Holiday Gifts

Special Features - Woods. Spring Wildflowers. Bird Watching. Geological Features. Old growth forest remnant. Facilities - none. The preserve is adjacent to Strouds Run State Park that offers many facilities.

106 acre preserve lies outside the city of Athens, locally known as Hawk Woods. The trees include massive tulip poplar and oaks, some as large as 30 inches in diameter. An oak-hickory forest is present on the upper slopes of the younger, southern section of the preserve.

The wooded preserve runs up a ridge and faces north/northwest. A small intermittent stream is present and the area is home to ferns, fungus and in the spring, a variety of wildflowers including showy orchids, jack-in-the-pulpit and trilliums. Excellent birding with the worm-eating warbler and Louisiana water thrush and good population of ovenbirds, wood thrushes, red-eyed vireos, Acadian flycatchers and eastern wood pewees.