Thursday, January 21,
2016 …
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| 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!!!
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| White pelicans |
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| White pelicans on the sand bar |
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| 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
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| 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!
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| 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
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| 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!
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| The tangled mangrove roots |
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| 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.
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| 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.
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