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A Walk in the River Swamp

Started by WDH, April 30, 2012, 09:58:49 PM

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WDH

I went to a piece of property on the Ocmulgee River.  The sloughs are dry, so the river bottom is very accessible.  This is a spectacular river bottom.  If you are unfamiliar with the term "slough", it is a narrow channel off the main body of the river that connects back into the river.  They usually fill when the river is high, then as the river goes down, the sloughs stay filled, so the water is captive in the slough.  They fill up and dry up in a cycle.  Here is a pic of one of the smaller dried up sloughs.



 

Baldcypress is common in these sloughs.  Here are some with a pronounced butt swell.   



 

Here is my brother with an especially nice baldcypress that is 80" in diameter, not quite seven feet.  This is a magnificent old tree.  Probably not logged in the past because this slough was inaccessible most of the time.



 

Here is the new Georgia State Champion Water Hickory, Carya aquatica.  The previous champ was bigger, but it died.  I believe that there is a larger one here, I just have not found it yet.  This one is 36" in diameter and 122 feet tall.  I was looking for a supposed very large overcup oak, but I have not found it yet either.



 

Here is the KING OF THE RIVER SWAMP!  Cherrybark Oak, Quercus pagoda.  This is the finest Southern red oak of the bottomlands.  They are very shade intolerant so they shoot for the sky and prune up very nicely.  Here are two fine specimens that are about 3 feet in diameter and 125 feet tall.  It was a least 60 feet to the first limb.



 



 

It was very hot and the ticks, mosquitos, and yellow flies were abundant.  I must have walked 5 or 6 miles all told, but I never saw a single snake  :).  All in all, a great day for a walk in the River Swamp, and found a new Champion Tree to boot!
Woodmizer LT40HDD35, John Deere 2155, Kubota M5-111, Kubota L2501, Nyle L53 Dehumidification Kiln, and a passion for all things with leafs, twigs, and bark.  hamsleyhardwood.com

LOGDOG

That's pretty WDH. Reminds me of our bottom with the big trees. I bet there's be some good duck hunting in there when the waters high. A walk through a stretch of woods like that makes the rest of the world melt away for me. I wish my place was full of those cherry bark oaks. Nice trees.

Mooseherder

Thanks for the field trip Danny. :)
It looks like a wonderful day and time with your brother.

Roxie

Really nice pictures, and it's interesting to see woods that are so different from those in our area.   :)
Say when

OneWithWood

Looks like a woods full of possibilities.
Is it yours or your brothers, or both?
One With Wood
LT40HDG25, Woodmizer DH4000 Kiln

SwampDonkey

Nice woods there Danny. I'm glad though, that you beat off all the snakes. ;D

Nice to find them big'uns once in awhile, makes them walks more memorable. ;)

The woods up here have not greened up yet, just the wild flowers for now. Red maples have of course flowered, but the denser hardwoods are just break bud in some places and in others out an inch or more. Saw someone selling fiddle heads roadside today. The ones along the main river are early.
"No amount of belief makes something a fact." James Randi

1 Thessalonians 5:21

2020 Polaris Ranger 570 to forward firewood, Husqvarna 555 XT Pro, Stihl FS560 clearing saw and continuously thinning my ground, on the side. Grow them trees. (((o)))

WDH

Roxie,

These river swamps are unique.  Here is a Willow Oak, Quercus phellos, that is about 40" in diameter and totally clear.



 

Here is another view of the river bottom.  You can see two cherrybark oaks in the background.



 

There were some cane thickets, Arundanaria tecta, that were hard to traverse, but for the most part, the forest is pretty open, and without water in the sloughs, you could go anywhere.

Robert,

I taught a Master Naturalist course on Tree ID last week, and this was the property for the Tree ID field trip.  Dodgy Loner has also taught this course and has seen this property.  I was enamored with what I saw in the bottomlands, so I had to go back and explore.  The hardwood timber on this tract is about the best that I have ever seen, so I wish that I owned it.  The owners say that they will never cut it.  This tract is about 500 acres.
Woodmizer LT40HDD35, John Deere 2155, Kubota M5-111, Kubota L2501, Nyle L53 Dehumidification Kiln, and a passion for all things with leafs, twigs, and bark.  hamsleyhardwood.com

woodtroll

Very nice.
Reminds me of swamps in southern Ill.
One of my last jobs there was aging and measuring some overcup oak.
They were in the 30's, but there was a white oak (white oak in the generic term) log that was 60" diameter.
My biggest cherrybark was 40 inches or so. The cool thing is how old the oaks were. 300 years on some. The 60 incher was older then that.
Thanks for the pics.
I miss the trees but not the ticks, flies, mosquitoes, and snakes, heat and humidity, free standing 4 foot tall poison ivy...

SwampDonkey

Quote from: WDH on May 01, 2012, 09:51:16 PM
The owners say that they will never cut it.  This tract is about 500 acres.

