Kingville Junction

I set out from Kingville junction May 26, 2008 to look for the "Jim Elder cypress" recently rediscovered by John Cely after 30 years (look for a story on this tree in an upcoming newsletter). As it turned out, I had misunderstood John and went looking in entirely the wrong direction--the cypress will have to wait for another trip.

I first set out west toward Tom's slough. The Park Service had recently burned these woods with some success; the undercover was easy to move through, and there was a pleasant sprinkling of wildflowers, including beard-tongue, sundrops, skullcap, sneezeweed and phlox. Most of my attempts at pictures were failures, with the exception of sundrops. Upon reaching Tom's Slough, I headed south along a jeep road; there's an old groundwater-monitoring station en route. The jeep road eventually disappears, though the edge of the slough is easy to follow, and you find yourself leaving the 1980's-era Georgia-Pacific clearcut and walking through an attractive hardwood forest.

I cut west along a small slough to Huger's Slough, which I followed to Huger's Little Lake; there is an attractive and very old cypress to rest under at the western end. Looking at the new version of John Cely's map (which I didn't have at the time), the Jim Elder cypress was only a few hundred yards further to the east. Not any the wiser, I cut north to the jeep road back to Kingville which, as usual, had no shortage of both hog sign and actual hogs.

Birding was quite good, though I had hoped I might run into some late migrants.

Bird List

• Wood Duck 1
• Anhinga 1
• Great Blue Heron 1
• Black Vulture 1
• Red-shouldered Hawk 4
• Mourning Dove 2
• Yellow-billed Cuckoo 7
• Barred Owl 6
• Chimney Swift 10
• Ruby-throated Hummingbird 1
• Belted Kingfisher 1
• Red-bellied Woodpecker 12
• Downy Woodpecker 3
• Hairy Woodpecker 1
• Pileated Woodpecker 5
• Eastern Wood-Pewee 3
• Acadian Flycatcher 21
• Great Crested Flycatcher 2
• White-eyed Vireo 24
• Yellow-throated Vireo 3
• Red-eyed Vireo 22
• Blue Jay 1
• American Crow 3
• Fish Crow 1
• Carolina Chickadee 7
• Tufted Titmouse 18
• White-breasted Nuthatch 7
• Carolina Wren 15
• Blue-gray Gnatcatcher 14
• Gray Catbird 1
• Northern Parula 38
• Yellow-throated Warbler 5
• Pine Warbler 12
• Prothonotary Warbler 20
• Swainson's Warbler 1
• Hooded Warbler 8
• Summer Tanager 10
• Northern Cardinal 22
• Indigo Bunting 4
• Painted Bunting 2