Topic: Dunbar Cave State Natural Area

Haunting History Tours at Dunbar Cave promises great family fun

October 14, 2009 |

The annual Haunting History Tours of Dunbar Cave will take place this Friday and Saturday from 5:00 to 8:00 PM each evening. See funny and educational skits performed inside the cave by actors from the Roxy Regional Theatre School of the Arts. While it is very exciting to be inside a cave, especially at night and around Halloween, the skits are not scary and are for all ages.

The cost is $5 per person. All funds raised go to the Friends of Dunbar Cave for use in protecting, promoting, and preserving the Dunbar Cave State Natural Area. The price includes the cave tour and hot chocolate or hot cider. Parking is free. You can park in the Dunbar Cave parking lot, or if that is full park at the Swan Lake Golf Course and walk to the visitor’s center. Tours leave the visitor’s center every 15 minutes. No reservations are required. Each person needs a flashlight – bring your own or rent one at the event. Each person must be able to walk on their own, including children, unfortunately the cave cannot be made handicapped accessible.

The 2009 Haunting History Tour Actors

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Wandering at Dunbar Cave

By Dunbar Cave State Natural Area | October 11, 2009 |

Fall is a wonderful time to roam around Dunbar Cave State Natural Area (always staying on the trails, of course!) You will notice the progression of plants you saw earlier in the year, moving from flower to seed. In an earlier article, you saw the Swamp Milkweed (pink ballerina flowers) growing along the lake. Now we see the pods formed by those flowers – green, pointed, holding hundreds of future plants. They are not yet to the point of splitting open and showing the parachute seeds typical of milkweeds.

Swamp Milkweed Pods

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What’s going on at the Dunbar Cave

By Dunbar Cave State Natural Area | September 13, 2009 |

What’s going on at Dunbar Cave is an occasional piece written by Park Interpreter Amy Wallace

Does anyone remember the old song about picking up paw paws, putting them in your pocket, way down yonder in the pawpaw patch? You can find the famous paw paws at Dunbar Cave right now, as well as at other places– and if you beat the possums to them, taste one – kind of like a sickly sweet very ripe banana. How do you know if one is ripe? Shake the tree (and duck) – if they fall off, they are ripe. Some people make breads and puddings from the pulp. We prefer to leave them for the possums and other creatures that need them for food. The leaves of pawpaw trees are also neat – they smell like green peppers.

Pawpaw fruits

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What’s going on at Dunbar Cave

By Dunbar Cave State Natural Area | August 2, 2009 |

What’s going on at Dunbar Cave is an occasional piece written by Park Interpreter Amy Wallace

Flowers that are blooming now include Swamp Milkweed, a pink ballerina-looking flower that can be found at the edge of the lake; Ironweed, a rich deep purple flower with a stem that can reach 9 feet or more; Orange Coneflower, found in one spot along the lake shore (looks a lot like a black-eyed Susan); Creeping Primrose, a yellow flower that actually grows in the water at the edge of the lake; Wild Sensitive Plant, that looks like a small mimosa tree, has small yellow flowers; Tick Trefoil, with three leaflets and a pealike lavender or pink flower (this will later have the brown triangular seeds that stick all over your clothes); and Tall Bellflower, with blue flowers, found growing near the rock walls on the way to the cave.

Clematis fruit

We also have the fruits of flowers from earlier in the summer – the alien looking fruit of the Wild Clematis and the round green ball (will turn dark purple later) that is the fruit of the Yellow Passion Flower.

Our crayfish are coming out onto the banks of the lake and making chimneys to hide while they shed their exoskeleton and the new one hardens. «Read the rest of this article»

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Cooling at the Cave this Saturday

By Debbie Boen | July 22, 2009 |

Cooling at the Cave will be held at the entrance of Dunbar Cave on Saturday, July 25, from 4:00 p.m. untill 6:00 p.m.

Back before there was such a thing as air conditioning, people in this area would gather at Dunbar Cave to enjoy the 58 degree naturally cool air coming out of the cave entrance. While the men worked at jobs during the day, the women, their children and pets would escape the heat by lounging at the cave entrance.  Sometimes the men would join the family for a dinner picnic at the cave.  Tables and chairs were provided where people could play card games and bingo.  At night the tables were pushed aside to make an area for music and dancing.

The use of Dunbar cave to cool down during hot summers is as old as time.

