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!