The Moody Forest Natural Area

Between Reconstruction and World War II, lumber companies raped Georgia, clearcutting the beautiful forests that hadn’t already been cleared by greedy, slave-owning cotton farmers.  Jake Moody refused to let them destroy his beloved property, known locally as Moody Swamp.  He made his heirs promise not to allow its destruction.  In 1999 the descendents of his heirs sold 4500 acres to The Nature Conservancy, and today that organization shares ownership and management duties with the Georgia state government.  Thanks to Jake Moody’s foresight and love of nature, a remnant of old growth forest still exists here.

The Moody Forest Natural Area is located in Appling County, Georgia about a 10 minute drive north of Baxley and about a 10 minute drive south of the Hatch Nuclear Plant.  It can be accessed via East River Road, a well-maintained dirt road off Highway 1.  The dirt road is a smooth ride with very few bumpy rutted areas.  Despite being in the middle of nowhere, there are many nice houses on the opposite side of the road from the nature preserve.  The people living here must really enjoy country living–I saw not a single house for sale.  A fat old dog sleeps in just about every resident’s front yard, and many people keep cows, horses, and/or chickens.  One person even had an apiary.  I rank East River Road as one of the best places in Georgia for a naturalist to live.

Big slash pine.  Note the burned trunk.  The Moody Forest Natural Area is burned on a regular schedule to improve habitat for wildlife.  Mature pines and oaks usually survive light ground fires.

A swamp chestnut oak next to an old dwelling of some sort.  There’s space under the shack for chickens and a covered place to hitch the mule up to.  The oak is bigger than the slash pine in the above photo but a size comparison with a person wasn’t possible–by this time on our hike, the mosquitoes had chased my hiking partner into the car.  There are reportedly 200 year old post oaks and overcup oaks in the preserve.  Although dominated by pine, there are a surprising number of oaks here including swamp chestnut, post, Shumards or black (I can’t tell the difference between those species), southern red, overcup, and laurel.

There are 5 miles of trails in the preserve besides the access road that is adjacent to the Moody Family cemetery. Tavia’s Loop Trail is 3 miles long, and the River Trail is 2 miles long but because it’s not a loop that means it’s a 4 mile hike back and forth. If I was by myself, I would have hiked both, but there are no restrooms located anywhere near the preserve, and my wife needed one.  Spending money on a public lavatory probably isn’t a high priority for The Nature Conservancy.  I get the impression The Nature Conservancy doesn’t really want people to tour their protected sites.  The least they could do would be to build an old fashioned rustic outhouse.

Open pine parkland woods.  I didn’t see a single longleaf pine.  Instead,  I saw  loblolly and slash pines.

350 acres of longleaf pine-wiregrass savannah occurs at Moody, but I didn’t see any.  I hiked 1/2 mile up an access road and then another mile on Tavia’s trail, and I didn’t seen a single longleaf pine tree.  There was barely any wiregrass.  At the time of European colonization, longleaf pine savannah was the dominant landscape on the southeastern coastal plain.  Even in the protected Moody Preserve it takes up less than 10% of the land area, showing just how rare it is now.  Perhaps, if I had the opportunity to complete the whole loop trail, I would have come across it.  Instead, I saw mostly open pine parkland dominated by loblolly pine, slash pine, and post oaks.

Information I’ve read about Moody Forest makes no mention of ferns.  This type of fern is by far the most common plant in the undergrowth here. I think it’s royal fern, but I’m not sure.  It’s worthwhile  to see nature in person rather than just reading about it.

Here’s some wiregrass sprouting up after a recent burn.  The only people we encountered were a couple of workers with firestarting equipment.  By setting fires, they are mimicking Indian land management techniques .  Of course, before the Indians,  fires were more irregular and less frequent.  Pleistocene fires may have some times been devastating.  However, more often than not, Ice Age fires were  less severe because the megafauna consumed so much plant material there was less fuel, and dry climate phases fostered less plant growth.

A burrow dug by an endangered gopher tortoise.  I didn’t see the tortoise but I did see 2 rabbits just above the burrow.  I suspect they use the burrow for shelter.  I also saw a red-shouldered hawk carrying a cotton rat, turkey and black vultures, some gray squirrels, pileated woodpeckers, a red-bellied woodpecker, deer tracks, and lots and lots of mosquitoes and gnats.

A place to hitch up the ole mule.  The preserve needs an old-fashioned but working outhouse.  Women don’t like to squat in the wilderness.

This former homesite has 2 fireplaces.  This is one of them.  There are plenty of old ruins at Moody making it doubly interesting to explore.

The Moody Natural Area offers much to explore for the naturalist and the historian.  I barely scratched the surface during the brief but treasured time I was there.  I didn’t even have time to see any part of the River Trail.  Reportedly, 600 year old cypress trees stand there.

This cow pasture sits on the corner of Highway 1 and East River Road.  It’s the only really open space I saw in the vicinity of Moody Forest.  I pretended the cows were long-horned bison and imagined being in the Pleistocene.  There were Canadian geese by the creek, but I don’t think they’re visible in the photo.

Altamaha River Roadside Park

I didn’t have an opportunity to hike the River Trail in Moody Forest, but I wanted to see the Altamaha River up close.  The intersection off Highway 1 and the river has a Roadside Park that I investigated instead.

Graffiti on the Highway 1 Bridge that spans the Altamaha.  I love graffiti.

Spanish moss-draped post oaks.  This is an unusual combination of species.  Post oaks grow on dry upland sites; Spanish moss prefers warm moist lowland sites.  However at this site, they co-occur and dominate.

This is how I imagine a common Pleistocene landscape in Georgia might appear, but with taller grass and populated with bison and horses.

