March 2009, Ft. Bragg, N.C.

After leaving the Marine Corps Air Station in Cherry Point, NC we drove just a short way over to Fayetteville to Ft. Bragg and stayed at the base campground, Smith Lake Army Recreation Area. Below is Smith Lake.

Pearl taking an interest in something in the lake. Unlike Mango she seems to kind of like water.

This is a Shortleaf Pine cone, on one of the two kinds of pines in this area, the sandy Long Leaf Pine and Wiregrass habitat of the Piedmont region of NC.

One of the helicopters we saw regularly on the base. The rec area is near a base helicopter airport and they routinely had exercises, sometimes until midnight.

The Long Leaf Pine/Wiregrass habitat is carefully taken care of by the Army and with local and state agencies they work to conserve the the woods on base and in the surrounding area. These sandy woods are best maintained by periodic burns which enables the woods to stay clear of invading plants and enriches the soil so the pines can germinate new plants. The woods are very clear looking with little understory and have a lively community of plants and animals adapted to fire ecology, one of which is the Red-Cockaded Woodpecker. These birds build their nests in Long Leaf Pine trees, preferably 80 years old or more, and the picture below shows a tree marked with 2 horizontal stripes indicating that it is a nesting tree for the Woodpeckers.

After building the nest they peck smaller holes in many place in the bark of the tree to make the sap run which makes it difficult for predators to climb up the sticky surface to the nest.

They burned several areas around the rec area while we were there.

Below is the next generation of Long Leaf Pine, so sad as it may look it's actually very promising.

Now on to Asheville.