The Legacy of a Red Hills Hunting Plantation: Tall Timbers Research Station & Land Conservancy by Robert L. Crawford and William R. Brueckheimer
The Legacy of a Red Hills Hunting Plantationtraces Henry Beadel’s evolution (Tall Timbers benefactor) from sportsman and naturalist to conservationist. Complemented by a wealth of previously unpublished, rare vintage photographs, it follows the transformation of the plantation into what its founders envisioned–a long-term plot study station, independent of government or academic funding and control.
There will be several book signings by the major author, Robert L. Crawford, including the first one at the Piney Woods Festival, Sunday, October 14 at Tall Timbers from 12 – 2 p.m.
The author will be signing the book at the following locations dates and times:
Thomas County Library, Thomasville, GA – Sunday, Dec. 9 from 3:00 – 4:30 p.m.
The book can also be ordered now from the publisher, University Press of Florida or your favorite online bookseller.
Book Overview
"A fascinating history of the ecological consciousness and developing science of Florida’s Red Hills region."–Sara Warner, author of Down to the Waterline
"No other work captures the range of scientific studies so vigorously pursued over the past century from quail biology to fire ecology to ecosystem management."–Frederick R. Davis, author of The Man Who Saved Sea Turtles
The Red Hills region is an idyllic setting filled with longleaf pines that stretches from Tallahassee, Florida, to Thomasville, Georgia. At its heart lies Tall Timbers, a former hunting plantation.
In 1919, sportsman Henry L. Beadel purchased the Red Hills plantation to be used for quail hunting. As was the tradition, he conducted prescribed burnings after every hunting season in order to clear out the thick brush to make it more appealing to the nesting birds. After the U.S. Forest Service outlawed the practice in the 1920s, condemning it as harmful for the forest and its wildlife, the quail population diminished dramatically.
Astonished by this loss and encouraged by his naturalist friend Herbert L. Stoddard, Beadel set his sights on conserving the land in order to study the effects of prescribed burnings on wildlife. Upon his death in 1958, Beadel donated the entire Tall Timbers estate to be used as an ecological research station.
Robert L. Crawford was formerly a biologist on the Tall Timbers staff and has contributed many articles to The Auk, The Wilson Bulletin, The Oriole and other ornithological journals. William R. Brueckheimer was the author of Leon County Hunting Plantations: An Historical and Architectural Survey. After retiring as chair of the geography department at Florida State University, he was a Tall Timbers Beadel Fellow from 1973 to 1984.
Cherokee Plantation will host the 2012 Tall Timbers Fall Field Day Friday, October 26
This premiere 7000-acre quail hunting property in northeastern Leon County has a rich tradition dating back to the early 1900s. Cherokee, was originally part of Foshalee Plantation, when purchased by the Ingalls and Ireland families in 1944. In the mid-1960s the families mutually agreed to divide hunting operations creating Cherokee Plantation. Both Herbert Stoddard and later Walter Rosene, the fathers of quail management, worked and consulted with managers of Cherokee. Today, through careful management, Cherokee remains one of the top quail hunting properties in the Red Hills along with excellent dove, duck and turkey hunting. Come join us to celebrate the history and tradition of Cherokee Plantation!
The outlook for the 2012/2013 quail hunting season will be discussed as well as other land management topics and the results from our recent quail research. A field tour of the property will be followed by lunch. Check-in and late registration begin at 7:30 AM. The field day adjourns at 1 PM. Cherokee Plantation is located in north Leon County, FL off U.S. HWY 319, just a few miles south of the Florida/Georgia state line.
Fall Field Day Registration fee: $40 for members; $50 for non-members. A $10 late fee will be assessed if registering after Friday, October 19.Click here for the flyer/registration form.
Join us Sunday, October 14 for the Piney Woods Festival
View the colorful wildflowers during a wagon tour through the pine forest, visit historic buildings, and enjoy music to benefit an ancient forest.
The event begins at 12 noon and ends at 6:30 p.m. But for early birds there is a Pinelands Bird Walk with Tall Timbers ornithologist, Jim Cox that begins at 9:00 a.m.
