People who visit Fernbank Forest in Atlanta are trying to escape quietly from the bustle of the city. This 65-acre hardwood mature mixed hardwood is the forest of Piedmont province, which grew from the oldest in the United States. Fernbank Forest located in the eastern part of Atlanta is a small remnant of a beautiful untouched forest cover once covered the southeastern part of the Piedmont region.
Most of the original vegetation in the city was destroyed by agriculture and then by urban development. This forest still looks like hundreds of years ago. In Fernbank's forest there are trees of very large large specimens preserved. There is a mature yellow (tulip) poplar and a white oak that are over 150 feet tall. Visitors will also see big red maps, hickory, black oak, south red oak, and American beech trees. Some tall loblolly pines are also mixed. The underlying trees have flowering dogwoods, sourwoods, eastern redbuds, and magnolas. Ferns goes through the embankment of the stream. The trees are labeled so that visitors can easily identify them.
You can see a variety of wild animals that make home the habitat of this forest. Wandering along 1.5 miles of paved road, they may see squirrels, chipmunks, box turtles, and occasionally snakes. Common birds include Blue Jays, Woodpeckers, and Crows. Fernbank Forest is the site of the MAPS program (Monitoring bird productivity and survival). This program monitors the ecosystem of different bird species. A small river flows through the forest, and there is a pond on the site. Exhibits in the basin are adjacent to the pond.
Fernbank Forest is owned by Fernbank Inc., a nonprofit organization that owns the Fernbank Natural History Museum. For the past 48 years, forests have been leased to the Fernbank Science Center, which is operated by the school system of DeKalb County. When the lease began, there was no Fernbank museum. Lease will end in 2012 and real estate management will return to Fernbank Incorporated. As the forest manager, the Science Center permits the surrounding residents to access real estate. Fernbank Inc. plans to continue the educational program started by Science Center.
The access path to the forest is behind the Fernbank Science Center at 165 Heaton Park Drive. The gate is open from Monday to Friday from 2 PM to 5 PM and on Saturdays from 10 AM to 5 PM. It is closed on Sundays. Admission is free. Visitors may want to check the exhibits at the Fernbank Science Center. There is no entrance fee at the Science Center, but the cost of the Planetarium Show is small.
