Bald Cypress Trail at First Landing State Park

First Landing State Park is a significant area for Americans. The name reflects a rich history of being right on Cape Henry, where the settlers "first landed" in 1607 before heading to Jamestown to officially settle. I'm planning on doing a more in-depth blog on that history, but the park itself is a fantastic place. I went right as summer was winding down. The heat was still in the air, but the thick trees of the park created a relaxing, shaded place to hike and see nature. I got some great nature photos and wanted to show them here.

The great thing about living in Charleston, SC and Saratoga Springs, NY, is that living in Virginia is the best of both worlds for them. I get aspects I love of the north here, and aspects I love of the south. One aspect is the swamps of the south. The trail I took, Bald Cypress Trail, made me feel like I was back in South Carolina.

As you can see, this trail shows off the wetlands of the park. The murky water was distinct and swampy. This was in the middle of the trail, but it's the most significant part and what the Bald Cypress Trail is known for. I'll go more in depth later on what these trees are called and what those stumps are. I just thought this would be a good beginning photo since it's the most known representation of the trail. My next photos will be in the order I took them on the trail.

The trees when first entering the trail. It almost looked like some exotic jungle with the thin trunks and winding vines all over.

Here was a good shot of just how large and looming the trees are. It's hard to tell from some far away photos, even the big trees can look pretty thin. But no, there are some large trees in this area. Like I said, the perfect representation of the north and south. They have small and big trees. You can also see the thick canopy cover at the bottom left of the photo creating the refreshing shade.

A hollowed out log to create a cozy home for a creature. Especially with the cold season starting. 

Seeing this reminded me of my blog of the fairy woods up in New York. Life finding a way and seeing new growth. 

The Bald Cypress Trail had some great outlooks over the swampy terrain. I love how in this state you can have an area like this, with swamps and thin trees. Then you can thicker forests with pine and sycamore trees.

I mainly take photos of mushrooms because my best friend loves mushroom hunting. Something interesting about Virginia Beach though is that I've seen more mushrooms here than anywhere else growing in the sand near the beach. 

I was extremely excited to see the leaves starting to change color. It's trivial now, being November, but when I took this I was so ready for summer and the heat to be over. This was one of the first signs I saw of Autumn.

There were a few wooden overlooks on this trail. There were TONS of turtles, frogs, and dragonflies all over. I stood there for awhile not making much noise, and that's how I was able to get so many good looks at the wildlife. They didn't realize I was there.

I believe this is a green frog. The only reason I saw it was because it's cute, little head was poking out. Its body was completely camouflaged to the murky water and plants in it.

A dragonfly. There were so many flying around, I was happy to get a shot of one standing still.

I can't tell but this looks like another green frog. Its face looks to have that green coloration while it's body is that camouflaged dark green. It's legs are so long though - I bet it can jump far.

A spider eating a dragonfly. This picture sure does exemplify the hot weather season over here. Tons of creepy crawlies around, surviving in their own circle of life.

A zoomed in photo of the spider eating the dragonfly, because I wanted to give you all the heebie-jeebies.

I know it's hard to see, but there's a frog under all of that algae. It truly hid itself from everyone.  

 Another green frog I think! I thought it would be another type since its face isn't green, but it has webbed feet which rules out a lot of other types of frogs in the area.

The little one was very photogenic. I even got the little details of its rough skin texture.

A very bright mushroom growing out of the ground. I remember its vivid color stood out to me on my hike.

This turtle was very quiet and it took awhile to spot it hiding in the shrubbery and on the shore sunbathing. 

I love this photo because it shows off the surface floating algae on the water. It looks like a swamp right out of Louisiana or something. 

Now here's something interesting. This guy right above me was HUGE. I heard a loud noise and looked over and a lot of water was moving. Its back got caught on a log which made it look bigger, but you can see the head itself is the size of the body of the sunbathing turtle from before. I asked the ranger about it, and he said they had a lot of enormous snapping turtles in the park. They get pretty large there and stay in the deep parts of the water. I took a video of it swimming - unfortunately, it was at the end of its time above water and it went behind some plants then went down below the surface. I posted the video on my YouTube connected to this blog.

 

Here it is up top, and if it doesn't go through here's the link : 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgDkhCfCRz8

I know the video isn't the best, but that snapping turtle was tremendous, like a little alligator or something. 

After all of that excitement, here's one last photo I got on this wooden overlook of a little frog peaking its head up above the water.

The contrast of this magenta-colored leaf on the tan needles was very pretty to me. You can see the leaf has tiny patches of green in it too.

Here's another photo of the trees in the water. I like the three different shades of brown at the bottom of their trunks. One thing it said in the pamphlet for this hike, is that those little stumps aren't dead. The live trees called the pneumatophore tree, grow what are called these "knees" out from their roots. Then they grow straight up out of the water, and help give oxygen to the tree roots itself. It's pretty amazing.

The last photo I took on the trail was this diagonal tree and its spiderweb roots. It was a beautiful picture to me.

So there's my hike on the Bald Cypress Trail at First Landing State Park. I saw a lot of interesting nature, and just re-hiked the trail last week. It's not as green now that it's gotten colder, but there were a lot more squirrels running around. It's a delightful trail and I truly enjoyed it. I hope it felt like you got to enjoy the hike with me. We saw some pretty exciting sights in it.