Arbutus Oaks features a southern dry-mesic forest with stately oaks and white pine as well as a swamp on the border of southern Clark County and northern Jackson County within the Black River State Forest.  Campground Road leads to a large parking area near Lake Arbutus with Arbutus Oaks SNA to the west and the subject of tomorrow’s blog post, East Fork of the Black River SNA, to the east.

It may have been the recent rainy weather and unusual spring weather of that particular year, but the morning was extremely damp and the ground was saturated in most places.  I was visiting these two natural areas as part of a field trip and at times we walked across fallen logs to get over small streams and wet areas.  Arbutus Oaks has a nice collection of large oaks and white pine as noted and a nice understory of a variety of ferns and fungi.  American starflower was noted here as well and presumably more wildflowers are present before leaf-out.  We observed ground nests for veery and eastern towhee as we hiked, which were neat finds.  Time was a bit shorter here than desired, with a hike through East Fork of the Black River SNA remaining on the field trip docket.  As for returning here, I would not be opposed, but it is low on the priority list.

Forest

Eastern Towhee Nest

Forest

Forest

River

Forest

Dead Man’s Fingers

Bracken Fern

American Starflower

Veery Nest

More of my photos (and full-res) from Arbutus Oaks can be viewed here.

400 more blog posts to go!  Well, actually a few more than that remain; counting SNA’s delisted since I started and a few SNA’s to be designated, the current total is 687, though hopefully, that will increase!

If you would like to help support this project, please consider a donation.  There are many SNA’s yet to visit and even more to revisit and I ultimately plan to put this together in the form of a book.  Thank you!

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