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Three Runs Plantation land donation featured in The Conservation Chronicle
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If you only used your ears as you walked into the 22-plus acres in Three Runs Plantation donated to the Aiken Land Conservancy by Wayne Raiford, you would know what kind of country you were going through. The Kildeer tells you there are meadows on either side of the entrance road. The Yellow Throated Warbler, sings his "Please, please it's hard to chew" song from the top of a tall old oak at the field edge. And the Common Yellow-throat, deep in the thicket beside Upper Three Runs Creek says you are coming to wetland,and indeed here, open water.
The bird life also tells you that this is a healthy ecosystem, the mowed meadow ecotone gently sloping down to the wetland, the heavy border of brush where meadow and flood plain meet, and then the more open flood plain bordering the creek itself. In fact, this donation is a buffer to one of the most pristine creeks in the entire United States � Upper Three Runs Creek. Upper Three Runs, and its main tributaries, Cedar Creek and Tinker Creek, drain 218 miles of Aiken County. Approximately half of the watershed of the 40-mile-long creek is located on the Department of Energy's Savannah River Site, with the remaining half on private, city, and county lands in Aiken County. Biological inventories conducted by scientists from Clemson University and The University of Georgia have identified more species of aquatic insects (nearly 1,000) in Upper Three Runs Creek and its tributaries than in any other stream in the world. In addition, rare plants such as Atlantic white cedar and Oconee azalea, more than 60 species of fish,70 species of reptiles and amphibians, and numerous songbirds are known from the stream corridor. It is a true ecological paradise. Going to the creek with a dip net and a child brings the joy of finding new invertebrates with every dip, as well as the possibility of siting a variety of frogs and salamanders.
As the area begins to develop, this buffer contributes to the critical protection of a special resource. We are grateful to Mr. Wayne Raiford for making this important donation. And go see it for yourself. Find a friend who lives in the Plantation to show you the entrance and the trail, then bushwhack your way to the creek. On second thought, it's so thick this time of year that the butterflies and wildflowers in the meadow may be enough of an incentive. If you wait until late fall, it will be easier to scramble through the holly thickets and down to the open water of the creek.
Click here to view a PDF version of this article and the complete Aiken Land Conservancy June newsletter.
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