I've heard that before. ;D

That being said, nice to hold onto some treed land, especially with big wood. 
"No amount of belief makes something a fact." James Randi

1 Thessalonians 5:21

2020 Polaris Ranger 570 to forward firewood, Husqvarna 555 XT Pro, Stihl FS560 clearing saw and continuously thinning my ground, on the side. Grow them trees. (((o)))

WDH

Because of the sinuosity of the river, there are several miles of river frontage.  This is the type of property that I would like to see a Conservation organization purchase and set aside for public enjoyment. 
Woodmizer LT40HDD35, John Deere 2155, Kubota M5-111, Kubota L2501, Nyle L53 Dehumidification Kiln, and a passion for all things with leafs, twigs, and bark.  hamsleyhardwood.com

thecfarm

We are enjoying thanks to your pictures.
Model 6020-20hp Manual Thomas bandsaw,TC40A 4wd 40 hp New Holland tractor, 450 Norse Winch, Heatmor 400 OWB,YCC 1978-79

LOGDOG

Danny ...Have I ever shown you some of the trees from my river bottom? Here's a couple:



Same tree ....








The property to the South of me has quite a few of these. These are just inside my line. I've got some on my North line too. The previous owner cut our property about 20 years ago. Some of the neighbors said they literally cried when they cut all the trees like this down. The property was full of them. They said the loads of wood that went out of here were like none they had ever seen. I believe it. We got to stump the left overs when we were clearing. Thankfully they left us some to enjoy.

Dodgy Loner

I would like to explore that property some more sometime. I was as enamored with the sand hills on the high ground as I was with the river bottoms. The size of the trees there is not as impressive, but the diversity of plant life is incredible. I saw many plants that I have not seen elsewhere in those sand hills.

SD, knowing these folks, I would be absolutely shocked if they ever logged the land. The nature is much more valuable to them than any amount of money.
"There is hardly anything in the world that some man cannot make a little worse and sell a little cheaper, and the people who consider price only are this man's lawful prey." -John Ruskin

Any idiot can write a woodworking blog. Here's mine.

WDH

Dodgy,

I have not yet explored the tick sand hills yet.  Winter needs to come before that happens  :).

Logdog,

Awesome!  Is that a slippery elm in the first pic?  The other looks like a big old willow oak.  They can get really big.  Folks in your part of the country call them "pin oaks".  Have you checked any of the big ones for Champion status?
Woodmizer LT40HDD35, John Deere 2155, Kubota M5-111, Kubota L2501, Nyle L53 Dehumidification Kiln, and a passion for all things with leafs, twigs, and bark.  hamsleyhardwood.com

LOGDOG

I'll be honest with you Danny, my tree id knowledge isn't that great when it comes to Southern trees. Up North, where I grew up, I knew them all. I thought that first one was a white oak or a cow oak. If I remember right, those giant acorns were under that one. I need to walk back there and try to get a close up photo of the leaves on each of these. Maybe you can id them for me. I haven't checked them for champion status. Never thought of it to be honest but maybe I should. Believe it or not, I don't think these are the biggest ones back there. It's a great piece of bottom. A walk through there makes me forget all about all the work it takes to maintain the property. Full of wood ducks, beavers, fish, logger head turtles. Great place. Oh yeah ...snakes too.  :o

WDH

Yeah, I bet it is a cow oak.  It looks a little scaly at the bottom.  Definitely get some leaves.  It will be fun to ID them.
Woodmizer LT40HDD35, John Deere 2155, Kubota M5-111, Kubota L2501, Nyle L53 Dehumidification Kiln, and a passion for all things with leafs, twigs, and bark.  hamsleyhardwood.com

LOGDOG

I'm curious, where do you measure the girth on these trees to see if they are champion quality? And how can I get an accurate height? That's also squirrel hunting paradise back in there. I told my wife I may go back there this year and get a few squirrels for a meal. I haven't eaten squirrel in over 25 years. I liked it from what I can remember.

WDH

I use a clinometer to measure height.  I am sure that you do not have one.  You can measure height using angles and geometry if you want to fool with that. 

You measure the circumference at breast height which is defined as 4.5 feet above the ground.  That is right about the center of the sternum for most foresters.

Actually, squirrel is not too bad.  My favorite was my Mother's squirrel and dumplings.  You have to par-boil it if you plan to fry it, otherwise it will be as tough as a Mother-in-law's heart  :).
Woodmizer LT40HDD35, John Deere 2155, Kubota M5-111, Kubota L2501, Nyle L53 Dehumidification Kiln, and a passion for all things with leafs, twigs, and bark.  hamsleyhardwood.com

LOGDOG

A clinometer? Sure ...got one right here.... NOT! I did look it up though. Now you have me curious.  :) Something new that I've not done or used before.

Thanks for the tip on parboiling the squirrel. I've heard Louisianans talk about Squirrel Sauce Picante too in a very favorable manner.

LOGDOG

Does that clinometer essentially use the pythagorean theorem ?

SwampDonkey

Logdog, the clino uses cosines on slopes over 20 %, but tangent of 45 degrees can be used for relatively flat land. In order to use tangents you have to be able to measure from the ground up to the horizontal line made from your observation point.

