The Springfield Conservation Nature Center in Springfield, Missouri has close to 3 total miles of trails throughout its scenic atmosphere. One of the things I love about the Nature Center is that it has sections of trail and entire fully-accessible trails so that everyone can enjoy the scenic nature of the Missouri Department of Conservation-funded conservation area located directly on the South edge of town, and showcases many native Ozark habitats directly within the park itself.
It is not uncommon to run into many wildlife species in the CNC as well. On our trip, we saw no fewer than 10 North American Whitetail deer, however, one of the limitations of my iphone photography is that damn zoom loses my focus, clarity, and I gain grain something fierce. I did capture a couple of them, but the quality was not good enough, in my opinion, to share. It is always neat to see deer running through the conservation area just a few yards away from you.
We found quite a few mushrooms on logs and dead tree stumps around the center more than anything, but we were a little surprised to find so few on the actual ground. It could have been the extreme leaf coverage, and the fact that the colors are finally changing in Missouri, so the yellow and orange leaves on the ground made spotting the fungi a little more challenging than last week's hike in Busiek.
I also managed to get a great snap of this ant climbing along the trunk of this tree. He kept moving for quite a bit before he slowed down long enough for me to grab this shot of him along the texture of this beautiful tree bark.
I must admit, the amount of clearning that has been done in the forest areas of the CNC is disappointing. Even in the time I have lived in this town, I have noticed more and more cuts happening. If they would go ahead and clear the debris, I have no doubt that this select cutting is good for the forest, however, they seem to leave the trees as stumps, or they cut the trees apart and seemingly leave them on the forest floor, which ultimately becomes a litter to the general ecosystem of the area.
The only thing I enjoy more than straight symmetry are twisted vines and contorted nature. I love nature's flexibility, and really enjoy seeing it in wild grape vines.
I highly recommend the Springield Conservation Nature Center to anyone visiting the area looking for a nice little walk around nature without having to leave the city, and it also is a great place to take the kids.
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Just a comment on dropped wood in natural forests. They become great homes for small animals, detritivores, fungi and necessary bacterial decay organisms. Over the course of months or years, it looks like litter, but over the course of decades, it's food for the forest biome.
I like that -- Food for the forest. And my guess is the clearing was some invasive vegetation. It seems odd only because so much has changed from incoming invasive plants and the lack of fires. It will help out the native understory plants.
It's great having public land nearby! It would be nice to see some shots of those mushrooms in the second picture. They could be Oyster mushrooms (Pleurotus). I would guess that you can't pick anything there, but it's a good opportunity to study those fungus! :D
My partner thought that's what those might be, as well, and I believe we have photos of the underneath on the other mobile. I'll check it out for sure, though. (Exciting!)
Oysters are great mushrooms to know. Let us all know! I'm sure you will see more on your outings, through the fall and early winter.
WOW... That's a lot of nature :))
@macksby That's the only way I like to Nature. :)
I heard they were going to allow an archery hunt to limit some of the population of deer this year. I'm going to have to drive out there before the season is over.
@tltran Are they going to close the CNC for all of bow season? That seems odd. Plus, those deer in there are far from "wild," and I understand wanting to thin the population, but that doesn't seem like much of a "hunt" to me, if you know what I mean. They're everywhere and they're not scared of people like Whitetail usually are.
It is only over the course of 2 days and what they call a managed hunt so they draw a number (in this case 5) of applicants that are allowed to hunt on their property using specified equipment. It is in December and my guess is they will only be permitted to hunt at certain hours on those days.
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Hello, it is really impressive. Thanks. That is why we are actually trying to save Abongphen Highland Forest in Cameroon. Cheers.