Searching for old beech amidst a magnificent drumlin forest on the Jack Lake lands

Every excursion I make into the Sandy Lake/Jack Lake lands (“Sandy Lake & Environs”)  seems to offer a new gem. An excursion on June 1 was no exception.

I had been intending to check out a drumlin northeast of Jack Lake and was stimulated to do so sooner rather than later by a conversation with a naturalist who frequented the area in his youth, about 35 years ago. He  told me  there were some big disease-free beech on that drumlin in those years.

So on June 1st, DS, my frequent walk companion,  and I took a walk up the “sand pit road” and just headed  towards the hardwoods we could see in the distance. We followed wide and narrow paths maintained by ATVs and/or mountain bikes (neither present at the time). It was easy walking.

We passed through early successional hardwood forest with lots of big toothed aspen, white birch, ash and red maple and pretty quickly into older, mixed forest  as we climbed upward. The loud songs of ovenbirds told us we had passed from forest edge to forest interior.
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