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Trail Work at Dunbar Cave

By Dunbar Cave State Natural Area | July 15, 2009 |

Dunbar Cave State Natural Area and Port Royal Historic Area is lucky to have four summer workers this year, in addition to the regular staff. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) funds the workers through the Summer Youth Work Program of WorkForce Essentials, Inc.

The workers are Teenagers Brooke, James and Kevin; and Scott, who is twenty years old. They have been at the parks since early June and will work through July. They have done everything from cleaning bathrooms and picking up trash to mowing and weed eating. All are working hard and hopefully having fun as well.

Brooke in particular impressed us during her first week on the job when she came upon a copperhead, and not only did not scream or run, but calmly picked it up and moved it off the trail using the “trash grabber” she was carrying.

A Northern Copperhead

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News from the Dunbar Cave State Natural Area

By Dunbar Cave State Natural Area | July 8, 2009 |

We are in a slow period for flowers blooming. The spring flowers are long gone, the end of summer and fall flowers are not up yet. Right now you can see Wild Petunia, Queen Anne’s Lace (not native), Butterfly Weed (an orange milkweed, which unfortunately visitors keep breaking off, so you may or may not be able to see the flowers), clovers, Lopseed, Virginia Knotweed, Wild Potato Vine, Naked-stem Tick Trefoil, Downy False Foxglove, Pencil Flower, and my favorite right now, the Yellow Passion Flower, which is a relative of the much more showy purple, white and yellow state wildflower of Tennessee.

Yellow Passion Flower

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APSU Center of Excellence for Field Biology presents bat study of Dunbar Cave

By Debbie Boen | June 14, 2009 |

Morgan Kurz and Seth McCormick are the current Bat Project students

On Thursday, June 18th at 7 p.m Dr Andrew Barrass and students Seth McCormick and Morgan Kurz will present APSU’s study of the bats inside Dunbar Cave for the Friends of Dunbar Cave meeting.  The meeting will be in the Visitor Center at the Dunbar Cave State Natural Area.  This event is free, and open to the public. The presentation will include several segments of their research using a Power Point slide show, posters of cave surveys,  photos of bats in the cave, and more.

For the last three years, the APSU’s Center of Excellence for Field Biology has been researching the bat population in Dunbar Cave. They call it the “Bat Project”. Dr. Andrew N. Barrass is the Project Manager, PI, with The Center of Excellence for Field Biology and an Associate Professor in the Biology Department.

We have been studying the bats in the cave since January of 2006. This was in response to a request by Park officials and State Biologists that recommended a survey of bats, both before and after the construction of the “Bat Friendly” steel gate, at the cave entrance in June 2006.

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What’s going on at Dunbar Cave

By Dunbar Cave State Natural Area | May 30, 2009 |

What’s going on at Dunbar Cave is an occasional piece written by Park Interpreter Amy Wallace

We did our last school group yesterday. It was a fun time, considering we had to slog through four to five inches of mud to get through the first room of the cave. The heavy rain we had the weekend of Mother’s Day flooded the first room of the cave and halfway into the first passageway, depositing sticky slippery clay mud. On that Saturday morning, the water was up to chin height (estimate, we didn’t wade in to see exactly how high it was).

While I was sitting at the cave entrance waiting for a group one day, I saw an Eastern Phoebe feeding her young at the nest at the cave entrance and a Carolina Wren flying to a nest in the window of the old concession stand. «Read the rest of this article»

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The Friends of Dunbar Cave’s Spring Fling is perennial fun

By Debbie Boen | May 10, 2009 |

Dunbar Cave held their annual Spring Fling on Saturday May 9^th.  Despite the rainfilled beginning, hundreds came out to attend guided nature hikes, see live birds of prey (Raptors), reptiles, and other rescued wildlife.

Over the course of the day’s events, visitors took hikes, pausing to look at wildflowers or spot birds along with the general trekking. They learned about bluebirds, backpacking and many other things. Dozens of enthusiastic volunteers helped set up and take down equipment for the event, which was sponsored by the Friends of Dunbar Cave, the Warioto Audubon Chapter, Tennessee Trails Association and TN Wildlife Resources Agency.

Save Our Raptors is a yearly treat at spring fling. Having the opportunity to see these birds of prey up close up is a thrill for everyone who attends. While teaching the crowd about Raptors they flew them back and forth over the crowd’s heads. One gentleman even received a gentle pat on the top of his head by the wing of a Casey the Vulture. «Read the rest of this article»

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