Photos by: Craig ONeal
If you’ve ever strolled the trails in the Guana reserve you might have come across the eastern red cedar forest near the inter-coastal waterway at Shell Bluff.
This is one of my favorite sections in the reserve. The subtropical maritime forest opens up into a wonderland of cedar trees and explodes with its distinctive sweet smell.
Last week, the NERR weather station recorded 52mph straight-line winds that apparently snapped three of these big cedar trees like the pencils they were once made of.
Other evidence of snapped cedar’s abound from the 2004 tropical storm effects from the fringes of Hurricanes Jeanne and Francis, according to Forrest Penny of the GTMNERR.
Taking photos in this cedar forest is a special treat since there is a eeriness unlike anywhere else in the reserve and trying to capture this strangeness is a photographers challenge.
