasm, the report’s author (Captain Obvious?) wrote, “Mature forests are delineated ecologically as the stage of forest development immediately before old-growth.”

 

Relying Upon My Time-tested Knowledge of Forestry

 

The relevant table in the report’s appendix identifies generalized minimum old-growth criteria for southeastern bottomland hardwood forests:

Stand Age — >100-120 years

 Basal Area — >40 square feet

Large Tree Diameter — >20″ DBH

The subject stand is at least 120 years old. Basal area ranges from 60 to greater than 110 square feet per acre. Large trees exceed three feet DBH. Dominant tree heights reach above 110 feet. Dead and down woody debris is heavy. Some large downed trees are recent; others have been prostrate long enough to be decayed beyond species identification.

These bottomland soils are nutrient-rich and naturally well-watered. Site quality is high. Areas east of the subject stand, with no visible forest development in 1937, are now populated by what I characterize as mature hardwood and mixed pine/hardwood forest. Nature quickly takes possession, rapidly developing a new forest from abandoned agricultural fields.

The subject stand has complex canopy tiers and variable understory.

 

This shagbark hickory is nearly 30 inches DBH.

 

Its basal bark appears old, thick, and coarse. It hosts a small colony of resurrection fern and a thick covering of basal tree moss.

 

It commands a dominant canopy position well over 100 feet above the forest floor.

 

Nearby, former upper-canopy sentinels have fallen and are now decomposing on the ground. Nature is recycling biomass. The structure is tiered. Stems and foliage fill the frames from ground cover to overstory.

 

 

My 58-second video of the downed trees.

 

Oaks greater than 30 inches DBH are common.

 

I am concerned that so many of the largest trees are scarred and diseased. Is this 30-inch-plus sweetgum attempting to tell me a story? Is it a damaged residual from a mid- to late 19th-century logging operation? Was it an operation that delivered massive original old-growth timber to market? The sweetgum would have been too small.

 

This 30-inch yellow poplar has prospered. Note the profusion of bird peck marks.

 

This massive red oak (species?) is thoroughly butt-diseased and probably hollowed. See the 3.5-4.00′ burl ten feet above the base.

 

 

 

 

My 58-second video of the old burled oak.

 

This cherry bark oak is tall, straight, and apparently sound, showing no signs of injury or decay. I like the image of it reaching high into the canopy, backlit by the sun.

 

 

 

It photographed so nicely that I convinced it to star in a short video production.

 

I wandered nearby into a ponded depression where a springhead maintains surface water year-round. The shade seemed to deepen. Even the mood darkened. This was not a light and airy place. I snapped a few photos and recorded the brief video.

 

The mosquitoes pestered me to move on, discouraging me from a cursory review of the video. I recorded this 58-second video at the ponded depression.

 

I didn’t expect to see standing water, yet it contributed to the foreboding gloom.

 

An American Euonymus (AKA hearts-a-bustin or strawberry bush) lifted the gloom.

 

An Amanita mushroom was one of the very few fungi I found. I carried a foraging bucket as I trekked. Perhaps if I had left it in my car, I would have spotted an abundance of edibles!

 

Ever mindful of encountering the slithering variety of reptilian life, I photographed an eastern box turtle. This fellow sports a handsome carapace, appearing freshly polished.

The mosquitoes pestered me to move on, discouraging me from a cursory review of the video.

 

 

Thoughts and Reflections

 

I offer these observations:

  •  I am declaring certainty! Yes, this is old-growth forest!!! (Steve Jones)
  • If you can tolerate a wee bit of sarcasm, the report’s author (Captain Obvious?) wrote, “Mature forests are delineated ecologically as the stage of forest development immediately before old-growth.” (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 (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 compile personal experiences expressing my deep passion for Nature. They 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 #68: Special Features above the Center Farmhouse at Graham Farm and Nature Center

/in /by

[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 June 10 (https://stevejonesgbh.com/2026/06/10/curiosities-oddities-mysteries-and-seasonal-features-on-the-n-al-land-trusts-oak-park-trail/)]

I am pleased to add the 68th of my GBH Brief-Form Posts (Less than five minutes to read!) to my website. I get wordy with my routine Posts. I don’t want my enthusiasm for thoroughness and detail to discourage readers. So, I will occasionally publish these brief Posts.

 

Fellow retired forester Chris Stuhlinger and I returned to the Alabama Cooperative Extension System’s Graham Farm and Nature Center on July 30, 2026, to scope and lay out a Tree and Shrub Identification Route. I previously reported that venture (https://stevejonesgbh.com/2026/09/29/scoping-a-tree-identification-trail-on-the-waterfall-loop-at-graham-farm-and-nature-center/). Join me virtually as we ascend to the proposed Tree, Shrub, and Vine Identification Trailhead. I collected additional photographs, a video, reflections, and observations distinct from the I.D. trail.

I appreciate the location and interpretive signage across the Center property. The I.D. lies 200 feet above the quaint cottage being prepared for overnight guest accommodation.

 

Nita’s View looks over the Larkin Creek and Paint Rock River Valleys from the cottage porch.

 

The Center property is indeed a special place!

 

Enamored with Tree Seed Production

 

The mowed grass trail ascends to the cottage from the farmhouse, residence of the family who transferred the farmland and adjoining mountain forest to ACES. It is now used as an historic GF&NC feature, along the edge of a naturally regenerated forest.

My undergraduate silviculture text, The Practice of Silviculture (1962, David Martyn Smith), describes the critical forestry sub-science:

Silviculture has been variously defined as: the art of producing and tending a forest; the application of the knowledge of silvics in the treatment of a forest; the theory and practice of controlling forest establishment, composition, and growth.

I thrill at contemplating tree seed production and forest regeneration, which after all is critical to the practice of silviculture. I include this quote from Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) in my salutation, closing every email I send:

Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant.

