The Adventures of Little Fawn, Part 1

This is the story of the creatures of Gravatt’s Forest. All photos of birds were captured by staff alumni Samuel Robinson. All other photos were captured by Gravatt trail cameras.

Early in the morning, right as the sun’s rays pierce the clouds and hit the forest floor, a family of deer are already stirring. Dawn and dusk they scan the woods for palatable vegetation.

Deer munch and munch till their hearts are content and lie low to hide during the day and in the deep of night in case predators are also looking for a meal. Having eaten all the good grasses and leaves it’s time for a midday nap, ah the good life of a Gravatt deer. Young little fawn is restless though, she does not want to lie down and nap, there is too much to explore! She sneaks away from her family’s bedding area and wanders down the sandy road.

“Turkeys! Oh what fun!” Little Fawn thinks.

“Hey Turkeys! What are you looking for? Insects? Acorns? Shiny rocks?! I can help you look!”

*Gobble gobble* “What? What did you say?” Old man Gobbler shouts.

“Dad he is asking us what we are looking for, sorry my dad is hard of hearing” the young turkey says.

“My name is Jake by the way, we are just heading down to the stream for water then we have to rest, it’s too hot for anymore exploring. Hey why are you still awake?” Jake asks.

“Oh, well my family always naps during the day, but there is too much to see, like you Turkeys! There is a whole world to explore!” says Little Fawn

*Gobble! “Jake, what is this armadillo saying?” Old Man Gobbler says starring deeply at Little Fawn.

“Um my dad doesn’t see too well either, well stay safe friend we’ve got to get going.” Jake says.

“COME ON DAD, LET’S GO GET WATER AND FIND A SHADY NAPPING TREE.” And just like that those Turkeys are on their way.

“Wow, what nice turkeys, I wonder who else I can find in the forest!” Little Fawn feels triumphant as she ventures down the sandy road.

The sun continues to rise high in the noon sky as Pileated woodpecker drums on in the distance. Ringing his blows from atop the tallest longleaf, *whap whap whap*. Suddenly the drilling stops…the forest is still.

“Hello friend” the cedar waxing says to Pileated woodpecker as it rests on a shrub.

“Did you find any good insects drilling into that old pine tree?”

“No, I sense something unusual in the forest…a presence I haven’t felt in a long time” Pileated woodpecker states as he scans the forest.

“Cedar waxwing we must check in with the council of feathers! You head off looking for the council members and I will greet the Queen and her most trusted guard.”

“It will be done!” and with a huff and a puff the cedar waxwing bows, however you might imagine a bird bowing, and flaps off to find his friends.

Pileated woodpecker scoots and disappears around the back of the pine tree, out of sight and off on his mission.

Near the swampy corner of Lake Henry, the wise Great Blue Heron stands poised to strike. Almost motionless he stands in the still water. Nearby a Green Heron sits up on a log, lazily scanning the water.

Nearby a Green Heron sits up on a log, lazily scanning the water.

“Hey Blue!” Green Heron says enthusiastically.

“Yes Green?” Blue Heron whispers out.

“Why are you so Great? Is it just because you are so big?”

“Green, you know I’m hunting…” Great Blue Heron cocks his head back.

“Sorry. I’ll wait” Green lets out a bored sigh and begins to twiddle their feathers.

“Phewwwww…ba-baa-baaaa…do-do-ba-dooo-do-baaa. Pffft…ehhhhh! I’m bored!”

“I am sorry to hear that, maybe try hunting?” Blue whispers. He looks deep into the water, locking eyes with his own reflects.

Suddenly, *thump, thlap, thlop* the sound of chubby webbed toes comes flapping near the water’s edge. Ah it’s the news, Bullfrog is hopping on down. This should be good, Bullfrogs always have a lot to say.

“HUMAN!!! HUMAN!! WATCH OUT EVERYBODY!! THEY’RE ON SOME WEIRD TWO WHEELED MACHINE!! RUN RUN RUUUUNNNNN!!!!”

Green Heron looks over at the water’s edge “Hello Bullfrog, just take a deep breath, in through the snout, out through the nose.”

