Day 2 in the Florida Everglades -- January, 2016

Thursday, January 21, 2016 …

Red shouldered hawk

Traveling back into the Everglades National Park, it is a beautiful sunny morning.  Several red-shouldered hawks are perched on top of the trees along the edge of the roads. The expansive saw grass sloughs continue to be the dominant vegetation.  It is interesting, however, that dotted throughout the sloughs are clumps of taller trees.  Some are depressions where trees like bald cypress, pond apple, mangrove and others grow with their roots constantly in water.  But many are hammocks, which have an elevation of a just a few inches and where hardwood trees form an ecological island.  Each hammock is unique in the types of trees and its habitat.  These trees require a dry area, as their roots cannot be in water for any long period of time.  Pines, mahogany, gumbo limbo and various types of palms are common.  It’s hard to imagine, but in the past, Native Americans lived in these hammocks … I’m not sure this would be the life for me among the mosquitoes, snakes and alligators!!!

White pelicans

White pelicans on the sand bar

White pelicans flying overhead

At Flamingo we are at the end of the solid ground of the southern tip of Florida.  A short trail takes us through more jungle-like terrain, and we thoroughly enjoyed the boat ride to the southern tip of the Everglades, that also being the southern tip of the continental US.  Manatees came up to the dock for a drink of fresh water and hundreds and hundreds of white and brown pelicans skimmed inches above the water, stood on the sand bars or were dive bombing for fish … quite an entertaining sight!  There were several man-made osprey nests … all occupied with these birds that mate for life.  One osprey also dazzled us as he flew around the bay with a fish in its talons. Another pair chased away a bald eagle looking for osprey

Osprey

eggs or chicks. Several dolphins were playing near the boat, and we were even fortunate enough to see a very bright pink roseate spoonbill. Apparently it is rare to see them, as their numbers have declined substantially.  The renowned flamingos are also rarely seen here with fewer than a hundred living in the area these days because of the extensive hunting of them for feathers in the past and because of the ecological changes that have occurred.  What did surprise me, though, is that the water throughout the Florida bay area is only 4-5 feet deep … most places less, so our captain was very careful where he drove the boat! 

crocodile

Other birds sighted today were anhingas, of course!, a great blue heron, a little blue a heron, an immature little blue heron (they are white until about two years old), a tri-colored heron plus the southern bald eagle. Both crocodiles and alligators live in the Everglades, and we saw a crocodile in the canal near the visitors’ center.  It was difficult for me to tell the difference, but the crocodile has a much narrower snout that comes to a peak and has a tooth showing when its mouth is closed. They are also much longer and faster than the alligator.

After the boat ride we headed back out of the park but made two more stops.  We headed to the

Mangroves

boardwalk of West Lake where we actually walked within the mangroves. Mangroves are trees with very shiny leaves that have adapted to grow chiefly along tropical coastal swamps that flood at high tide.  They have a complex salt filtration and root system and have numerous tangled roots above ground that form a very dense thicket.  Also within that thicket are thousands of breathing tubes which look like very thick soda straws sticking up through the water. Simply fascinating!

The tangled mangrove roots

The breathing tubes of the mangroves

Our last stop was at Mahogany Hammock where we walked through a tree island that had quite a few huge mahogany trees … some of the few large trees remaining that did not get harvested for lumber. Gumbo limbo trees, many types of palm trees, strangler figs and numerous other vegetative plans formed this very dense, unique hammock.

A giant mahogany tree

This post would not be complete without mentioning the ecological alarm of the python invasion in the everglades.  It is now estimated there are over 100,000 pythons here. They have no natural predators and are so elusive it is difficult to impossible to eradicate them. This means that the mammal population within the glades has declined dramatically … rodents, deer, panthers, river otters, rabbits … all will continue to decline.  It is believed the python will never be eradicated, and what this means to this delicate ecosystem we do not know!

Our meandering through the Everglades did not entail a black swamp teeming with man-eating alligators, slithering snakes or hordes of disease-carrying insects as is often imagined of this area!  It is such a vast area with so many variables that it cannot be described in just one statement.  And reading about it just does not do it justice!  I have to admit I wasn’t quite sure if I wanted to encounter a snake (which we didn’t) or an alligator or crocodile (be careful!) or deal with mosquitoes (luckily there were very few) … but it is a venture that I’d recommend to anyone, especially to understand the inter-connectedness and delicate balance of all plants, animals and water!

And our journey wasn’t complete until we stopped at one of the nurseries here in south Florida to pick up a few $5 orchids!  Now the challenge is to keep them alive and flourishing!!  Blessings.