This young black walnut tree extended its branches to us as we passed. Walnut is among our nation’s most valued hardwood species, its beautiful wood treasured for the high-quality furniture and paneling. Every eastern USA-trained forester feels heart rate surging when encountering a well-formed walnut tree or, in this case, a healthy young walnut tree already producing fruit, a walnut nearly at eye-level.

 

An osage orange tree stood nearby, its crown filled with softball-size hedge apples.

 

I recorded this 58-second video of osage orange fruit near the Nita’s View cabin.

 

Shining sumac also grows at the edge of the emerging woods adjacent to the mowed grass. Also known as winged sumac, dwarf sumac, and flameleaf sumac, the tree’s foliage is true to its name. The petioles are prominently winged. Could the green be any deeper?! The leaves shinier? The young seedheads more promising? Their current light burgundy hints at the impending stark red of autumn.

 

Carolina buckthorn, another shrub species common in naturally regenerating forests, sported similar glossy green leaves and red berries.

 

All living organisms, from the perspective of evolutionary biology, share a common, primary purpose of existence: survival and reproduction. Each species’ genes strive, through the machinery of bodies, to copy themselves into the future. It’s basic, fundamental, and primal, whether a primitive bacterium or a yellow poplar tree… or a Graham Farm and Nature Center black walnut, osage orange, shining sumac, or Carolina buckthorn.

A Wildlife Sidebar

 

I love Nature’s mysteries. Along the same wood-edge trail, I spotted two very distinct bare-soil depressions. I puzzled momentarily, and then an old synapse fired. Driving along the valley road within two miles of GF&NC, I spotted a few adult turkeys leading several poults at field edge. I recognized the depressions as an American turkey dust bath.

 

From online Wild Turkey Lab:

This Turkey Tuesday is about an interesting behavior wild turkeys use, that sometimes gets spiced up with the inclusion of common insects. As spring turns to summer, dust bathing is something that all wild turkeys do – adults and poults alike. These baths are a form of self-maintenance, as they help maintain the condition of feathers, particularly as birds are growing new feathers. Dusting often happens in the same places each day, with the bird laying down where they press their wings and tails onto the ground. Once on the ground, the bird just lays on its breast and flaps its wings, which throws dirt all over the body – sometimes they will also use their head to sling dirt onto the back and wings. And if you’ve ever been blessed enough to watch turkeys dust bath, some of them really get into it! Interestingly, turkeys will also dust in ant mounds – intentionally, termed anting. By doing so, the bird provokes the ants to bite feathers and release compounds that are toxicants – a natural form of pest control. In fact, there’s evidence that some birds preen the ants into their feathers, which crushes them and wipes the compounds on their feathers. This behavior is believed to be a way for turkeys to help mitigate issues with feather mites and lice, but there may be other explanations as well. The take home is wild turkeys have behaviors such as dust bathing and anting that serve purposes ranging from self-maintenance to comfort, and likely some purposes that are entirely unknown – regardless, who doesn’t love wallowing around in the dirt?

 

 

Closing

 

I accept the challenge of distilling these Brief-Form Posts into a single distinct reflection. I include this quote from Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) in my salutation closing every email I send:

Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant.

 

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

 

Scoping a Tree Identification Trail on the Waterfall Loop at Graham Farm and Nature Center!

/in /by

[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 June 3, 2026 (https://stevejonesgbh.com/2026/06/03/brief-form-post-61-mid-february-olli-eagle-safari-at-lake-guntersville-state-park/)]

 

Fellow retired forester Chris Stuhlinger and I returned to the Alabama Cooperative Extension System’s Graham Farm and Nature Center on July 30, 2026, to scope and lay out a Tree and Shrub Identification Route on the Waterfall Loop Trail. Come along as we traverse the route, note special features, snap photographs, record two brief videos, and locate and catalog 33 species of trees, shrubs, and even a large vine. As is my custom in these Great Blue Heron weekly photo essays, take what you might from my observations and reflections… my musings, which 250 years ago in Ben Franklin’s time, would have been termed Natural Philosophy.

The Center, its setting, and its cause, where Conservation, Preservation, and Education Come Together, are special.

 

 

 

 

 

The trailhead lies on the lower Maxwell Mountain slope above the cabin at Nita’s View.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We departed on Bob’s Ledges Trail, then proceeded the full 1.31 miles on the Waterfall Loop Trail, returning us to the trailhead.

 

Bob’s Ledges Trail rose on a bouldered surface (below left). Waterfall Loop (see white blazes) returned us to the trailhead (below right).

 

Center Director, Themika (Mike) Sims, transported us on the all-terrain vehicle to Bob’s intersection with Waterfall Loop. We will walk that section with our autumn return visit to finalize the tree and shrub identification route. I feel certain that an additional species or two will enter the tally. I believe that Mike’s sly smile was attributable to his foreknowledge of how rough (terrifying; death-defying!) the ATV ascent to Waterfall Loop was about to be for Chris and me!

 

I won’t burden you with photographs of Chris tagging each specimen with a nail and red/pink flagging. Our division of labor was simple: he carried the hammer; I gave him a nail and a strip of flagging at each tree. As he so often does when identifying tree species, he nailed it! Here he is hammering the nail on the trailside face of a shagbark hickory.

 

Nearby, another shagbark hickory sported what my younger Alabama grandson would have termed a Native American war club, a branch stub sustained with living cambium by the tree. Ah, a topic for another photo essay. I casually spotted another half dozen or so such shagbark phenomena on our circuit. Five hundred years ago, Leonardo da Vinci observed:

There is no result in nature without a cause.