“NO TIME” Bullfrog shouts as he takes a deep breath.

Just then a human rides past the lake, going for a bicycle ride on Sparkleberry Trail, it’s Belinda!

“OH NO!!!” Bullfrog, leaps up and *SPLASH!* right into the water.

The mirrored reflection of the Blue Heron begins to shake and ripple…

“Bullfrog! You scared away my fish! I was going to strike any second!” Great Blue Heron huffs and ruffles his feathers, all flustered and frustrated.

Cedar Waxwing swoops across the water, and lands gracefully on the log next to Green Heron.

“Green, Blue! Pileated, he…ah…a meeting…the forest…and! And!” Cedar waxwing is breathing heavily and struggling to tweet.

“Tut tut, remember, in through the beak, out through the beak.” Green Heron says as they breathe along.

“Thank you Green, you’re always so calm, but right now Pileated Woodpecker has called a meeting of the council of feathers! Right now he has gone to see the Queen. There is a presence in the forest.”

Bullfrog bubbles up from the depths and blurts out “THE HUMAN! I KNEW IT!! WE NEED TO RUN!”

Great Blue Heron lets out a deep breath and turns to the group of critters and says “No not the human, they come and go on their bicycle all the time. If Pileated woodpecker has called the council then this must be of grave importance.”

All nod solemnly, knowing that a council of feathers has not been called in nearly 75 years. Whatever this is, it must be serious…

Into the Wide Blue Yonder

“Wilderness is not a luxury, but a necessity of the human spirit”- Edward Abbey

            What is a wilderness? The United States Congress of 1964, in the Wilderness Act, defined wilderness as “an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain…land retaining its primeval character and influence.” This summer Gravatt embarked on an adventure into the wilderness, one the likes of which we had never attempted before.

The Gravatt Explorers Program launched this summer, a new session open to rising 10th graders-rising freshman in college. We took 10 campers off the Gravatt property and into the wilderness. After a couple introductory days at camp learning and practicing some skills, we loaded the vans and headed for Pisgah National Forest near Brevard, NC and onwards still to Shining Rock Wilderness Area.

Setting off from Yellowstone Prong (the mighty river descending down from Graveyard Fields) we hiked upwards towards the ridge of Shining Rock Wilderness. We crossed streams, rounded ridges, stomped through mud, and ascended a steep and rocky mountain side to our basecamp near Black Balsam Knob. Along the way, we saw mushrooms fruiting, the erosional effects of water running down the mountain, and the transpiration (the exhalation of water vapor from plants) of the forest. That first day hiking to our basecamp was a memorable one; heavy rains hit us for the first several hours but we thrived. We arrived to basecamp tired, wet, and hungry. A feast was prepared of rice, beans, and vegetables, and we sang Shalom that night under the same stars but a completely different forest high up on the mountain.

Day two of the Shining Rock adventure was just as exciting! We set out traversing atop the mountain ridgeline eating wild blueberries we picked along the way. From on top of Tennent Mountain, we saw in yonder distance our objective, a pure quartz boulder twice or even three times the size of Girls Cabin 5, the Shining Rock. After a lunch break in a beautiful meadow near Flower Knob, the rain came in swiftly and with much consistency. Heavy rain fell upon us soaking our boots, but we were determined and too close to turn back! Mother Nature unleashed some furry upon us but we stomped on through the puddles and made it to Shining Rock. Aside from the sound of rainfall, it was a near silent moment of reverence on top of the rock. Thunder and lightning ensued forcing us to take the Ivestor Gap trail to avoid being up on the mountain tops back to our basecamp. Another storm was rolling through the mountains and the night would be cold, we assessed our situation and determined to retreat from the wilderness and back to the safety of Camp Gravatt.

Back at Gravatt, we recovered and relaxed from the many sloshy miles in the mountains. We practiced our fire making skills, camped out at the treehouse by the Tower, and prepared for our next adventure. The second half of the Explorers Program consisted of a canoe trip down the Broad River. We set up a canoe relay in Lake Henry to put our skills to the test. Campers had to maneuver around the floating dock, weave in between a series canoes, and make it through our “rapid simulator.” We were ready for the journey, with the canoes and gear loaded up we embarked after breakfast.