Festival activities include wagon rides through the pine forest, tours of the historic Beadel House and Jones Family Tenant Farm, natural history exhibits, and a prescribed burn demonstration. WCTV’s senior meteorologist Mike McCall will talk about fire and weather. Birders can hike on the Henry Stevenson Bird Trail to the Gannet Pond Birdwatch. At 1:30 p.m. there will be a dedication of the Birdwatch, which has been restored in honor of Betty Komarek, co-founder of Birdsong Nature Center, who originally designed the bird window in 1964.
Children’s activities will be ongoing. Children will learn to make a terrarium and leaf bouquet centerpiece. The Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission will bring some of their youth program activities, and there will be Florida Forest Service helicopter to view.
The new history of Tall Timbers, Legacy of a Red Hills Plantation: Tall Timbers Research Station & Land Conservancy will be available for sale; author Robert L. Crawford will be signing the book from 12 – 2 p.m. The book has been nominated by the University Press of Florida for the American Society for Environmental History George Perkins Marsh Prize. A copy of the book will be raffled during the concert.
At 2:00 p.m. the Pickin’ in the Pines concert begins with music that will get everyone dancing on the Beadel House lawn overlooking scenic Lake Iamonia. Enjoy one of Tallahassee’s most beautiful voices, Velma Frye; the Hot Tamale Duo will give foot-tapping, finger-snapping performances; the Katie Geringer Trio play traditional Irish dance tunes; ballads from Frank Lindamood; and Eclectic Acoustic will play a wonderful mix of traditional tunes.
The entrance fee is $5 per person or $20 per vehicle (with more than 4 people); children 12 and under will be admitted free. Proceeds will benefit the Wade Tract Preserve and programs at Tall Timbers.
Visitors are encouraged to bring a blanket, lawn chairs, sunscreen and a hat. Food trucks will be selling their specialties or visitors can pack a picnic. Prizes will be given to the best picnic and best table.
9:00 Pinelands Bird Walk – look for fall migrants with birdman, Jim Cox
12:00 Gate opens
12:15 Wagon Tours of Tall Timbers begin – see colorful wildflower displays, research activities, the restored Jones Family Tenant Farm, and the Gannet Pond Birdwatch
1:00 Prescribed Burn Demonstration – learn why we burn
1:30 Birdwatch Dedication – in honor of Betty Komarek, co-founder of Birdsong Nature Center
2:00 Pickin’ in the Pines – Bring chairs, blankets, and sunscreen and enjoy the concert on the lawn overlooking scenic Lake Iamonia. Performers will sell CDs of their music.
By Vann Middleton, Director of Operations & Support
Did you know that over 85% of your gift to the Tall Timbers Membership Program goes directly to on the ground support of our Research, Conservation and Education programs? In this day and age where all non-profits are carefully scrutinized for the amount of administrative and fundraising costs in relation to dollars contributed, Tall Timbers is proud to rank among the most efficient charitable organizations in the country.
While administrative costs are a part of operating most any non-profit, Tall Timbers strives to ensure our donors that 89 cents of every dollar given to our membership program goes directly to the programs that they aim to support. We greatly appreciate the generous support provided by all of our members and donors. The success of Tall Timbers relies on the continued support of people like you. As a charitable organization, we hold ourselves accountable to all who have made an investment in our future. Tall Timbers is committed to efficiently managing the financial resources that have been bestowed upon us.
Our pledge to you as a member is to be fiscally responsible stewards of your investment while ensuring that your gift makes a direct impact on the programs for which it was intended.
With only a few short weeks left in 2012, our annual Membership campaign is drawing to a close. We have an ambitious goal of $420,000 for the year. With your help and participation, we can reach that goal. Please consider renewing your financial support today. You can do so securely online at: http://www.talltimbers.org/membership.html. If you have already done so, we hope that you might consider giving a gift of membership to a friend or colleague that you think would enjoy the benefits of becoming a member.
