March 17, 2007 - Lovers Key State Park, FL
Happy St. Patrick's day to you! Hope you had a chance to remember why it's celebrated and, no, it's not so we can drink green beer.....
First, Mom Kerry with James, then older brother Huck with James, and then Robin and Huck (oldest sister at 18) with James. James seems to be content with it all, which is pretty typical for this family. There were 21 years between my oldest brother and my younger brother, for what it's worth (and 26 years between Barb's oldest sister and her younger sister). Yeah, we're still being proud grandparents!
After we'd spent most the day at the Collier-Seminole park enjoying the festivities, we took the six-mile ride to the Fakahatchee Strand State Preserve. It's unmanned by paid staff, only volunteers, and free. Consists of a fairly short boardwalk through the swamp, with a chance of seeing all kinds of critters as well as plants.
Some of the birds were easy to spot, like this Great Egret and others like the Great Blue Heron in full mating plumage were harder.
At the end of the boardwalk was a small pond, and this Great Blue Heron was doing its "swan act"--it was just floating there, looking like a swan. Except for one major difference. It can't swim around very well like that because its feet aren't webbed! Was I ever glad to see it doing this as it prompted a conversation with the volunteer who had stationed himself here for the day. You may recall when we were at the Corps of Engineers park in OK, I'd seen both Great Egrets and Great Blue Herons floating on the surface grabbing the small fish (shad) that were being eaten from below by the striped bass. Well, I'd not been able to get a definitive answer as to whether this was typical behavior for the birds or if it was just in Lake Texoma that they did that. Now I know that while it's not common, it's not unusual for the birds to do this occasionally. Shortly after we arrived, it flew over to the log and began to preen and dry off.
The resident 'gator could be seen sunning itself on the opposite bank, but of course, we didn't see any evidence of the big cats that live here.
Barb gets a big kick out of the way these turtles will "spread their wings" apparently to gather in some warmth (turtle on right with legs extended).
Ferns are prolific in the swamp as you can imagine, but seeing the serrated edges like these isn't all that common. At least to us, it's not.
Nice reflection on a small pond and a few shots of the boardwalk. We sure appreciate the work that goes into these plentiful Florida boardwalks. We get the chance to get up close and personal with both wildlife and plants without any significant effort on our part.
The brochure says:
"Human activity at the Fakahatchee Strand has been documented as far back as 2500 years. Archaeologists have noted several sites in the park indicating pre-Columbian Indian activities.
"The remains of an early pioneer settlement known as Daniels Point lie at the southern tip of the preserve, where the Fakahatchee and East rivers empty into Fakahatchee Bay. John Daniels raised his family and scratched out a living here from the early 1900's to 1940's. Another settlement of several families lived on Fakahatchee Island directly across the bay from Daniels Point. This settlement was large enough to support a school that the Daniels children traveled by boat to attend.
"From 1944-54, a timber company harvested bald cypress trees in the Fakahatchee Strand. Earthen tram roads were built for a narrow gauge railroad to extend into the swamp to haul out the large cypress logs. Today these old tram roads, approximately 192 miles of them, are overgrown with upland forest vegetation. A few are kept clear for access and hiking."
Barb and I did a "swamp walk" in the central part of the Strand in 2004 while visiting another part of the Big Cypress Swamp. You can read about it here if you're interested.
So, what'er those crazy guys doing down there trying not to get cut by the oysters, or stuck by the sand burrs, or covered with mud? Get my fish out of the hole it went into that's what! That's our neighbor Ron giving good advice like "Get it outa there before it breaks off, will 'ya?"
Lively little Black Grouper. Getting into holes is a defense tactic this fish uses, so nothing unusual about that. And look at those teeth! But they were "soft" teeth in that they bend easily. Huge mouth for a fish this size.
Cool 'camo suit the fish wears, eh? It was too short to eat, so maybe I'll catch it again someday 'cause back in the drink it went.
Then on a morning walk, we were surprised by a couple of ducks paddling around in the canal under the tram bridge. Don't see many ducks like these around here.
Same morning walk, and we found that a recent storm had caused enough wave action to break up lots of red algae and wash it up on the beach. Sort of a mess for the sunbathers, but those in the know were happy to see it because it brings up all kinds of goodies for the birds to eat, and it tends to help stabilize the beach a little besides. Flies are attracted to it though, but that's the nature of nature, don't you know. Barb (in the blue jacket) is, of course, ignoring it and looking for some special shells.
This is called a Sheepshead. Wonder why? Those teeth look like a sheep's teeth that's why. And unlike the Black Grouper, these teeth aren't "soft" at all! And neither is the inside of its mouth. This fish makes a living eating oysters and other shellfish and so far I can't find if it just grows more teeth when one breaks off . This particular one is within its "slot" size, so we ate it. Wonderful white meat and a strong fighter. Great fun to catch on the lightweight tackle I use.