The section of the Broad River we were exploring started right at the Columbia Canal Diversion Dam and proceeded approximately 5.5 river miles to our take out at the Jordan Memorial Boat Landing off of Rosewood Drive. We paddled the mighty river, dodged rocks, and played around on some nifty islands. The water was cold and refreshing. We stopped for lunch on an outcropping of rocks in the middle of the river and then floated in the still waters. The river picked up in intensity as we moved through rapids and under a series of bridges. Several campers spotted a shoreline littered with trash and were so moved that we docked the boats and spent some time picking up the trash and piled it up away from the shore. The river carried us along and it was peaceful yet exhilarating. It was not long until we saw Thomas Coleman’s smiling face at the boat landing there to pick us and the canoes up. Thoroughly exhausted from our time with the river, we loaded the vans and headed for Congaree National Park to make camp and fill our bellies. The next morning we had a pancake breakfast party, a short hike into the park, and we returned to camp that afternoon.

The Explorers Program is different than any other session of summer camp. It is our hope that the explorers are not only equipped with the skills necessary to recreate in the great out-of-doors but also the passion that comes from outdoor recreation. Wilderness is a necessity. It is a connection to a place that time forgot. A place where adventures happen, and we’ve got some exciting adventures planned for summer 2023!

What’s in the BOG?

It should be no surprise to anyone that we love our trees here at Gravatt. We have many great and lovely trees, including the heavily favored Longleaf Pine. We manage extensively for our Upland Longleaf Pine ecosystem; thinning the forest and burning the woods when appropriate. On Sparkleberry Trail, there is a fascinating point where two ecosystems converge and are only separated by the trail itself. At this point, the Longleaf ecosystem meets a very peculiar bog; but what is out in the bog?

Looking off the trail towards Lake Henry, one can spy towering and twisting trees with bark that spirals upward to the sky. This tree is an Atlantic White Cedar, Chamaecyparis Thyoides. The Atlantic White Cedar is a native coniferous tree found all along the east coast, growing in forested wetlands with poor drainage and slightly acidic peat soils. These water-loving trees dominate the canopy of their environment and provide excellent shade for all creatures of the forest during the hotter months. They are often found alongside Longleaf Pines. Though they are not a fire dependent species like the Longleaf, the US Forestry Service recommends periodic burning to create a healthy swamp ecosystem.

Here is a close up of the Atlantic White Cedar, it's unique bark spirals up the tree!

The Atlantic White Cedar is such a beautiful tree to admire, and it is extremely useful. Its strength, lower density, and impeccable resistance to decay made it a prized piece of lumber for woodworking, shingle making, boat building, and general construction; but the Atlantic White Cedar is so much more than just boards of lumber. When we examine its role in the bog, we find that this Cedar preforms some integral tasks to the health of the surrounding area.

This is a shot of a patch of Cedars off of Sparkleberry Trail. Oaks and pines make up a fair portion of the canopy, while in the foreground we have many Inkberry shrubs and Sweet pepperbushes in the understory. 

Atlantic White Cedars play an important role in managing the hydrology (the movement and distribution of water above and below the ground) of the bogs. Cedars stabilize the banks of streams preventing erosion and the meandering ways of rivers. Their root systems help to slow down the movement of the streams so that they and the heavy peat soils found in the bogs can filter out pollutants from the water! The most exciting benefit of the Atlantic White Cedar is that it is excellent at storing and sequestering carbon out of the atmosphere. These trees take the carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and funnel it through their bodies and into the rich peat soil. Peat is a spongy material comprised of partially decomposed organic matter. The matter is only partially decayed because the peat gets covered up in the waters of the wetland ecosystem. The water cuts off the oxygen to the peat which stops the decay process. By slowing down the flow of the water, the Atlantic White Cedar allows the environment to store carbon and create the peat moss! The ecosystem the cedar grows in is unique and other-worldly.

Here is a good photo of the dark black peat soil under the water. To the right lay two dead cedars, but on the bank on the left side of the photo you can see new saplings ready to replace their fallen comrades. 

