Echaw Bay, Early Spring
Echaw Bay
Francis Marion National Forest
March 24, 2024
2:00 PM, 70° F
Sunny
“Insects abound, with mosquitoes, chiggers, and ticks reaching peak irritability from summer through fall. Many snakes, including poisonous water moccasins, copperheads, and rattlesnakes, make their homes here. Within most of the areas visibility is poor due to dense vegetation, and getting lost is easy. ”
Spring green oaks are budding on the way to Echaw Bay in Francis Marion National Forest
We didn’t get any mosquito or chigger bites, found one tick, and unfortunately saw no snakes during our trip to check out Echaw Bay on Sunday afternoon. The forest on the way to the bay had been burned fairly recently, and was a pretty contrast of dark char and spring green on this budding oak ridge.
There are many small “pocket swamps” or depressional wetlands to explore throughout the forest.
Fetterbush lyonia, Lyonia lucida, in Francis Marion National Forest
The fetterbush lyonia, Lyonia lucida, was in bloom around the edges of the swamp. The flowers are, “axillary clusters of nodding racemes from axils of persistent leaves of previous year.” Thickets of lyonia are a great indicator a wetland is nearby. It is also known as ‘staggerbush’ presumably for the struggle it takes to walk through it, and also as ‘hurrah bush’- maybe what you say after you have finally staggered through it?
Yellow pitcherplant flower, Sarracenia flava, in a swamp at Francis Marion National Forest.
Yellow pitcherplant flower, Sarracenia flava, in a swamp at Francis Marion National Forest.
There were just a few yellow pitcherplants flowering with matts of last-years leaves floating around them (picture in the intro).
Echaw Bay is pretty much a textbook Carolina bay. Carolina bays are unique geographical features found along the Atlantic coast, predominantly in North and South Carolina. They are elliptical or oval-shaped depressions, often oriented in a northwest to southeast direction, that can vary in size from a few hundred feet to several miles in length. Carolina bays typically have a sandy rim, but vary greatly in their internal habitats. They can be filled with shallow open water, low herbaceous cover, pond cypress trees, or be impenetrable thickets of shrubs. The Echaw Bay is an open savanna with some scattered Longleaf pine. It was pretty flooded on this visit, but so is everywhere around here right now.
Most of our wildlife sightings were along the road to the bay.
Damselfly at Francis Marion National Forest
American Bird Grasshopper, Schistocerca americana.
Duskywings
Oak toad, Anaxyrus quercicus
Southern Cricket Frog Arcis gryllus in the Francis Marion National Forest
I also had some fun observing the variety of bark form and color.
Finding more “swamp jello” was also a highlight. This population seemed to be less green and have a less firm texture. A sample was brought home to determine if the difference from last week’s swamp jello is environmental or organismal.