 

Every tree, stand, and forest has a story to tell. This massive sugar maple, leaning at 30 degrees toward the trail and the camera, seems a generation more senior than its sylvan neighbors. I’ll introduce other examples of individual elders we encountered within what otherwise appears to be an even-aged stand. This sugar maple has a sinister aspect, its crooked trunk’s threatening arms outstretched, reaching for the hapless, inattentive trekker ambling along Waterfall Loop. Might GF&NC staff want to consider caution (Beware: the trees are reaching out to grab you!) signs interspersed with the tree i.d. plaques!?

 

We passed the Guardian Angels trailhead a few hundred feet after Mike dropped us on Waterfall Loop. The map places us at an elevation of 1,060′. Guardian Angels would have elevated us to 1,520′ in 0.67 miles, where it rejoins Bob’s Ledges Trail.

 

The sign sobered me. I am eager to establish a long-term affair with GF&NC. My personal profile features the following: 2022 — left shoulder replacement; 2023 — minor stroke and transient ischemic attack; July 2023 — triple bypass surgery; January 2024 — right knee total replacement;  August 2024 — left knee total replacement; 2025 — bilateral inguinal hernia surgery; April 2026 — left shoulder reconstruction reversal/revision. So, what sobered me? Waterfall Loop is rated Level 3, Moderate Difficulty, which I handled. Guardian Angels earns a Level Five:

A difficult hike with steep elevation changes; hikers should know their limitations and proceed on the trail with caution!

A former marathoner, a dedicated athlete in younger years, I am not ready to yield easily to what my Alaska friends would refuse to call a mountain. Yet I shall test my limits. I’m getting better at learning when to go… and when to stay. Friends and loved ones care… and don’t trust my knowing when to cry Uncle (i.e., to admit defeat or plead for mercy, especially in an informal physical contest of some kind)!

A large shattered American beech represents another affirmation of senior citizens, a second age class, in a younger forest. This tree had reached a physical strength threshold, hollow with a solid wood rind less than one-third of its diameter. Wind toppled it; gravity is undefeated!

 

The beech stood just a hundred feet from this dry wash. A trickle passes across the limestone slab. I want to return when I can challenge my boot waterproofing.

 

We flagged a stem of this cucumbertree sapling. We subsequently located a mature representative of the species. In addition to distinctive leaf and bud characteristics, trunk and canopy form, bark, and preferred slope, soil conditions, and aspect are important identification criteria. We seek mature specimens for tree identification purposes.

 

For American beech, we need little more than its unique bark, yet numerous other distinguishing features assist identification.

 

‘Twas a perfect time of year to locate persimmon trees. Shed fruit littered the trail under a mature, mid-story persimmon tree. I photographed a line of persimmon sprouting from a mother-tree root crossing the trail.

 

A hickory eye socket protruded from a main-trunk branch stub, like the war club. The tree, I suppose, has its reasons for keeping the stub alive. In this case, as perhaps in the other, the tree is attempting to callous over the stub to prevent disease infection. Higher on the trunk (right), another war club faces the camera.

 

We encountered another sylvan senior citizen within a younger stand. This ancient white oak evidences severe basal decay and infection. The deformed, swollen base suggests a hollowed hulk. In my years as an industrial forester, I would have designated the tree as a commercial cull. However, wildlife species treasure its mast (acorns), covet its den shelter, and relish its spreading canopy and deep shade.

 

I recorded this 58-second video at the gnarled white oak. It sits at the base of the cascade descent, where Eastern redcedar guardrails aid hikers.

 

A massive limestone block carries the waterfall in wet weather. The quaint cedar rails helped me descend.

 

The view downhill attests to Maxwell Mountain’s rugged profile.

 

We finally found a mature yellow poplar, the only one we spotted along the entire trail.

 

A Unique Trail Maintenance Treatment

 

GF&NC crews blow fallen leaves from all trail surfaces 2-3 times annually. Because leaf-fall can smother any vegetation attempting to grow on the trail, the blown surface in places encourages a mossy (American tree moss), carpet-like trail surface. I had not seen this practice elsewhere.

 

I wonder, once GF&NC trails see more traffic, will the moss carpet persist?

 

Intermixed with the moss, we encountered dense patches of dog pelt lichen, one I don’t recall previously seeing.

 

Chris and I marked 33 species. Here is our working list of tree, shrub, and vine species:

 

Tree Species (Common Names Only) Found Along the White Trail at Graham Farm

Tree of heaven; American beautyberry; American beech; American holly; Basswood; Blackgum; Black walnut; Boxelder; Carolina buckthorn; Chinkapin oak; Cucumbertree; Eastern redcedar; Flowering dogwood; Hackberry; Honeylocust; Mockernut hickory; Muscadine vine; Northern red oak; Osage-orange; Pawpaw; Persimmon; Red buckeye; Redbud; Shagbark hickory; Shining sumac (Green trail); Slippery elm; Spicebush; Sugar maple; Sweetgum (Green trail); Water oak; White ash; Yellow buckeye; Yellow-poplar

 

We consider our initial foray successful. We’ll return as summer temperatures yield to autumn, to refine the list, add species we may have missed, select better examples, record GPS coordinates for final selections, and confirm identification for all individuals. I view this, again, as a long-term relationship with Graham Farm and Nature Center. Like all human relationships, I see my affair with the Center property akin to what Aldo Leopold viewed as a necessary facet of his Land Ethic:

That land is a community is the basic concept of ecology, but that land is to be loved and respected is an extension of ethics.

So far, so good!

 

Thoughts and Reflections

 

I offer these observations:

  • That land is a community is the basic concept of ecology, but that land is to be loved and respected is an extension of ethics. (Aldo Leopold)

  • There is no result in nature without a cause. (Leonardo da Vinci)

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

 

Inhale and absorb Nature’s elixir. May Nature inspire, inform, and reward you!