In the United States, the Atlantic White Cedar used to dominate more than 500,000 acres! Presently, just under 125,000 acres remain. This is a dramatic loss of ecosystem range. Over logging, fire prevention, and the draining of swamp lands for farm lands has greatly reduced the Atlantic White Cedar’s range. According to US Forestry Service, the Atlantic White Cedar tree is listed as of Least Concern (meaning it is least likely to become extinct and many species are plentifully found), although the globally community has declared that the Atlantic White Cedar wetlands ecosystem as threatened and dying.

This is the destruction of the cedars. A once healthy stand, now inundated with water due to beaver activity.

Currently at Gravatt we have two main zones where Atlantic White Cedars thrive, but even our stands are threatened by the changing water levels caused by the dam building activity of the North American Beaver. As beavers raise or lower the water level they either inundate or desiccate the Cedars. We have lost a number of cedars due to beaver activity, however more science, more research, and more observation is needed as we move forward with our stewardship of Gravatt. In my most recent field study in the woods I have noted a healthy rebound in the numbers of new cedar saplings: growth is taking place. What treasures and gifts do we hid in the bogs of our lives? Next time you find yourself wandering the woods at Gravatt I hope you all can take time to admire the spiraling bark of the cedar and know that what is in the bog is more than a tree, it is a whole world of ecological wonder, a forest in balance. If you enjoy the Sparkleberry Press and have any topics or questions you want answered send them our way, we would love to explore, research, and learn together!

Young Cedar saplings growing on a mossy island. Fun fact: an Atlantic White Cedar is not a cedar tree, it is actually related to Cypress Trees, neat!

If only photos had smell-o-vision. The Atlantic White Cedar is an aromatic tree that produces quite a lovely scent when cut.

When the Fern Unfurls

Spring at Gravatt is a time of much activity. The cold of winter relents and warmth is returned to the world. In this spring edition, I wanted to highlight some of the fascinating features of Gravatt.

There are a couple of signs that spring has arrived at Gravatt. Disregarding what any groundhog says, spring arrives with the sight of the red buds on a Red Maple, the return of the osprey, and the unfurling of the first ferns. We observed the red buds first blooming near March the Fifth, not long after that we observed an osprey soaring over Lake Henry, and after a heavy onset of pollen during the latter half of March, the ferns began to unfurl. Spring is here.

Here you can see the first blooms of the Red Maple standing over Lake Henry.

Ferns are some of the first new growth of spring racing to absorb as much sunlight and nutrients as they can before the rest of the forest wakes up and shades them. While they are a pleasing plant, they are a well-adapted pioneer plant that will jump at the first opportunity to spread and take over a disrupted area. They populate all over Gravatt, but a favored location is a special corner of Sparkleberry Trail with a view down an alley of Longleaf Pines. While we have many types of ferns at Gravatt, a common species is the Bracken Fern. Bracken Ferns are so ubiquitous that they are found on every continent excluding Antarctica and in every environment except Deserts. They are even one of the oldest species of Ferns with fossil records dating it’s species to 55 million years ago! By early April the ferns are well established throughout the woods, but not for long.  

This series of photos were taken over the course of the spring. Here you can see the progression of life of the ferns. Single and solitary standouts who slowly grow and fill in the forest until they are nearly all the new green you see

These ferns will soon be outcompeted after heavy April showers come to lively up the rest of the forest foliage, and well we have had plenty of April showers. Hard rains clear away most of the pollen and much of the dirt roads at camp. The forests begin to fill back up and spring rainstorms bring about much activity from local residents at Gravatt. Mushrooms fruit, reptiles/amphibians emerge from hiding, and flowers bloom. After one such mighty rainstorm, a very happy female Bullfrog, Lithobates Catesbeianus, was found near the edge of the pond up at the Vicarage. These frogs are native to our area and enjoy swampy marshy locations and larger bodies of water. They hunt on just about anything big enough for them to eat, spiders, small fish, insects, slugs, other frogs etc. If threatened they quickly leap into the water and will swim to safety.

