Yesterday my dad and I went for a hike at the Field Trial Area of Highland State Recreation to see how the habitat restoration work was coming along. At this particular area of the park, the Department of Natural Resources has spent a significant amount of time working to restore the area to native grasslands. More specifically, they have implemented prescribed burning and weed management to bring the land back to its former "black oak barrens" character. What amazes me most about this place is the immense scale of the restoration. There's really no other place locally where you can see black oak barrens at the landscape scale. There are a lot of small high quality examples around which are nice when analyzing specific plants, but the quality of this place is its grand scale that allows you to understand how the area looked historically.
This time of the year you can see alot more of the variation among different forms of vegetation. Pines stand in dark contrast to the oaks, while the native prairie grasses (orange clumps) can be easily distinguished from the wildflowers and non-native grasses. In a couple of areas, the native grasses are so bright that it feels like it illuminates the space around you. Little bluestem, the most colorful of the native grasses, adds a lot of color to the winter landscape, which is otherwise dull and drabby (especially on a cloudy day).
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