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Rudy tells us about a butterfly that he has only recently seen in South Carolina.

On our visit to the Beidler Forest manager Matt Johnson spotted five snakes – three water moccasins and two banded water snakes. To distinguish between them, see if the eyeball is round and therefore a non-venomous water snake rather than the moccasins’ slit-eyed pupil. But that means using binoculars or getting too close for safety!

Beidler Forest Audubon Center’s manager Matt Johnson said this is red-letter year for the larvae of the Eastern Tent Caterpillar. They were everywhere, the boardwalk was covered in frass, the polite word for insect poop, they were even falling on us from the trees! Although they covered with seta, hair-like bristles that sometimes cause serious skin irritation, these caterpillars are harmless to touch. Among the one hundred forty birds that spend all of part of their life at Beidler, are the yellow cuckoos. They sit by the nests of these caterpillars and gleefully strip the bristles off, devouring up to one hundred at a time. When startled by loud noises, such as thunder, they make a croaking sound, giving rise to the nickname rain crows. They lay eggs over a relatively long period of time; often depositing them in the nests of other birds.

The original purchase of eighteen hundred acres of virgin cypress and tupelo gum swampland is the heart of Beidler Forest. Imagine a place where several cypress trees are documented as being over one thousand years old. Cypress trees are well adapted to withstanding hurricanes; they are, compared to pines, flexible, and their extensive knees that develop when growing in wetlands probably provides extra stability. But this virgin forest does not look all that old – there are mostly large but not huge trees and many small ones, as well. Hurricanes and other natural forces change even woodlands not disturbed by man. At Beidler, they leave trees as they age and as they fall (unless they are a danger to visitors on the boardwalk). We saw standing dead trees full of holes from pileated woodpeckers – they’re fond of carpenter ants that eat rotten wood.

This week Bobbi Conner talks with Dr. Daniel Smith about a new (free) app (called Transcend) for smartphones and tablets, created to support individuals who have survived mass trauma. Dr. Smith is the Director of Technology and Resources at the National Mass Violence Victimization Resource Center at MUSC.

Much of the Beidler Forest is a swamp – a flooded forest where the water level fluctuates rather dramatically, some areas may occasionally be completely dry. The water doesn’t come from streams or springs but from rainfall draining from the four hundred and thirty thousand acres watershed above Four Holes Swamp, of which Beidler is a part. Think of a swamp as a massive porous surface – rainwater can slowly infiltrate the soil and pollutants – fertilizers, motor oil from roadways, industrial waste, sewage -- are broken down by soil organisms into non-toxic substances. The water level fluctuates with rainfall but inexorably slowly flows across the land, from wetter to drier sites before ending in the Edisto River. After excess rainfall events, that slow passage mitigates flooding of that River and adds cleansed water for the backup supply of Charleston’s drinking water.

Our crew spent a glorious day filming at the Beidler Forest Audubon Center recently, the original portion of which was purchased from the Beidler family in the 1960’s. Francis Beidler was a Chicago businessman who with partner Benjamin Ferguson established the Santee Cypress Lumber Company in eighteen eighty one, purchasing one hundred sixty five thousand acres in central South Carolina. This company was extremely profitable as old growth cypress lumber was highly desirable for building. The timber operations and mills were usually near large “blackwater” creeks to facilitate moving the enormous., ancient cut logs. Sadly, for the country’s economy but ultimately fortunate for the ecosystem, a slump in business in 1915 prompted Mr. Beidler to shut down all his timbering for a time. Eventually, portions of his properties became the Congaree National Park and the Francis Beidler Audubon Center.

A listener finds a huge... tadpole? On the shore?

“W” is for Walterboro (Colleton County; population 5364). Just after the Revolutionary War, rice planters from the Edisto, Combahee, and Ashepoo Ricers, tired of an annual summer jaunt of fifty miles to Charleston, created an alternate refuge from the malarial swamps closer to home. By the 1790s, among local forests and freshwater springs, they built a village that they called Walterboro. Profits from rice and indigo produced by enslaved black labor brought prosperity. In 1817 the town became the seat of Colleton District. An elegant brick courthouse designed by Robert Mills was complete in 1822. Four years later the town was incorporated. In 1828, Robert Barnwell Rhett launched the nullification movement at the Walterboro Courthouse. Throughout the antebellum period in the years preceding the Civil War, Walterboro was a hotbed of states’ rights sentiment.

The first time I interviewed our next guest, several years ago, the entire market capitalization of all cryptocurrencies was around $40 billion. Recently, the market value of Bitcoin alone crossed $1 trillion. What is going on? Are we really on the verge of a sea change in payment systems?Mike Switzer interviews Allen Gillespie, a chartered financial analyst with Fintrust Capital Advisors in Greenville, SC.