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Leaders: Adrian Binns and Kevin Karlson
NPCA tour participants
What's going on here? One doesn't expect chilly temperatures in the 40's in South Florida, but while most of the group was escaping the colder northern climate, it may have been warmer back home than it was here on our first day.
We began at Convoy Point, the headquarters of Biscayne National Park where we watched a video on the largest marine park in the National Park system - only 5% of the park's total acreage consists of land. This was followed by a glass bottom boat trip out to Elliot Key. Our ranger, Bob Van Eck had hoped to get out as far as the coral reefs, east of the keys, but alas the seas were too rough and water too murky, though occasionally we were able to view turtle grass and vase sponges on the sandy sea bottom.
Convoy Point, Biscayne Park |
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Strangler Fig |
Once on Elliot Key, which is composed of Key Largo limestone, we began by learning about the unique vegetation that makes up the West Indian hardwood forest - Jamaican Dogwood, Poisonwood, Snowberry, Strangler Fig, Mahogany and Gumbo Limbo, (from which the slaves would make a soup called Gumbo, with the birds they caught on the sticky sap), before the rain and winds cut short our stay.
The afternoon was spent in Everglades National Park, visiting the headquarters, where we saw a wonderful introduction to the park and it's ecology on video, as well as viewing their extraordinary exhibits of its ecosystems. We followed this with a naturalist led walk of Anhinga trail, where the water levels were at their lowest levels since 1992.
Birds such as Great Egret and the endangered Wood Stork were having a field day, as fish concentrated into smaller pools, made easy pickings. Other species of interest were the numerous basking Alligators; nesting Anhinga, with their cream colored babies; Green Herons patiently stalking minnows and some of us got a glimpse of a Florida Water Snake sliding into the reeds.
Anhinga Trail |
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Anhinga |
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Wood Storks |
Today we headed down the Keys on the Overseas Highway, stopping at the Wild Bird Rehabilitation Center in Key Largo, to witness close encounters with some of the more common Florida wildlife, egrets and Brown Pelicans. After a wonderful blackened Dolphin sandwich at the Seven Mile Grille we spent some time at Key Deer National Wildlife Refuge, where we were able to see several Key Deer, the smallest population of White-tailed Deer, who's totals number less than 300. At Blue Hole, Red-bellied and Florida Soft-shelled Turtles were swimming about lazily and a tropical Green Iguana, at least 4' in length was basking on a overhanging branch while a light morph Short-tailed Hawk was spotted high above us.
Key Deer |
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National Key Deer Refuge |
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Blue Hole |
This morning we boarded the catamaran "Yankee Freedom III", in Key West for our 70-mile journey to the Dry Tortugas National Park. Though the water looked calm, once we reached the deeper waters of Rebecca Shoals, the crosswinds and rough waters made for a brief unpleasant moment for most aboard. It was soon forgotten as we saw Masked Boobies on Hospital Key and more and more Magnificent Frigatebirds, as we approached Fort Jefferson, the largest brick structure in the Western Hemisphere. For both these species this is the only breeding site in North America.
Captain Jack gave us a humorous and informative tour of the fort visiting Dr. Mudd's cell, the Chapel and the Magazine. Construction on the fort began in 1846, to protect the Atlantic bound Mississippi River trade, but was never completed. It served as a Union military prison during the civil war, and was abandoned in 1874. It became a wildlife refuge in 1908 and a National Park in 1992.
Fort Jefferson |
After a picnic lunch beside the moat, some of us explored the fort further, especially the stunning panoramic views from the top of the fort, of the other 6 keys that make up the National Park, while others took the opportunity to snorkel amongst the coral reefs just beyond the moat walls. The return journey was far smoother, even getting to see a Loggerhead Turtle, Pomarine Jaeger, Sandwich and Roseate Tern.
Dry Tortugas National Park |
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Arches |
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Magnificent Frigatebirds |
Our visit to Key West is all too brief, the nightlife fascinating, but we have to journey back up the keys to Islamodora, where we take a boat across the Florida Bay. Our first stop is Lignum Vitae (meaning Tree of Life) Key, a 280-acre island state botanical park, 16' above sea level that was exposed about 6000 years ago as the waters in the bay receded. The island was soon vegetated with over a 100 tropical hardwood species from the Caribbean, thanks to distribution by the birds. John Henry, the botanical park's ranger took us on a very informative tour through the hardwoods and mangroves, pointing out that the sharp tip of the Agave was used as a needle for the record player, and the threads of the leaf used to make rope; that Poisonwood was the main fruit White-crowned Pigeons ate; the scar markings on the trunks of the female Pigeon Plum were caused by raccoons in search of the sweet fruit; burning the branches of the Black Mangroves would produce the heavy smoke needed to keep mosquito's at bay and that the Buttonwood tree that had several Tree Snails hanging on it, was excellent for charcoal.
