I once asked a friend of mine if he gets poison ivy. He replied, “I don’t know. I never went in the woods.”
My response was a shocked, slow-spoken, “You never went in the woods?!”
There were parks and woods all around him. Poor fellow doesn’t know what he is missing.
How about you? Do you know what’s in your woods? What? You don’t have a woods? Well, borrow one! Go to a park, or a friend’s or neighbor’s woods. Take a Sunday afternoon and explore, but don’t forget your binoculars! If you do, you will wish you had them.
What do you see? If it’s a woods, then there are trees. But what kind? Are there oaks? If so, what kind? What about pine, aspen, hickory?
The bark of different trees can vary greatly. Shagbark hickory fits its name well. River birch also has very “peely” bark but is found in wet locations. Mature sycamore bark changes as you look up the tree. At the bottom it is rough and darker, changing as you look up the tree to a lighter, flaky, mottled, smooth pattern.
Pay attention to the leaves and flowers of the trees too. Have you ever seen the flowers of a beech tree? They are small and easy to miss, but interesting up close. Pawpaw flowers are even more interesting.
There is a maze of trails in our woods, but we don’t always stay on them. Some of the most interesting mushrooms we found were off the trail. Explore!
My daughter recently brought in a leaf from a swamp chestnut oak. I was sure we did not have any chestnut oaks in our woods, so I asked her where she had found it. She said it was right by one of the main trails we use. I need to keep looking to see what else I am missing!
Another time she came to the house all excited about some pretty flowers she had found on a shrub and insisted I go see them. We went back and found them after some searching. (They were off the trail.) She was correct they were very pretty, but we had no clue what they were. They grew on a small tree about 6 feet (2 m) tall with clusters of white and pink honeysuckle-like flowers. Back at home, the field guide said it was a pinxter flower bush (a wild azalea).
Do you have sassafras trees? Their leaves come in three shapes on the same branch! Have you ever made tea from their root bark? It’s a treat from our woods!
With time, you will learn when and where different kinds of plants grow and bloom. Late spring, we look for showy orchis along some trails. This member of the orchid family is a small plant with one or two large leaves and several pinkish-purple and white flowers.
Spring is a fun time to look for wildflowers. Bluets, spring beauty, and mouse-eared chickweed carpet parts of our woods.
Did you hear the frogs? Spring peepers, green and gray tree frogs, leopard frogs, and others are waiting to be discovered.
What kind of insects do you have? Ticks, chiggers, and mosquitoes don’t count! As you stand by the creek, what swims by? Water striders, water boatman (the black beetles darting so fast)? Do you have giant water bugs? They get over 2 inches (5 cm) long. The field guide says they can give a nasty bite, but we were careful and cannot testify to that. Go see if you can find out what that buzzing or clicking noise is. Bugs can be very interesting.
If you have woods, then you have birds. We have seen well over sixty kinds we could identify plus many others not yet identified. A real joy was the Barred Owl nest we observed for several weeks. Once we came upon an invisible American Woodcock nest. we startled them and they startled us! Babies went flying in all directions!
Go quietly, stand still, and observe.
Sometimes the unusual approach works. We have a screech-owl nest box on a poplar tree. One day my son went up to the tree and slapped the trunk several times and said, “Anybody home?” To his surprise, two flying squirrels came out and clung to the trunk.
Taking good pictures can aid in identifying plants later. That can save carting along a bunch of field guides.
Our favorite “mystery plant” that we learned the identity of with a field guide was rattlesnake plantain. It’s dark-green low-lying leaves are covered with a maze of white veins. A tall hairy stalk topped with white flowers grows from the center.
What kind of animals are in your woods? Raccoons, foxes, squirrels, deer? They say there are coyotes in our woods. We have heard them yap and howl, but have never caught a glimpse of them yet.
If you see a tree with the leaves scraped away from the trunk, and nut shells around, you have found a squirrel’s favorite haunt.
So what’s in your woods? If you don’t know, go find out! If you do know, then go out and see what else you can discover. And don’t forget to thank God for the wonderful things He gives us to enjoy.