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

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

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

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

Vision:

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

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

 

Steve’s Four Books

 

I wrote my books Nature-Based Leadership (2016), Nature-Inspired Learning and Leading (2017), Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits: Stories of Passion for Place and Everyday Nature (2019; co-authored with Dr. Jennifer Wilhoit), and Dutton Land & Cattle: A Land Legacy Story (2025) to encourage all citizens to recognize and appreciate that every lesson for living, learning, serving, and leading is either written indelibly in or is powerfully inspired by Nature. All four of my books compile personal experiences expressing my deep passion for Nature. They 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 #67: Autumn Signals on A 90+ Degree Mid-September Day in Beaverdam Swamp

/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 May 27, 2026 (https://stevejonesgbh.com/2026/05/27/early-signs-of-spring-on-the-goldsmith-schiffman-wildlife-sanctuary/)

 

I am pleased to add the 67th 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’ve mentioned often that I’m blessed to live within 10 miles of northern Alabama’s world-class 35,000-acre Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge. On Saturday morning, September 19, 2026, I slipped south to the Beaverdam Creek Swamp Boardwalk, a National Natural Landmark water tupelo forest along Beaverdam Creek. By 9:00 AM, the temperature was 78 degrees, the dew point 70, and the relative humidity 79 percent. Although I exited the forest by 11:00, the afternoon high reached 98 degrees! In contrast to the brutal mid-summer conditions, the forest was already exhibiting signs of autumn. Nature knows!

Here is my 60-second video noting the forest’s awareness of impending autumn. My video narrative says September 18; I was a day behind!

 

I shuffled more noisily than the weather suggested. Dry leaves covered the boardwalk.

Beaverdam

 

One would expect tupelo leaves under the canopy of northern Alabama’s largest water tupelo forest.

Beaverdam

 

Tupelo seedfall was beginning. I’ve visited during the dormant season, when water fills the swamp, and large mats of floating seed cover the surface.

Beaverdam

 

 

 

A persimmon leaf lies in fall color near the delightfully patterned parent tree.

Beaverdam

Beaverdam

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Virginia creeper’s greens are fading to yellow.

BeaverdamBeaverdam

 

The same holds for roundleaf green brier.

Beaverdam

 

Poison ivy’s leaves-of-three signal that reliably cooler weather is at hand. Please bring it on… and soon!

Beaverdam

 

Ash seedlings (either green or white ash) were senescing, exhibiting leaf blemishes that iNaturalist identifies as gray mold spot. Molds often begin to infect multiple hardwood species’ leaves at season’s end.

Beaverdam

 

Ground cover swamp chestnut oak has turned off its leaf factories.

Beaverdam

 

Resident squirrels registered another clear sign of summer shifting to fall. Loblolly pine cones high in the forest canopy are ripe enough late in their second summer to attract the aerial rodents. They tooth-chisel the foliar twigs holding the cones, dropping them to the forest floor, or in this case, the trail surface.

Beaverdam

 

The squirrels peel scales one at a time from the cones to expose and harvest the pine nuts. They either eat the nuts on the spot or transport them to a larder.

Beaverdam

 

Yogi Berra once said, It sure gets late early around here! I suppose one could say the same of the season’s apparent hot-weather autumn advance in the tupelo swamp. I wish someone had informed the pesky mosquitoes that followed me to Beaverdam Creek and back.

Once again, I’m reminded of John Muir, who oft repeated:

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

 

In Summary

 

I invested two Saturday-morning hours sauntering along the boardwalk. I could have slept in, read a book, watched cartoons, edited a Great Blue Heron photo essay, played online solitaire, or countless other mind-numbing activities on a too-hot late summer (or early autumn) morning. I thank my lucky stars that I chose otherwise… and wisely.

The return on my two-hour informed woods-ramble: this brief-form GBH Post; three additional Posts to compile and draft… watch for them; seven 60-second videos (three already posted on my YouTube channel: Steve Jones Great Blue Heron@stevejonesgreatblueheron); and scores of photos! Lest you deem this effort burdensome, keep in mind that this IS my golf. I enjoy practicing my five essential verbs of woodland venturing:

Believe, Look, See, Feel, and Act. I begin within the forest and extend to writing and publishing the weekly photo essay.

    • Believe — I find Nature’s Lessons because I know they lie hidden within view — belief enables me to look and see
    • Look — Really look, with eyes open to my surroundings, external to electronic devices and the distractions of meaningless noise and data
    • See — Be alert to see deeply, beyond the superficial
    • Feel — See clearly, with comprehension, to find meaning and evoke feelings
    • Act — Feel emphatically enough to spur action

My weekly photo essays encapsulate all five into a comprehensive, sometimes compact and succinct statement of passion for place and everyday Nature.

 

Closing

 

I accept the challenge of distilling these Brief-Form Posts into a single distinct reflection. John Muir nailed it:

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

.

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

 

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

 

 

P.S. Along Beaverdam Creek, the canopy evidenced a general yellowing, even as the old forester’s crown showed its stark whitening!

Beaverdam

A Couple of Mid-Summer Hours to Kill at Huntsville’s Gateway to the Majestic Tennessee River!

/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 May 17, 2026 (https://stevejonesgbh.com/2026/05/17/lawson-branch-loop-shoal-creek-preserve-spring-2026/)

A friend requested transportation to and from a hospital in Huntsville, Alabama, for a diagnostic test that would take 3 hours from admission to release on July 14, 2026. I had no time to go home and no desire to sit in a waiting room, so I drove ten miles south of Huntsville to Ditto Landing Marina on the Tennessee River (Lake Wheeler). I was curious to see what I might find hidden in plain sight along the gravel road on the waterway’s north side downstream. This trail (west of the Highway 231 bridge) is within the easternmost extent of the 35,000-acre Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge. Come along with me virtually as I kill two hours within the wilds of what is technically the City of Huntsville, Alabama!

 

The River

 

I recorded this 53-second video from the park bench at Ditto Landing Marina.