In this time of giving, we wish to give thanks to each and every one of you who have given of your time, talents and treasure to Tall Timbers in 2012.
The Parker-Williams Library is a valuable resource
By Carol Armstrong, Librarian
On your next visit to Tall Timbers we invite you to check out the library. The Parker-Williams Library at Tall Timbers Research Station & Land Conservancy is a valuable resource for our staff scientists as well as the international fire community. The library answers many requests for materials or information, some from as far away as Italy. We subscribe to about 85 periodical subscriptions. The library is in the midst of several projects, including a map preservation project, and shifting the entire collection of books, periodicals and government documents, to make room where needed.
We also add about 1,100 to over 1,350 bibliographic records, per year, to the E.V. Komarek Fire Ecology Database. The Fire Ecology Database is posted on the internet as a bibliographic resource for the international fire community. We collect articles, books, chapters of books, government documents, and conference proceedings on fire ecology, fire dependent species, and fire dependent ecosystems and their inhabitants, then add them to the Database, with keywords. We are not a document delivery service, but rather a bibliographic resource, in that we do not provide the articles, books, etc., but just the references so that patrons can request the materials at their local libraries. Partial funding for the Fire Ecology Database comes from a federal grant through the Joint Fire Science Program (JFSP), the Fire Research and Management Exchange System (FRAMES), and the Southern Fire Exchange (SFE).
The library is open to the public by appointment only. Community members may use the materials in the library, but may not check them out. A copier is available to copy any materials needed. We participate in the OCLC interlibrary loan program, sharing our resources with other member libraries in this worldwide library cooperative.
The M-CORES program, which includes the proposed Suncoast Connector Toll Road in Jefferson County, passed through the Florida Legislature at breakneck speed with little review or analysis. Tall Timbers has a number of concerns given the potential for significant and wide spread impacts. These include fragmenting public and private conservation lands, robbing business from Main Street Monticello, impacting our rivers and other water resources, and making prescribed fire more difficult and costly.
Join us in asking the Jefferson County Board of County Commissioners to OPPOSE the Suncoast Connector toll road and its path through Jefferson County.
Take action now with our easy email form.
Send an email to all five Jefferson County Board of County Commissioners with one click!
Selected Publications authored by Wildland Fire Science staff.
Educating and guiding the next generation of fire researchers and managers is a key goal of Wildland Fire Science and a resource for testing new ideas in fire research.
Tall Timbers hosts the Prescribed Fire Science Consortium, a national network of researchers and managers who promote integrated research and management to advance next generation tools for fire practitioners. https://arcg.is/1DSjDT
Working with partners in the Prescribed Fire Science Consortium, the program is building nexgen 3-D fuel beds using terrestrial LiDAR and novel sampling techniques to power new fire behavior models for prescribed fire managers. This work links to Tall Timbers work in wildlife habitat usage and ecological forestry.
Tall Timbers is leading an effort to map fire regimes at the landscape scale. Staff work with numerous agencies to evaluate fire records and satellite imagery to build this critical conservation database. https://skfb.ly/6DqOY
We are linking physics and field observations to understand the fluid dynamics of fire behavior surface fire regimes. Our work combines field observations using advanced thermal imaging techniques, laboratory studies, and coupled fire-atmospheric modeling to help managers improve outcomes of managed fire regimes.
Burn prioritization modeling seminars and fire modeling tools are supported by Wildland Fire Science to train managers in the important planning stages of prescribed fires.
The conserved lands of the Greater Red Hills region are found on working, income-producing properties that support agriculture, forestry, and recreational hunting. These properties contribute $272 million annually to local economies and support 2,300 jobs. [link to Planning & Advocacy section] The landowners’ strong stewardship ethic preserves their working lands while replenishing drinking water supplies, protecting water quality, and providing wildlife habitat for dozens of rare and endangered species. Tall Timbers’ conservation easements on these working properties encourage landowners to retain their traditional livelihood by keeping farms in family ownership.