The Everglades -- January, 2016

Wednesday, January 20, 2016

Typical bromelaid

We meandered through some of the back roads of Florida across the Big Cypress National Preserve, with a destination to explore the Everglades.  First there are acres and acres of orange groves and other fruit and vegetable farms, then through the partially fenced Preserve with its warnings of Panther Crossings (no, we never saw an endangered Florida Panther).  The terrain is flat, flat, flat … or so it seems!  It is forested through the Preserve with mangroves, mahogany hardwoods, the leafless bald cypress trees (dropped for the winter), many varieties of palm trees and the wispy slash pines  beckoning you to glide your hands through their extra long, silky needles. In most of the trees we see  bromelaids , those grassy bunches of air plants which symbiotically attach themselves to trees and bushes for their mutual benefit. This is a prevalent sight all throughout southern Florida. As we travel along the Tamiami Trail both through the Preserve and along the northern border of The Everglades National Park, we start to get glimpses of the “sea of grass”, that vast swampy area of tall saw grass .  It’s called saw grass because of the tiny, sharp teeth along each strand that helps to collect water and discourage animals from foraging.

"Sea of grass" saw grass in the Everglades

Shark Valley    … Our first stop is at the Shark Valley Visitor Center on the northern edge of the Everglades National Park.  We took a stroll along the Bobcat Boardwalk, a short walk through the prairie. The fascinating shiny leaves of the coco plum trees whose roots grow in the water, the saw grass swamps --- the mainstay of the Everglade sloughs covering hundreds of square miles – the graceful anhinga with its impressive wing span spread wide open to dry off in the warm sun, the alligator lazily slithering through the canal and the great blue heron resting on a mangrove tree all greeted us this morning. 

We boarded the tram, which drove us about fifteen miles through the slough with a stop mid-way to climb up the 65-foot tower for a panoramic view of the Glades.  It was thrilling to see quite a few more alligators, dozens of white ibis and great egrets and a few more great blue herons and red shouldered hawks.  The history of this area is interesting, as well as disheartening.  Prior to the 1800s, the everglades actually extended all the way up to central Florida to Lake Okeechobee with water drainage coming from as far north as Orlando. While the entire area is flat, there is an ever-so-slight drop in elevation down to the Florida bay and a very wide and very shallow river of slow-moving water made its way down through the saw grass to the ocean every year. For every inch the elevation drops, the habitat and vegetation also changes. As the City of Miami expanded, and logging decimated the trees in the glades, and as the swamps were drained for farmland south of Lake Okeechobee, the delicate balance of the everglades was disrupted. Habitat changed and many species of wading birds declined to the point of near extinction.

Anhinga drying its wings

By 1947, the value of the area was realized and 1.5 million acres was established as the Everglades National Park.  Today the park is the second largest national park in the lower 48 states but occupies only one-fifth of its original total area. Over the decades canals have been created to channel all the water in southern Florida. The Florida government decides the use of that channeled
water … first for human use, second for agricultural purposes and third, for the Everglades.  I was pleased to hear that there is a massive, unprecedented 30-year Restoration Plan in place to

Florida Alligator

return water to its more natural patterns of quantity, timing and distribution throughout the South Florida ecosystem.

Royal Palm, Pinelands Trail and Pa-hay-okee Overlook … After leaving Shark Valley, we traveled south along the eastern edge of the Park through the rich, fertile area where every form of

Great Blue Heron caught
his dinner

fruit, vegetable and nursery plant conceivable are grown.  As we entered the Park, we stopped at the Royal Palm Visitor Center where we first hiked along the boardwalk of Anhinga Trail.  A large alligator enthralled us with how still he could just lay there, just 5 feet away!  And a Great Blue Heron put on quite a show with a Large Mouth Bass lanced on its beak, thoroughly drying it out for quite some time before having his dinner!  Anhingas, great egrets and white ibex are readily visible.  The Gumbo Limbo trail had quite a different feel.  That walkway is through the jungle-like tropical hammock.  I had never heard of a gumbo limbo tree before … a hardwood tree with a very smooth, waxy red bark … interesting! 

Liguus Tree Snail

The Pinelands Trail took us through a subtropical pine forest that is maintained by periodic fire. Here we were fortunate enough to find quite a few the liguus tree snails with their beautiful colored stripes clinging to the tree trunks.  They are active only during the wet season, when they descend from the trees to mate and lay eggs.  This area has only two seasons – wet and dry.  An average of 60 inches of rain falls per year, mostly during June through September when all but the highest hardwood hammocks are under water. During the dry season, the water recedes, small ponds and depressions are left where the fish congregate and where the water fowl can now “fish” for food to feed their “families” with greater ease. This year, however, this area has experienced continued rainfall even into January; so there is still standing water throughout the sloughs, which limits the viewing of wildlife and water fowl.

Finally, we hiked the boardwalk of Pa-hay-okee Overlook.  It is here that we were again amazed at

Great Egret

the massive “sea of grass” of saw grass, where we heard the hoot of an owl (but could not locate to view) and where we had a wonderful rare sighting of a wood stork.  Today they are quite elusive because it is difficult for them to “fish” to feed their families due to the high water.  Where normally they would be nesting this time of year, just the slightest deviation in water elevation results in the wood stork failing to nest … all leading to their decline in numbers.

We spent the night in Florida City … having had quite a few new experiences and newfound knowledge of this interesting area of our country!