verdure
Blue Spring State Park
Wednesday, April 17th, 2013

In winter when the sea water cools, manatees swim up rivers to springs that have consistent temperatures. The springs have cooler temperatures than manatees prefer, but generally it’s warm enough to make it through the cold snaps of Florida winters. Blue Spring State Park has a link to a site that posts updates about how many manatees have been spotted recently. A few days after a count in mid January reported of a couple dozen manatees, we visited the park, which is a bit north of Orlando. Mike’s picture:

spring run

Unlike the Ichetucknee, there is very little vegetation in the spring run, so there is nothing for the manatees to eat. There are viewing platforms periodically along the spring run, but the manatees that we saw seemed to prefer hanging out at the far side, as far away from the people as possible, and at the end of the run near where it empties into the St Johns River. During manatee season, the spring run is off limits to swimming, diving and boating. What were much easier to see were the large and numerous alligator gar.

gar

At the head of the springs, “a first magnitude spring that discharges 104 million gallons of water daily” (State Park website), we watched a green anole drink from palmetto fronds. This and the rest are Mike’s pictures, and he did the processing as well.

green anole

Black Vultures were perched on the far side of the run.

black vultures

cormorant

alligator and turtles

There is a nature trail in the south of the park. It has a long exposed stretch that would be without shade until mid or late afternoon. As we were there late morning, we turned around a bit after the ruins of a small house.

gopher tortoise

mushies

cloudless sulphur

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Foggy Sawgrass
Wednesday, April 17th, 2013

On a foggy morning in early January we went to Sawgrass Lake Park.

dark bench

There was dew on everything. This and the rest are Mike’s. He also did photo processing.

drops

The two story western overlook had several birds nearby.

moorhen

immature little blue heron

spikey haired Pied-billed Grebe

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Jelks Preserve
Tuesday, April 2nd, 2013

We headed south to Jelks preserve a few days before Christmas with new camera bags to try out. Mike was just getting over a bad cold, so we took a shorter loop than we normally would. There are several shortcut trails crossing the main loop around the 614 acres. One edge of the park borders the Myakka River. The parking lot is in a more arid, open area, but as you get closer to the river and the trees get thicker, the blankets of epiphytes on the trees tint the entire canopy pink.

trail

air plant

sori on underside of resurrection fern

fern

Quill-leaf and air plants, Mike’s, as are the rest in this post

quill-leaf

Deadly poisonous rosary pea

pea

orange on pink

It had been cold recently, and the armadillos were out. One of them squeeked at us and scampered off.

nine-banded

Across the river a spunky kingfisher landed on a dead palm, although still quite far away

fisher

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unplanned Alligator Lake
Friday, March 29th, 2013

We took a weekend trip back to North Florida in early December, intending to go to Big Shoals State Park. Big Shoals is northeast of White Springs, a small community that Mike said looks about the same as he remembered from over two decades ago, hidden from the march of modernization by a cloak of poverty. We passed by worn buildings and rotting railroad tracks. Near the single blinking amber/red lighted intersection, a church’s food pantry had a line of people collecting items. On the highway to Lake City there was an inspection station manned with a police car that said that all trucks, pickups and vans had to pull over. The pickups on the road with us weren’t stopping though. We drove the GTO, which is a much more comfy ride than my pickup, but it’s not made for rough or unpaved roads. It turns out that both entrances to the park are long stretches of dirt. So, we headed to Alligator Lake Park instead, which is all paved.

It was one of the foggiest mornings I’ve seen in Florida. The slight chill and crunching leaves under foot made it feel like fall, which really doesn’t reach further south.

path

Lantern plants don’t seem to be native.

lanterns

spiderwort

spiderwort

It wasn’t until around noon that the fog burned off and it warmed up enough for the insects to start flittering about. There were gulf frittilaries, as there usually are, but the other butterflies were cliquish, with several members of a species near each other but not seen in other areas of the park, seemingly more tightly grouped than changes in habitats would make likely.

Hedriodiscus trivittatus (soldier) fly

lady

long tailed skipper

bee

damsel

red waisted florella moth, by Mike

florella

We also managed to get more flitty bird pictures than our usual collection of blurry bird butts.

yellow throated warbler

yellow

cardinal. This and the rest of the birds are Mike’s.

red

bluegray gnatcatcher

bluegray gnatcatcher

palm warbler

palm

black and white warbler

black and white warbler

coot

coot

And some reptiles:

alligator by Mike

teeth

green anole

eyeshadow

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sky and water dwelling
Thursday, March 7th, 2013

First, mine, of sky dwelling creatures at Sawgrass Lake Park in early December.

blue-gray gnatcatcher

Pileated woodpeckers are noisy and fairly common, but they hop just quickly enough that it’s difficult to get even decent pictures of them.

pileated

The rest are Mike’s. He did the conversions on all of this post as well.

The yellow-rumped warbler is also pretty common. On this morning there were several little birds fluttering through branches near enough to attempt to take their picture.

yellow-rumped warbler

tricolored heron

This is a sunfish of unknown type.

sunfish

softshell turtle

softshell

This is probably a rather old turtle that has seen some bumps and scrapes, possibly a yellow bellied slider

yellow

red-eared slider, with coat of algae

red

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awooooo
Sunday, February 24th, 2013

We moved about two weeks ago (again). Our new place looks out on a drainage pond and equestrian field. Although we’ve yet to see any horses, we have seen lots of birds (great egret, ducks, robins, blue jays, parakeets and Mike saw a kingfisher), a few turtles, ubiquitous brown anoles of course, a black snake, and today a coyote. We’ve heard them yowling at night, a crazier sound than domestic dogs, but were surprised to see one out during the day. Pictures and processing by Mike, using the NEX-5N.

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