Wednesday, May 27, 2015

Spring Walk At Fort Yargo State Park: Shelter A To The Old Fort, May 11th, 2015 (Part 2)


May 11th. (Continued from…) I started to walk again at Fort Yargo State Park in Winder, Georgia. One of my favorite walks is from the Group Shelter A to the Old Fort and back.This is a rewarding walk for viewing wildflowers and I’ve been trying to walk it weekly and document the wildflowers I see.

The route, which I described here, here, and here.


The Wild Yam vines were blooming. The flowers don’t look like much from a distance


One of the Eastern Sweetshrub (Calycanthus floridus) plants had a developing seedpod, as did a…


Perfoliate Bellwort (Uvularia perfoliata) nearby.


Big boulders in these woods gives the area its nickname of Rock Garden.


When I came off the Rock Garden trail, I walked on the main trail down to the Old Fort, and…


back again.


On the main trail back to the Fishing Area, I checked the…


Woolsower galls. They had dried completely. If I hadn’t known where they were, I wouldn’t have noticed them.


The gall on the young Shagbark Hickory was unchanged from the previous week.


I rested briefly in the Fishing Area before…


continuing south on the trail. 

Clouds were passing across the sun. The scenery would alternate between


sunny, and…


cloudy.


As I was heading down towards the first bridge, I spotted…


a couple of Redring Milkweed (Asclepias variegata) plants. I’d been looking for these plants when I saw the others out in the open area. These had been the first Redring Milkweed plants I had found several years ago. I thought they may have been destroyed when the disc golf course was built. They were closer to the trail than I recalled and I was delighted that they were still there.

Then I headed across the bridge and through…


the woods to the open area before heading back past the Strawberry Bush and up the section of trail with…


‘root steps.’


Flowering Spurge (Euphorbia corollata) plants were starting to bloom. These flowers are a little more than one-quarter inch in diameter but they can be spotted from some distance. 

Then I found a single…


Eustis Lake Beardtongue (Penstemon australis) plant blooming beside the trail.


Into the final woods at the end of the trail. 

It was very humid and I sat on a bench watching some Robins hunting insects along the trail. It was then that I noticed that I had…


company. A small Jumping Spider (Hentzia mitrata) was hunting on the bench beside me; it was unfazed by my presence so I took some close-up shots.

As I got up to finish my walk, I noticed some movement on a nearby pine tree. It turned out to be a…


female Eastern Fence Lizard (Sceloporus undulatus). A nice ending to a productive walk.

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