Just so you don't get the impression that all we do here is play, we've included a few shots of some of the work we do. Barb's driving the little tractor with the auger on it because I'm driving the big tractor out to the parking lots where we'll replace some wooden posts with handicap parking signs on them with metal ones, installing some signs where they're needed, and changing others to make them compliant with the ADA. That's "Americans with Disabilities Act.". Major pain for the park as we've had to put benches with longer seats everywhere that a "normal" person can't sit on comfortably any more and stuff like that. One couple I talked to (she was in a wheelchair) said that it was stupid to expect her to go through the trouble to get out of her comfortable chair and sit on a bench with no arm rests and no cushion. No, I'm not particularly concerned with being politically correct, why do you ask?
Then just recently we worked on the Tram bridge. Seems the drivers occasionally get distracted and hit this corner. So volunteers repair it. And tram drivers hit it, and volunteers repair it. Then Barb and I get asked to repair it again. Only Barb says, "Hey, why do we keep fixing it and it only gets knocked off again? Why don't we just round it off nice and paint it?" Well, I don't have a good answer to that question, so we hunt down Matt, the Park Assistant Manager, and ask him that same question to which he says, "Go for it!" in typical fashion. It's such fun to work with a crew who so easily accept workable solutions. Like those handicap signs we were installing? The new metal posts we were given for the new signs were too short to really be any good--to get the proper sign height we'd only have about a foot of the post to put in the ground (not near enough). So, we bolted the metal post on a wooden extension that would be totally underground, and when the suggestion was made, we heard that same "Go for it!" again. I'm grinding down the rough spots, and Barb's painting the bridge's concrete railing blocks.
That's the Tram Bridge we're working on. If you look carefully, you can see the foot bridge beyond the Tram Bridge (the tram makes a sharp left turn at the end of the first bridge) and beyond that, the Gulf of Mexico.
Next "project" for us. Keeping the grass from overtaking the main drive into the park. I had no idea the driveways were so long until we started this little project.
Elmer pretty much runs the trimmer, and I was pretty much following along with a shovel, and Barb was running the blower to clean up after us. But Barb had wandered back to the shop to get some more weed killer, and I got to run the blower for a little bit.
Barb comes back with the weed killer and recaptures the blower while I'm spraying the weeds that have begun to grow up through the asphalt. Elmer's the only one who's really working on this project. I took over the trimmer for a little while......just long enough so my shirt looked like I'd been working, though. Tough grass. In CA where I was raised, we called something like this Bermuda Grass, and where Elmer grew up it was called St. Augustine Grass, and where Barb grew up it was called weeds. It may even have more names before we're done with it.
A couple of pretty sunrise shots Barb took while on shelling expeditions here in the park. First one is from that Tram Bridge, the second one is from the southern most point on the beach, right on New Pass. That bridge in the background is Estero Blvd., also known as Hwy. 865.
At first I was going to just put these bird pictures in another slideshow, but there's just too much to say about them.
The first shot is of a cormorant that sort of followed Barb all morning while she was shelling, and it gives a good idea of the kind of wave action we get from the Gulf when it's "normal" and calm. The Roseate Spoonbill is a pretty bird that gets darker pink as it ages (it is sometimes confused with the Flamingo because of its color, but Flamingos live further south than where we are). We don't have a lot of them here, and it's always sort of exciting when we do see them.
We find it interesting the way different birds will mingle. Whether feeding, like this Little Blue Heron on the mud flats with a small flock of Roseate Spoonbills or these Sandwich Terns with a Black Skimmer. The skimmer has its head buried--must be nap time.
There, the skimmer finally got his head out from under its wing. At another place in the flock of terns, an immature gull is peacefully sitting. Both Barb and I get a kick out of these terns, and we're never positive of their identification. They usually look like they're having a bad hair day, and they change colors between their winter and summer plumage.
Ann loves the beach. Shelling, birding, or just walking, she loves the beach. And I guess its "head under the wing" time for lots of the terns, leaving the Black Skimmer to stand watch. Only they don't do a very good job of watching out for trouble. You can almost step on them before they scatter, and I've weaved my bike through a flock of them and had a little movement, but none flew away.
There's some prime examples of why we think of "bad hair day" when we see these birds. The little beach comber is a real cutie, isn't she. There's always something fun to watch wherever we go in the park.
Here's the rest of the flock of terns (mostly) and a close-up of a landing about to take place, and not going unnoticed, either!
Almost like there'd been a command, most of the flock took off. Then some more ducks on the mud. Can't see them well enough for positive identification.
And finally, the old "can you find the bird" trick. It's usually movement that gives them away. Both pictures are the same shot, the one to the right is just cropped so the bird is more obvious