Scheier Natural Area

The Scheier Natural Area consists of one hundred acres of mixed upland woodland, pine re-growth and open fields threaded with over three miles of trails. Along the natural area’s southern end, a series of manmade ponds provide excellent habitat for loafing wood duck and can host over a dozen at times. This area also holds eastern painted turtles, abundant frogs, and can swarm with dragonflies in spring and summer.

A walk through the woods should reveal plenty of blue jays and American crows, whose raucous cries are hard to miss. Equally as numerous are the small flocks of Carolina chickadees and tufted titmice that chatter in the treetops, at times, attracting migrant wood-warblers such as, black-throated green, pine and American redstart. The tiny downy woodpecker can regularly be heard working its ways along the thinner limbs in the canopy, while eastern phoebe can be found perched quietly along the forest edge.

Take a walk in these beautiful woods, but walk softly and quietly so that the small beauties of the forest, from the sporadically blooming pink lady’s-slipper orchids, to the thin rustlings of an eastern fence lizard, can be appreciated.