 

I wanted to luxuriate longer after my trek, but I didn’t want to keep my friend waiting in the recovery room.

 

I find an undeniable magnetism in rivers, lakes, skies, and the great outdoors. Although traffic over the bridge consumed any silence and overwhelmed Nature’s music (breezes, soft-wave sloshing, birds, and even children laughing and playing), the distance softened the distraction to an acceptable soothing.

 

Yes, I would prefer a more isolated natural setting absent a busy highway, a marina behind me, and a modern bridge spanning the river. However, I remind myself that I am within 40 minutes of my residence in Alabama’s largest metropolitan area. Also, I must keep in mind that the Tennessee River is not some wild and scenic waterway. I am viewing Lake Wheeler, one of the necklace of TVA impoundments (Nickajack, Guntersville, Wheeler, Wilson, and Pickwick are the five dams stretching from Chattanooga downstream through Florence and beyond. I can’t both celebrate that I live within an hour of the Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge, a national treasure, and lament that being here doesn’t provide a wilderness experience… pristine and untrammeled by man.

I recorded this 59-second video within earshot of the highway. I accept and salute it for what it is, and for the fulfillment the place and its special Nature awards a lifelong outdoor enthusiast.

 

The main channel is alongside the gravel road (left). An adjacent backwater (a slough) is situated beyond the riverway on the inland side of the trail.

 

At several spots along the road, secret pathways and visual portals reach through the forested buffer to favorite fishing spots at the river’s edge.

 

The Forest

 

I recorded this 63-second video along the gravel road about one mile downstream from where I parked.

 

Loblolly pine trees grow luxuriously on agricultural land abandoned and planted when the TVA or COE purchased the property to be inundated and adjoining buffer lands tied to the same owners. These floodplain fields are extraordinarily fertile.

 

Here is my 60-second video of these ~90-year-old forests.

 

A planted row of loblollies lines the road.

A heavy summer shower wetted the forest the prior evening. Stem flow reached the ground, leaving a patterned trunk as the bark plates began to dry.

 

A lush understory paw paw patch caught my eye.

 

Roadside Summer Flowers and Plants

 

A longtime enthusiast of spring ephemeral wildflowers, I’ve grown fond of our prolific summer bloomers. The spring flowers arrive when dormant woodlands are otherwise grey and drab. I suppose my vernal exuberance for the new blossoms is owed to living further north, where winters were more serious and relief more deeply appreciated. My appreciation now stretches from emerging spring into continuing summer. Here’s a brief catalog of the beauties I photographed along the trail.

Common morning-glory and large bindweed.

 

 

 

Plains coreopsis, a magnificent portrayal of mid-season grandeur.

 

Dayflower’s cerulean majesty.

 

American trumpet vine blossoms and seed pod.

 

Not yet blooming, this hollow Joe-Pye weed is nearly as tall as a basketball hoop.

 

Its base and top represent a single season’s growth. A perennial, it will die back to ground level in the autumn, and then loft again to ten feet next year.

 

American pokeweed is another perennial that will produce a tremendous amount of biomass.

 

Although I allow myself to enjoy the beauty and fragrance of Japanese honeysuckle, I refuse to celebrate the success of the aggressive Asian invasive.

 

This overwhelmingly successful and particularly combative legume arrived in the US from Japan and China in 1876 at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. In 1953, the USDA stopped advocating the use of kudzu for erosion control, and in 1972 the agency officially designated the plant a weed. Just imagine how our poor native pokeweed feels bearing an official common moniker of American pokeweed!

 

I celebrate what something as simple as Two Hours to Kill can reveal and return as satisfaction and fulfillment!

 

Thoughts and Reflections

 

I offer these observations:

  • I can’t both celebrate that I live within an hour of the Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge, a national treasure, and lament that being here doesn’t provide a wilderness experience…pristine and untrammeled by man. (Steve Jones)

  • I am pleased that something as simple as Two Hours to Kill can reveal and return as Nature’s satisfaction and fulfillment! (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 compile personal experiences expressing my deep passion for Nature. They 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 #65: Large-scale Southern Pine Bettle Kill on Alabama’s Lake Guntersville State!

/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 May 6 (https://stevejonesgbh.com/2026/05/06/brief-form-post-59-nashville-tn-finding-nature-where-you-are/)

 

I am pleased to add the 65th 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.

On-site to attend the Alabama State Parks Foundation board meeting (June 18, 2026), at Lake Guntersville State Park, I arrived the prior morning to explore trails I had not yet wandered. I enjoyed a sweeping loop that covered the Terrell Connector, Terrell Trail, Graveyard Road, Service Road, Cave Trail, and Lodge Road, then returned through Terrell Trail and the Terrell Connector. I focused on what I could discover hidden in plain sight. See my weekly photo essay presenting highlights of my discoveries: https://stevejonesgbh.com/2026/08/31/mid-june-exploration-on-trails-new-to-me-on-lake-guntersville-state-park/. I address this essay to a major forest transformation sweeping Lake Guntersville State Park and other sectors of northern Alabama: the southern pine beetle.

Lake Guntersville State Park experienced hundreds of acres of pine mortality from the summer of 2024 through 2025. I passed through extensive acreage of total pine stand decimation.

Clemson University’s Southern Pine Beetle Information Center tracks and reports SPB infestation activity southwide:

Southern pine beetle (Dendroctonus frontalis Zimmermann, SPB) is a native, eruptive forest pest that has caused significant damage to pine forests since it was first reported in the 1700’s. SPB has been found in the southeastern U.S. for decades, and was first documented as a major mortality agent in southern pine forests more than 120 years ago. Charles Zimmermann originally described the SPB in 1868, placing it in the family Hylurgidae under the tribe Hylurgi. He synonymized it with Bostrichus frontalis Fabr. in his description. This was later corrected by Le Conte (1876), and SPB was placed in the family Scolytidae. SPB is now placed within the family Curculionidae: subfamily Scolytinae. While frequent, severe, and widespread SPB outbreaks occurred throughout the Southeast in the last half of the 20th century, recent SPB activity in the region has been localized and short-lived. Reports from the mid-1800s through the mid-1900s indicated that outbreaks then were also less common.

