j-stauffer's Journal

The Guánica State Forest, popularly known as the Guánica Dry Forest is a subtropical dry forest located in southwest Puerto Rico. The area was designated as a forest reserve in 1919 and a United Nations Biosphere Reserve in 1981.

Amazing nature location!! Many butterflies species, plenty of bird action and countless plants I've never seen. Mosquitoes were out, but not too bad. Ironically we saw no mosquitoes in the cloud forest but many here in the dry forest.

Camino las Cobanas is actually a hiking trail and not a road. It shows up as a road on google maps.

Kankakee National Wildlife Refuge and Conservation Area, Kolar Savanna Unit

A quick stop here while traveling north from Sugar Creek Campground, Indiana to Chicago. It's managed as a savanna but it seems to lack the proper features. Too many trees and too little grass. I'm assuming that the ancestral state of this land was a savanna and they are trying to restore it. It was strange to see Pin Oak (a lowland species) growing side-by-side with Quercus velutina which generally grows in drier soil. I found what appeared to be a hybrid, Quercus x vaga.

Observations:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?nelat=41.012862449184226&nelng=-87.53372489573975&place_id=any&swlat=41.00173281532091&swlng=-87.54599383652342&user_id=j-stauffer&verifiable=any