Here is a female bullfrog found near the pond at the Vicarage. This frog was huge and blended in beautifully with the damp vegetation.

Here we have a beautiful tiny Dwarf Crested Iris, Iris Cristata, a native flower to Gravatt. One of only two native crested Irises, it is a rhizomatous perennial plant, meaning that it forms horizontal stalks that store nutrients (the rhizomes) to allow it to come back year after year (perennial). Every year the Dwarf Crested Iris blooms and then dies but it’s able to return because of the nutrients stored up in its root stalks. A small but mighty and resistant species. This tiny plant was gorgeous to stumble upon and is found along the forest edges in sunny spots around Sassafras Trail.

Two splendid Irises found off of Sassafras Trail.

Yellow Jessamine, Gelsemium Sempervirens, growing along Lake Henry, further down blackberry bushes are blooming too!

There is an abundance of natural beauty at Gravatt. The bright green of the ferns, the blooms of the red maple, the yellow jasmine vines, the frogs, snakes, and the evening call of the whip-or-will. While spring is an exciting time and we are all waking up to the wondrous world around us, there is something coming. We can admire the flowers and loathe the pollen, but something is coming…summer. Summer just like the temperature is on the rise, and I’m sure if you are reading this we all know what to look forward to soon enough. What are some of your favorite springtime sightings? Do you have any stories of Gravatt in the spring? Comment below, we would love to read them!

A personal favorite spring sighting, the turtles sunning on the very good log in Lake Henry!

The Wondrous World of the Wood Duck

Welcome to the Sparkleberry Press! I wanted to start this blog because there are simply too many exciting and interesting things that happen at Gravatt that many of us might not be aware of. My hope is that these blog posts help illuminate the ecological wonderland that is Gravatt. Our first blog is about the yearly wood duck box cleaning.

Wood Ducks, or their scientific name Aix Sponsa, are a migratory waterfowl who call Gravatt home through much of the year. Wood Ducks are one of a few species of waterfowl that reproduce in South Carolina. The males, as you can see in the photo below, have very ornate and bright plumage: colors of green and a rich chestnut, while the females are grey-brown with a white speckled chest. The males grow these flashy feathers to attract mates during the breeding season which runs from late January to early summer. After mating the males will grow grey feathers with blue markings on their wings and white markings on their face and neck.

These ducks are no strangers to flying and navigating through the woods. Wood Ducks tend to thrive in wooded swamps, marshy areas, beaver ponds, and small lakes. They pair off in fall/ winter and will nest in cavities selected by the females, cavities such as decayed holes in trees or prebuilt duck boxes.

Here at Gravatt we partnered with the DNR several years ago to build wood duck nesting boxes. There are wood duck boxes scattered around our lakes and even a few hidden ones near some beaver ponds. Every year between February-March we clean out our duck boxes to create suitable living conditions for the ducks after they have reproduced.

It is essential to the health of the ducks to keep the duck boxes clean, after a year of use they can get contaminated with fecal matter, bugs, decaying eggshells, etc. and all of that can bring bacteria and disease. To clean our duck boxes we simply open the trap door on the side of the house and remove all the material inside the box and replace it with fresh clean wood shavings.

Here you can see a before photo of the condition of the duck box before cleaning, notice the extra pine straw and the faded color of the wood shavings.

Above Graham is removing the old shavings to replace with the new shavings in the bucket behind him. Wood duck boxes should be over the water or near the water’s edge. We lower Lake Henry every winter for a variety of reasons but one being to make cleaning the wood duck boxes a bit easier.

Thomas is supervising the cleaning process. Notice the metal cone on the post of the duck box, this is a predator guard to fend of snakes, raccoons, or any other creatures who might want to eat some wood duck eggs.

The cleaning of the duck boxes is a great seasonal activity that helps to remind us of the impending spring time. With spring comes pollen, mosquitos, the heat, but also life, beauty, and wood ducks. As environmental stewards, it is a pleasure to prepare and make a space for these ducks to live. We get to call Gravatt our home and we are so happy to see that the Wood Ducks choose to call Gravatt home as well. Now that winter has ended and spring has thoroughly sprung, how are you preparing for the season?