I had seen scattered clusters of pine mortality during the first half of my circuit, where second-growth hardwood dominated. Widespread infestation appeared as I entered pine forest along the latter stretches. I recorded this 59-second video along a section of trail with a pine stand decimated by SPB.

 

Park crews felled dead pine bordering active trails to remove overhanging hazzards. The tremendous volume of regional mortality overwhelmed markets, shutting down salvage opportunities. Already, a second or third year of full sunlight reaching the forest floor is unleashing the understory vegetation (see lush growth at right). Invisible at the moment, decomposers are hard at work returning dead and down woody debris to the soil. The carbon cycle is functioning at full speed. The booming sequence of forest growth, death, and renewal is well tuned and remarkably well practiced with a millennially-seasononed native eruptive forest pest!

Lake GSP

 

A dozen years from now, standing pine skeletons will have fallen, the downed trees will not be recognizable in decay, and the trailside hardwood forest will seem intact. Sure, the astute observer will read telltale signs of the devastating insect outbreak and the shift from pine forest to hardwood.

Lake GSP

 

The periodic fatal infestations are nothing new across the southeastern US. Such is the case with an eruptive forest pest like SPB. The insect is native and has been as long as foresters and entomologists have paid attention. Union Camp Corporation, a then Fortune 500 Paper and Allied Products Manufacturer, hired me as an industrial forester in May of 1973. Among other assignments, I managed. We foresters kept vigil on SPB cycles, alert for eruptions, quick to salvage, and vigilant to establish buffers. We strove to stay ahead of the hopeless predicament the state park faced. Sometimes we succeeded; other times we, too, were overwhelmed.

There are management measures we can practice with our native SPB devil. However, across my 53-year career, forest scientists and foresters have lamented destructive invasive agents (insects and diseases).

Gypsy moths entered our fair land in 1869, posing a widespread oak and related hardwood devastation threat. Fortunately, 157 years later, the insect is mostly endemic, a naturalized insect pest, now buffered and controlled by its own introduced pests, including selective biological insecticides (Bacillus thuringiensis, a bacterium) and a small parasitic wasp (Encyrtidae) introduced in North America in 1909.

Chestnut Blight (Cryphonectria parasitica) entered the US from Asia in 1904, when it began its relentless devastation of american chestnut. Chestnut forests from southern Maine to central Alabama. I recall encountering abundant surviving chestnut saplings during my summer forestry employment on state forests in western Maryland. There remains hope for eventual, long-term recovery. From its website, The American Chestnut Foundation:

During the past 100 years, chestnut blight, caused by the Asian fungus Cryphonectria parasitica, killed an estimated four billion American chestnut (Castanea dentata) trees, and pushed the iconic species into a state of functional extinction. Human interference triggered the American chestnut’s demise–now scientific innovation offers us the best chance to save it. As reliable and productive as the American chestnut tree was, the species now exists in forests primarily in a state of stunted vegetative regeneration from surviving root systems, and this population continues to dwindle. The American Chestnut Foundation (TACF) is leading an unprecedented rescue mission to return the iconic American chestnut to its native range.

The goal of our forest restoration work is to implement plantings of genetically diverse and disease-resistant American chestnut trees that are capable of sustained population growth across the native range in the ever-changing landscape of our Eastern hardwood forests.

Dutch Elm disease entered the US in 1928 and decimated our native elm forests. I lived in Keene, New Hampshire several years ago. Know as Elm City, its once magnificent Elm-lined avenues and lanes are elm-barren.

An online USDA source indicates that the Emerald Ash Borer  was first detected in North America in 2002 (southeast Michigan.)

The emerald ash borer (EAB), an invasive wood-boring beetle from Asia, is responsible for the death and decline of tens of millions of ash trees in North America. EAB lays its eggs in the bark crevices of ash trees. The eggs hatch and the larvae burrow into the tree where they feed. This feeding is what damages the trees. We have detected EAB infestations in 38 States and the District of Columbia. EAB is difficult to detect early when pest populations are small because damage to the trees is hidden under the bark and tree decline is gradual. The beetle is well-suited to our climate, is a good flyer, and spreads naturally. People contribute to the long-distance spread of the beetle when they move EAB-infested ash firewood, logs or nursery stock. 

In early May of 2010, I chronicled in a single Great Blue Heron photo essay (https://stevejonesgbh.com/2018/06/05/six-hundred-sixty-mile-transect/), the ecology of my 600-mile drive from Madison, Alabama to Fairmont, West Virginia, noting my deep concern encountering the EAB mortality front:

Midway between Chattanooga and Knoxville, I spot a disturbing first along the route — dead ash trees along the highway. The imported (an international shipment stowaway) emerald ash-borer is spreading rapidly in North America across the range of genus Fraxinus. It is decimating ash. We saw the ubiquitous mortality from this point north to our destination, and beyond to Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Maryland. Oh, the price we pay for our shrinking globe. We do business in a global economy; we and all Earth species must sustain within a global ecosystem. I find the ash decline and imminent peril particularly disturbing. I have been a big ash fan from my days conducting forest inventory on State Forests in western Maryland during undergraduate summers… to conducting forest fertilization on planted green ash stands for Union Camp Corporation in Virginia and North Carolina… through my PhD research on Pennsylvania and New York Allegheny Hardwood stands (white ash a major component). I have revered its preference for high-quality sites, its fast growth, straight boles, strong wood, and deep green foliage. Nothing beats its easy response to a splitting maul, its non-sputtering flame and hi BTUs in a fireplace or stove, and the crack of a Louisville Slugger bat connecting with a fastball. As we’ve faced before with American Chestnut and American elm, how on Earth do we contend with vanishing ash!?

