Credits:

Created by Christine Stephens, Explore Natural Communities Intern Summer 2017, NatureServe.

Sounds: Fishtank bubbles 2, by amanda (soundbible.com); frog croaking, by snottyboy (soundbible.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: Attribution 3.0. Brook20Sec, by acclivity (freesound.org). Licensed under Creative Commons: Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0. Wasp Buzz 1, by wakerone (freesound.org). Public Domain. 

Music: Easy Lemon, by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: Attribution 3.0.

Photos: Red Maple Blackgum Seepage Swamp by Kerry Skiff and Alli Kenlan. Licensed under Creative Commons: Attribution 4.0.

References:
The Natural Communities of Virginia
The Springs and Seeps of Tennessee

Transcript

This podcast mentions the interactive map of Prince William Forest Park. Check it out! 

Podcast time: 3:29 minutes

[music starts]

Here, you've come to a very wet area on the Farm to Forest Extension Trail. The park has even placed boards here to help keep your feet dry. At first glance, the water looks like a small stream, [stream sounds] but if you take a closer look, you'll notice that it seems to vanish into the hillside! This is because it's not a stream at all; it's actually a groundwater seep! [bubbling water] The small flow of water it creates feeds the bigger depression to the west called a seepage swamp.

Seepage swamps are pretty rare, because they require specific geology and topography to form. Lucky for you, you've stumbled upon this one! These areas are fed by groundwater that seeps out of the soil often near the bottom of a slope. Water from a seep moves into little pockets in the landscape, gets trapped here, and starts to form pools.

The water and soil in these depressions are slightly acidic because of the kind of bedrock underneath them. This influences the types of plants that are able to grow here. Maybe the easiest to spot and most abundant low-growing plant is skunk cabbage . It has large green leaves that cover the whole area from mid-May to early July.

This community is the Red Maple – Blackgum Seepage Swamp, and surprise (!) it's dominated by red maples  in the canopy. Below the red maples, white oak , blackgum , and ironwood (or American hornbeam) fill the understory. These trees like to grow in wet areas, but aren't particularly fond of having their roots underwater, so you might notice them growing in slightly higher spots in the landscape. These areas seem barely higher, but it's just enough so that trees’ roots don't drown. These subtle elevation changes are called microtopography.

If you were to follow the water flowing from the seep, you'd find that it leads to a large depression. Here, water has accumulated to cover up the microtopography and saturate the soil, so you won't find many trees. Don't go sloshing around off the trail though! It can be really harmful to the sensitive habitat and the small animals here.

This unique community is important to insects like dragonflies and damselflies [insects buzzing] because it provides an excellent habitat for them to live in and lay their eggs. Many species of turtles, frogs, and salamanders also call this habitat home. [frog ribbit and splash] Some of these won’t be found anywhere else besides seepage swamps!

While hiking out to this spot, you may have noticed some trees that looked like they were gnawed by beavers. [chewing sounds] That's because they were! In fact, beavers are common along nearby Quantico Creek and can be easily identified by their big, flat tails. They're a rare sight for hikers, though, since they're nocturnal. When they build dams for shelter, they change the way water flows in an area. This seepage swamp is far enough away from the stream that it doesn't normally flood. But, beaver activity could cause flooding that would disrupt this community and threaten its survival.

Remember how this seep feeds a larger depression? Well there's another point along the Farm to Forest Extension trail just west of here that's a great vantage point to see that part of the Red Maple – Blackgum Seepage Swamp. To go and check it out, pull up the Explore Natural Communities mobile map for Prince William and follow the trail to the marked point!

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