Home to world-class wild quail populations, the Greater Red Hills region contains the largest concentration of gamebird preserves in the United States. These preserves also support the largest community of Red-cockaded woodpeckers on private lands. Indicators of high quality habitat found here include the gopher tortoise, Bachman’s sparrow, fox squirrel, and many amphibians. Tall Timbers’ conservation easements identify and protect the critical habitats of these species.
The region also boasts outstanding aquatic resources. Large river systems, like the Flint/Apalachicola, Ochlockonee, and Aucilla, flow from Georgia and feed into the Gulf of Mexico to support some of the world’s most productive estuaries. Large disappearing sinkhole lakes, like Iamonia, Miccosukee, and Jackson, provide habitat for an array of aquatic species and migratory birds. Tall Timbers’ conservation easements protect these vital watersheds and wetlands that are the lifeblood for the ecological health of the region.
Once dominated by longleaf pine, our pine woodlands support abundant wildlife and local economies. These forests need prescribed fire to stay healthy. Herbert L. Stoddard and his associates Ed and Roy Komarek were pioneers in this emerging scientific field during the mid-20th century. Tall Timbers continues that legacy with applied research on prescribed fire and land management. Today, there is a tremendous need to expand prescribed fire use beyond the Red Hills to ensure ecosystem health and reduce wildfire risk. Additionally, Tall Timbers uses conservation easements to permanently protect private woodlands while balancing the need for economic return from selective timbering.
Tall Timbers hosts the premier fire technology transfer organization—the Southern Fire Exchange. This JFSP funded effort helps connect research to management through webinars, workshops, and support of the Prescribed Fire Science Consortium.
The Longleaf Legacy landscape prescribed fire burn team arm of Wildland Fire Science works directly with landowners and partners to effectively put fire on the ground and promote prescribed fire throughout the region.
Staff and researchers support Federal fire training by serving as a cadre for NWCG training courses, ranging from basic wildland fire to advanced fire effects.
(PFTC) specializes in training fire fighters the principles and techniques of prescribed fire through practical hands-on experience. https://www.fws.gov/fire/pftc/
Private land owners are the largest source of prescribed fire in the country. These land owners and the culture of fire that was maintained by them during decades of suppression are a part of why Tall Timbers is a world-wide center for prescribed fire science. Workshops and fire training are a critical focus of the Longleaf Legacy Landscape Burn Team and our support of the Georgia Forestry Commission Prescribed Fire Center in Marion County.
The Legacy of a Red Hills Hunting Plantationtraces Henry Beadel’s evolution (Tall Timbers benefactor) from sportsman and naturalist to conservationist. Complemented by a wealth of previously unpublished, rare vintage photographs, it follows the transformation of the plantation into what its founders envisioned–a long-term plot study station, independent of government or academic funding and control.
This premiere 7000-acre quail hunting property in northeastern Leon County has a rich tradition dating back to the early 1900s. Cherokee, was originally part of Foshalee Plantation, when purchased by the Ingalls and Ireland families in 1944. In the mid-1960s the families mutually agreed to divide hunting operations creating Cherokee Plantation. Both Herbert Stoddard and later Walter Rosene, the fathers of quail management, worked and consulted with managers of Cherokee. Today, through careful management, Cherokee remains one of the top quail hunting properties in the Red Hills along with excellent dove, duck and turkey hunting. Come join us to celebrate the history and tradition of Cherokee Plantation!
The event begins at 12 noon and ends at 6:30 p.m. But for early birds there is a Pinelands Bird Walk with Tall Timbers ornithologist, Jim Cox that begins at 9:00 a.m.
At 2:00 p.m. the Pickin’ in the Pines concert begins with music that will get everyone dancing on the Beadel House lawn overlooking scenic Lake Iamonia. Enjoy one of Tallahassee’s most beautiful voices, Velma Frye; the Hot Tamale Duo will give foot-tapping, finger-snapping performances; the Katie Geringer Trio play traditional Irish dance tunes; ballads from Frank Lindamood; and Eclectic Acoustic will play a wonderful mix of traditional tunes.