 

We encountered the dead ash for reasons other than crossing some ecological divide. Instead, we entered the geographic margin of spread from the borer’s Cleveland point of entry. Officials have already noted the green beetle’s presence in Alabama, though not yet widespread. Time will tell. We can hope for some climatic barrier… yet I fear the insect will continue its spread of infestation and death.

I am hopeful that the southward spread has slowed. I am not seeing widespread mortality in my northern Alabama forest wanderings. Are environmental conditions at work? Are 20 years of biological control programs (e.g., parasitoids) proving successful? See this comprehensive USDA APHIS report to learn more: (chromeextension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://www.eppo.int/media/uploaded_images/MEETINGS/Meetings_2026/Agrilus%20presentations/Dodge%20Current%20status%2C%20successes%2C%20and%20limitations.pdf).

Natural barriers (oceans, mountains, deserts, etc.) used to limit the spread of invasive plants, animals, insects, and diseases. Today we have a difficult enough problem controlling native eruptive forest pests, like SPB. Toss in exotic insects and diseases, and we must turn to new and emerging technologies like biological control programs in addition to an arsenal of traditional control practices.

We are a wood-dependent human species. Mess with elements of this incredible renewable resource, whether chestnut, elm, ash, oaks, or other species, and you impair our ability to practice sustainable forestry. I’ve watched the battle intensify over my 50+ year forestry career. Don’t despair. Know that diligent and responsible science will prevail. Continue to enjoy Nature, learn more about the biological and physical factors affecting our forests, and embrace and promote informed forest stewardship.

 

Closing

 

I accept the challenge of distilling these Brief-Form Posts into a single distinct reflection:

Don’t despair of forest pests and diseases: embrace and promote science-informed forest stewardship.

 

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

 

 

Teaching Beyond the Walls: An Alabama State Parks Workshop at Monte Sano State Park

/in /by

NOTE: Some of my GBH photo essays were not routinely distributed from mid-February through mid-June. I will resend those one by one, beginning the first week of July. Here is my Post from April 29 (https://stevejonesgbh.com/2026/04/29/brief-form-post-58-forest-discoveries-while-measuring-tree-heights-on-monte-sano-state-park/)

 

I assisted the Alabama State Park staff in delivering the Teaching Beyond the Walls: Alabama’s Ecology In Action educators’ workshop at Monte Sano State Park on June 30, 2026. Funded by BlueCross BlueShield of Alabama, the ~30 participants enjoyed diverse sessions over the nine-hour program, including: Alabama’s biodiversity; immersion in forest ecology; student-centered science; place-based teaching and learning; water cycle and stream ecology; asking the right questions; seeking insight from others; and learning through Nature. Join me as I accompany the registered learning community participants at the State Park Lodge and its plateau-edge surroundings.

Monte SSPMonte SSP

 

The State Park System education and interpretation obiectives align with my professional retirement mission: Employ writing and speaking to educate, inspire, and enable readers and listeners to understand, appreciate, and enjoy Nature… and accept and practice Earth Stewardship. I find fullfillment in partnering with the park system to educate, inspire, and enable visitors to embrace Earth Stewardship. What better way than through educator workshops!

We learned indoors (blessed air conditioning) and out (welcome breezes and deep woods shade).

Monte SSPMonte SSP

 

I recorded a 54-second video showcasing the lodge and its immediate woodland outdoor laboratory.

 

I suppose that spending my youth in family Nature-based recreation, four years in forestry school (1973 BS), 12 years employed by a Fortune-500 paper and allied products manufacturing company, three years earning a doctoral degree in Applied Forest Ecology (1987 Ph.D.), and 35 years in higher education teaching, research,and administration at nine universities, positioned me to know all the answers. Not so! The more I learn, the less I know. Sure, I am pretty comfortable with how I can handle a day of learning and sharing in a northern Alabama forest. Just the same, it is I who benefit most from interacting with eager, inquisitive, and dedicated educators intent on sharpening their craft, deepening their knowledge, and fueling their environmental education passion.

 

Understanding and Appreciating Alabama’s Biodiversity

 

Dr. Scott Duncan’s SouthernWonder is a perfect launching pad for such a course. Alabama is the fourth most biologically diverse state in the country. Each participant exited the workshop with a copy for use as an invaluable environmental education resource.

 

 

Finding Inhabitant Wonder in a Plateau-top Brook

 

Environmental learning is a contact sport. The educators leaped into investigating abundant life (biodiversity) in the plateau-top brook near the lodge.

Monte SSP

Monte SSP

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Participants turned over rocks, screened the water, and gathered nearby to share discoveries and compare observations.

 

There is excitement and celebration in learning, a demonstrable contact sport with feet in the water, knees in the mud, and hands on the tiny critters.

Monte SSP

 

Here is my 25-second video of learning in action, which is anything but learning inaction!

 

Amber Coger, the Alabama State Park NW District Naturalist, shares the caddis fly larva she found under a rock mid-brook. She may not have been more thrilled finding a gold nugget.

Monte SSP

 

Here’s my 59-second video recorded where the plateau-top brook exits at a ledge to depart for the Huntsville valley floor.

 

There is palpable magic in learning, sharing, understanding, and appreciating.

 

Seeing What Lies Hidden in Plain Sight

 

I often observe that I invest most of my time in forest wanderings discovering what wonders lie hidden in plain sight.

I recordeed this 58-second video of the workshop’s forest immersion experience, a designed quiet period to listen, relax, and absorb through all five human portals: mind, body, heart, soul, and spirit. Here’s the location where instructors released students one at a time to facilitate solitary immersion.

 

Instructors placed guidance along the way to help focus and implore deep thinking and full immersion.

