Deer Island in the Jackson County Forest contains the rare maple swamp natural community.  It is located amidst sandy, backcountry roads and cranberry bogs more or less right along Deer Island Rd south of City Point.

My friend and I continued our tour of Jackson County SNA’s with a stop at 2 of the 4 Deer Island parcels.  My recollection is that these were the westernmost and easternmost parcels.  At the first site, we started walking into an unremarkable barrens landscape.  Eventually as we ventured deeper into the landscape the deer flies attacked with a vengeance.  Look closely at the left-middle photograph to see these little winged rascals.  The next parcel offered more photogenic opportunities of the wetland.  I would like to revisit this site due to the brevity of this initial visit, the reason for which I cannot recall.  Perhaps the water was too deep for our rubber boots, which negated substantial progress toward the “islands”.  In any case, I look forward to the chance to return.

Wetland

Deer Flies in the Forest

Forest

Wetland

Wetland

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

Just under 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 689, 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 write a book about my adventures.  Thank you!

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