If you had a cloth tape, a good level and a yard stick. Hold that yard stick where the top of your closed fist (holding the stick) is as far from the end of it (top of stick when held vertical) as the same distance from your eye to your out stretched arm holding the stick. With the level on the yard stick, and the top of your closed fist at eye level, the angle between eye and top of yard stick is 45°. Tangent of 45° is 1. So what this means is you can stand back from the tree at a point where the tree top is sighted in a path from your eye, to the top of the yard stick, to the top of the tree. Make sure the stick is level and your fist is as eye level. Now dig out the cloth tape and measure from your position to the tree trunk (to the tree centre, pull the tape to the side of the tree to guess the centre). Now add that distance to the height from the ground to where your line of site landed on the tree trunk. It can vary because of the elevation where you stood in relation to the tree. If your on sloping ground try to stand on the same contour as the tree or else you will need to find horizontal distance with COS function. On gentle sloping ground under 10 percent won't make much difference.
"No amount of belief makes something a fact." James Randi

1 Thessalonians 5:21

2020 Polaris Ranger 570 to forward firewood, Husqvarna 555 XT Pro, Stihl FS560 clearing saw and continuously thinning my ground, on the side. Grow them trees. (((o)))

WDH

If you moved back a set distance, say 100 feet, and had a way to measure the angle from your eye to the top of the tree, then you could take that angle, go to a cosine table, get the cosine value.  It will be a ratio which is the length of the adjacent side (the 100 feet) divided by the hypotenuse.  This allows you to calculate the length of the hypotenuse (the line formed by your eye looking at the top of the tree).   Since you have the length of two sides, you can then use the Pythagorean theorum to calculate the height of the tree from your eye to the top of the tree.  You have to repeat this process by looking at the bottom of the tree. getting that angle, and repeat the process to determine the height from the ground to your eye level.  This could be a negative # if you are standing well below the tree (hard to do in LA  ;D). 

The clinometer works basically the same.  You pull back a set distance, say 100 feet.  There are two scales on the clinometer, a % scale and a chain scale (a chain is 66').  If you use the % scale at 100', then the reading on the clinometer is 100% of the value on the scale (the full value).  You look through the clinometer with your dominant eye, keeping both eyes open.  You will see a bar (thin line) in the clinometer.  By looking at the tree top with one eye annd the bar on the scale of the clinometer, read the number (the height) off the scale.  This is the height of the tree from a level point from your eye (the point of the measurement) to that point on the tree trunk.  You then repeat by looking at the bottom of the tree and reading that value off the scale.  If the level line from you eye to the tree trunk is above the base of the tree, you add this measurement to the first height measurement.  If this level line is below the base off the trunk, you subtract it. 

The problem is that clinometers are not cheap.  One will set you back about $125 with shipping.  Making an angle device would be cheaper.  Even easier than that would be finding someone with a clinometer and convincing them to come measure the tree for you  ;D.
Woodmizer LT40HDD35, John Deere 2155, Kubota M5-111, Kubota L2501, Nyle L53 Dehumidification Kiln, and a passion for all things with leafs, twigs, and bark.  hamsleyhardwood.com

Clark

Quote from: WDH on May 03, 2012, 08:26:21 AMThe problem is that clinometers are not cheap.  One will set you back about $125 with shipping.

New clinometers are not cheap but there is a great source of used clinometers on craigslist.  The guys who do the small dish/satellite installations use a tandem clinometer/compass to set the angles on the dish.  Use a craigslist search engine like craigzoom for "inclinometer" and you'll get all sorts of results.  Since it is a small item you can often talk the seller into shipping it for a small fee.  I got my last one this way for well under $50! 

Two things to note though: One is that the clinomter scale will be in % and degrees which is not the norm in US forestry.  The other caution is that the newer Suunto tandem clinometer/compass doesn't seem to be as well built as prior versions.  The plastic they use to house the gauges is very thin and liable to break which is why I need a new one.  :(

Also, awesome chunk of woods there WDH!  Looks like that would be a great place to explore and teach some Yanks southern tree ID.  I'll stop by in the morning!

Clark
SAF Certified Forester

SwampDonkey

That's why Tangent of 100 % or 45° is so much quicker and easier on flat land. On sloping ground you use COS because you have to find that horizontal distance from eye to tree trunk in order to calculate length of trunk above the horizontal and below it to the tree base by determining the slopes with the clinometer. Too often the tangent (45) method would have the line of site higher than you can reach with a tape or under the roots in the ground where you can't get to neither. ;D
"No amount of belief makes something a fact." James Randi

1 Thessalonians 5:21

2020 Polaris Ranger 570 to forward firewood, Husqvarna 555 XT Pro, Stihl FS560 clearing saw and continuously thinning my ground, on the side. Grow them trees. (((o)))

WDH

Come on down, Clark.  After a stroll in the woods, we can have some shrimp and grits  ;D.
Woodmizer LT40HDD35, John Deere 2155, Kubota M5-111, Kubota L2501, Nyle L53 Dehumidification Kiln, and a passion for all things with leafs, twigs, and bark.  hamsleyhardwood.com

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