Monte SSP

 

An instrucor cautioned participants and bikers to watch out for each other.

Monte SSP

 

Teacher-students followed forest immersion practitice guidelines. I reminded myself that I need to be a more disciplined practitioner. I don’t sit quietly long enough. Come on, Steve, practice what you preach!

Monte SSP

 

One station suggested that students look into the crown, a perspective that forces us to think about the engine, Old Sol, that fuels forest energy flow.

Monte SSP

 

Although I seldon pause for a full forest immersion, I abhor wasting my time blindly hiking through Nature, intent on the destination… not the journey.

Monte SSP

 

John Muir advocated sauntering in Nature, as an online biographer source noted:

One day as I was resting in the shade Mr. Muir overtook me on the trail and began to chat in that friendly way in which he delights to talk with everyone he meets. I said to him: “Mr. Muir, someone told me you did not approve of the word ‘hike.’ Is that so?” His blue eyes flashed, and with his Scotch accent he replied: “I don’t like either the word or the thing. People ought to saunter in the mountains – not hike!”

John Muir lived up to his doctrine. He was usually the last man to reach camp. He never hurried. He stopped to get acquainted with individual trees along the way. He would hail people passing by and make them get down on hands and knees if necessary to see the beauty of some little bed of almost microscopic flowers. Usually he appeared at camp with some new flowers in his hat and a little piece of fir bough in his buttonhole.

 

Discovering Special Oddity, Curiosity, and Delight in Everyday Nature

 

Forest oddities, curiosities, and mysteries fascinate, puzzle, and entertain me on my forest excursions. I kept my eyes open as I wandered during the workshop. This chestnut oak stood in plain view where I recorded the start of the forest immersion video. I wondered how many noticed?

Monte SSP

 

A contorted sugar maple displayed clear evidence of some past physical battery (falling branch or tree, logging equipment damage, or some less-obvious injury). Nature is remarkably resilient.

Monte SSP

 

Naturally curious in its manner of growth, sparkleberry or farkleberry grows however it wishes, without apparent disciplinary rules.

Monte SSP

 

I love it for its mirthful common names and for its whimsical growth.

Monte SSP

 

 

 

I learned a new plant: leafy elephant’s-foot, a moniker worthy of inclusion in this listing of notable features in everyday Nature.

Monte SSP

 

I consider myself a neophyte mycophile… a fungi enthusiast. I’m gaining confidence in identifying regional edibles. iNaturalist identified this mushroom as Neoboletus sp. ‘varietstibus. Its velvety brown, stocky appearance drew me closer. I saw no other individuals and because of its scarcity, I did not disturb it to capture a complete set of photo images: top, bottom, and side. Therefore I am not confident in the iNaturalist identification. I’ll consider whether this species is edible or not when I find a patch large enough to be certain.

 

 

Red chanterelle mushrooms are edible, but are too diminutive to bother. I do forage larger chanterelles, but not from our State Parks.

Monte SSP

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I recorded this 60-second red chanterelles video during the workshop.

 

I present this final oddity, curiosity, and delight: dog vomit slime mold, which presented itself along the trail at the intersection where we launched individuals for their solitary immersions. So much lies hidden in plain sight.

Monte SSP

 

Like John Muir, I believe:

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

 

The Wonder of My Retirement Role

 

Here’s our contingent of ardent learners.

 

One of the educators (Shelly, employed in Tennessee) said to me after sharing a table during the indoor sessions, “You have the greatest volunteer retirement role I could ever imagine.” She nailed it:

 

Alabama State Parks Foundation

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Thoughts and Reflections

 

I offer these observations:

  • Mr. Muir, someone told me you did not approve of the word ‘hike.’ Is that so?” His blue eyes flashed, and with his Scotch accent he replied: “I don’t like either the word or the thing. People ought to saunter in the mountains – not hike!” (Muir biographer)
  • There is excitement and celebration in learning, again, a demonstrable contact sport. (Steve Jones)
  • There is palpable magic in learning, sharing, understanding, and appreciating. (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

 

Monte SSP

 

[Workshop facilitator Amber Coger depicting the right-angle branching character of black gum (the smaller tree at her right forearm).]

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

/in /by

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

 

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

 

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

 

Bottomland Forest

 

 

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

 

Mushroom Venture

 

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

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

 

Amanita color hue and sharpness vary with age.

 

Yet another Amanita species.

 

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

 

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

 

Its pink underside shows the characteristic spongy Bolete pore surface.

 

 

A Mushroom Consumer

 

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

 

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

 

Singing River Trail Thoroughfare

 

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

 

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

 

Buckeye Impoundment

 

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

 

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

I recorded this 60-second Buckeye Impoundment video.

 

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

 

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

 

Summer Wildflower Profusion

 

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

Carolina desert chickory

 

Wild potato vine

 

Annual fleabane

 

Carolina ruellia

 

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

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

 

Closing

 

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

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

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

 

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

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

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

/in /by

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

_________________________________________________________________________________________

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

Black-eyed Susans are among my favorite summer natives.

 

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

 

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

 

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

Flint CrFlint Cr

 

 

My Musings on What Warrants Doing as Time Wanes

 

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

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

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

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

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

 

An Abbreviated Woodland Exploration

 

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

Flint Cr

 

Golden-gilled gerronema showed their characteristic biege funnels.

Flint Cr

 

Although very attractive, the species is not considered edible.

Flint Cr

 

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

Flint CrFlint Cr

 

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

Flint CrFlint Cr

 

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

Flint Cr

 

 

 

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

Flint Cr

 

 

Quick Trip across the Highway to the Visitors Center Cypress Pond

 

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

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

Cypress Pond

 

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

Cypress Pond

 

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

 

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

Cypress

 

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

 

Closing

 

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

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

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

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

 

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

 

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

 

Flint Cr