The Altamaha River.  This bend of the river almost looks like a lake.

A scary steep bluff.  Almost looked like a cliff from here.

Here’s proof that a kind of grape other than muscadine grows in south Georgia.  I think this is a River Grape which produces small blue fruit.

Fire Suppression = A Decline in Biodiversity (Part 2–The Animals of Longleaf Pine Savannahs)

Fox Squirrels come in several color phases–orange, black, and gray.  Some have white or gray masks as well.

Fox Squirrel–Sciurus niger

I love these big colorful squirrels.  I lived in Niles, Ohio until 1975, and our home was bordered by oak woods on 2 sides.  Big orange fox squirrels were the playful denizens there.  But since I’ve lived in Georgia, I’ve only seen one–a black masked fox squirrel foraging with a group of gray squirrels (Sciurus carolinensis) in a pecan orchard in Burke County.

This range map is bullshit.  No statewide survey of fox squirrels has been done in at least 50 years, if ever.  It’s likely an accurate range map would show a much patchier distribution.

Southern fox squirrels differ in their habitat requirements from northern fox squirrels, despite being the same species.  The former prefer mature longleaf pine savannahs with fingers of oak forests, while the latter thrive in oak/hickory woods.  Fox squirrels are declining in Georgia because longleaf pine savannahs were largely replaced with shorter rotation loblolly pine tree farms.  Lumber companies harvest loblolly pines every 50 years which is not enough time for trees to develop snags.  The Trees are also planted closely and fire is suppressed.  Gray squirrels are more abundant today in state because they’re well adapted to the dense young forests that have sprouted on abandoned agricultural lands.  Gray squirrels escape predation by jumping from tree top to tree top, while fox squirrels prefer to dash on the ground as far as they can before retreating to a tree.  Though clumsy in trees compared to their smaller cousins, their larger size allows them to put up more of a fight, if a predator catches up to them.  This difference in behavior explains why gray squirrels occur in closed canopy forests, and fox squirrels prefer open parkland forests.  For this reason I think fox squirrels were more abundant in this region during the Pleistocene when open environments were common.  Areas managed for red-cockaded woodpeckers should benefit fox squirrels.  Forest managers used longer rotations and fire to maintain the bird’s required habitat.

Red Cockaded Woodpecker–(Picoides borealis)

Photo of a red cockaded woodpecker from google images.  All the photos in this entry are borrowed from there.

Thirty years ago, this bird was on the verge of extinction, despite having formerly been common throughout the south.  Fire suppression and short forest management rotation nearly caused the death of this species.  Young pine trees never develop the soft rot that red cockaded woodpeckers need for boring nesting cavities.  As a defense mechanism, red cockaded woodpeckers constantly peck wells below their nesting cavities from which pine sap continously flows.  The pine resin repels rat snakes–their number one predator.  For this defense mechanism to work, live trees are a must.  And without fire hardwood understory reaches the level of the nesting cavity allowing flying squirrels, and other predators easy access.  Flying squirrels will decimate red cockaded woodpecker nests.

In a successful effort to save the birds, scientists identified habitat requirements and some suitable land was set aside and managed using prescribed burns and longer tree harvest rotations.  Birds were relocated to the best habitat, artificial nesting boxes were installed to supplement the shortage of good nesting trees, and flying squirrel exclusion devices were used.  In many protected areas red cockaded woodpecker family groups (family groups consist of 2-10 individuals) have increased dramatically to the point where it’s no longer necessary to provide artificial nests or to protect them from flying squirrels.  At SRS for example the population grew from 1 family group in 1987 to 30 by 2003.

Sandhill Crane–(Grus canadensis)

These impressive birds grow to 5 feet tall.  They prefer to nest in grassy marshes adjacent to prairies or savannahs.  The real life version of Sesame Street’s Big Bird used to be common, but since grasslands and wetlands have declined so have the birds.  Georgia’s population includes a permanent one consisting of small family groups, and large congregations of winter migrants.  They’re omnivorous feeding on insects, crayfish, mice, snakes, frogs, worms, acorns, fruit, roots, and farmer’s crops.

Bachman’s Sparrow–(Peucaea aestivalis)

Another inhabitant of open pine savannahs that is declining in abundance.  I heard this bird’s song on a youtube video and recognized it as one I’ve heard.  Evidentally, the sparrow still occurs in Augusta.

Indigo Snake–(Drymarchon corais)

This snake grows to 9 feet long, making it the longest serpent in North America.  They’re rare because their habitat has been fragmented, and they need large ranges.  They hunt during the day and retreat into gopher tortoise burrows at night.  A wide variety of prey is taken–other snakes including venemous ones, small mammals, birds, frogs, and fish.  Indigo snakes don’t kill by constriction or envenomation, but instead bite the head of their prey and thrash, breaking the spines of the small creatures.  Their metabolism is faster then that of most other snakes.

Gopher Tortoise–(Gopherus polyphenus)

 

Gopher tortoises depend on a frequent fire regime to spark the growth of the kinds of plant they eat.  They also like sandy soil that makes it easy for them to dig their elaborate tunnel systems.  They’re a keystone species–over 60 vertebrates and invertebrates depend on their burrows for shelter.  (See also my article–”The Giant Extinct Tortoise, Hesperotestudo crassicutata, must have been able to survive light frosts” from my April or March archives)

Popular game animals such as white tail deer, turkey, and quail thrive in longleaf pine savannahs.  Savannahs were a favored habitat of many extinct Pleistocene species as well including mammoth, long horned bison, horses, llamas, Harlan’s ground sloth, hog nosed skunks, giant tortoises, and others.