Approaching Lignum Vitae Key |
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Agave |
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Crossing Florida Bay |
From Lignum Vitae Key we crossed Florida Bay along the western edge of the park boundary. It was a smooth crossing, but the waters were cloudy and consequently we were unable to see any marine life, other than a glimpse of a turtle and the 3 Bottled-nosed Dolphins that crossed the bow, south of Sandy Key. We couldn't locate any flamingos as we approached Flamingo, the southern end of Everglades National Park, but did see a large flock of American White Pelicans loafing on a shallow sand bar and gorgeous pink Roseate Spoonbills flying back and forth from the mainland to the mangrove islands in the bay.
Based in Flamingo for the remainder of the trip, we spent the late afternoon at Eco Pond, a man made water filtration pond teaming with wildlife, in particular roosting White Ibis. The big attraction was a small Caribbean bird, a Yellow-faced Grassquit (only the third record of this species in North America) that had been here for 6 days. People had come from all over the states to see this bird and we were caught up in the frenzy. On our walk around the pond, we found the multi-colored male Painted Bunting; Sora; an adult Bald Eagle gliding over; Least Flycatcher, which flew sorties from its low perch to catch insects, and at dusk 7 Lesser Nighthawks hawked insects over Eco Pond.
Our first full day in the Everglades began with a walk around Eco Pond where the only additions were gnatcatchers, Brown Thrasher and Wilson's Warbler, before joining park naturalist Sarah Beckwith on a tour of Marazek Pond which held a variety of waterfowl, but where we also got our first looks two butterflies, Gulf Fritillary and Zebra Longwing. This was followed by a visit to West Lake where we were able to see Red, Black and White Mangrove in their different habitats as well as another butterfly the Mangrove Buckeye.
Eco Pond |
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White Ibis |
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Zebra Longwing |
After lunch we found a basking 11' American Crocodile under the bridge over Buttonwood Canal. The overall gray coloration, long tapered snout and exposed 4th tooth of the lower jaw being the distinguishing identification marks between this rare salt-water reptile and its cousin the fresh water Alligator. Our next activity was aboard the schooner "Windfall", which we sailed into Florida Bay for a very pleasant afternoon sail, passing Osprey's on their nests and a Bald Eagle quietly feeding on a fish.
A small group enjoyed a pre dinner walk around Eco Pond, where we found a number of new birds, including an Ovenbird, Yellow-throated Warbler, Cape May Warbler, Northern Waterthrush and the still present Yellow-faced Grassquit. The evening ended with Kevin entertaining all of us with his marvelous slide show on Florida's wildlife.
American Crocodile |
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" Windfall" |
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Alligator |
As each day went by the weather improved and we now had very pleasant temperatures in the 70's. Before heading into the backcountry, everyone was enthusiastic to go on another bird walk around Eco Pond, and we were not disappointed, as the activity had picked up. King Rail's were calling from deep in the cattails and Waxwings called overhead; a Snipe was working the edge of water; Painted Buntings and a Lincoln's Sparrow were feeding along the path.
Mid morning we joined Captain Frank and naturalist Gary Hanlon aboard the "Pelican", for a boat trip through the mangroves, backcountry channels and into Whitewater and aptly named Coot Bay, which also contained Pied-billed Grebes, Ruddy Ducks and more gators.
"Pelican" |
During the afternoon we visited the heart of the Everglades, beginning at the Pa-hay-okee overlook at the edge of the Shark River Slough. Here we were surrounded by a "sea of grass" dotted with Bald Cypress growing in the limestone depressions. From our elevated platform we were able to look down on an alligator resting beside a gator hole, a large hole filled with water, that had been carved out of the limestone by an alligator to act as a home and food source during the dry seasons.
At Mahogany Hammock a lone tropical "island" surrounded by a sea of saw grass, where the acidic vegetation had runoff the elevated hammock to carve a natural moat into the limestone, providing a barrier to fire, we saw Resurrection Ferns and bromeliads growing on the trees. Around the hammock, the surrounding vegetation and bare branches had Western Kingbirds, Pileated Woodpecker and as we were leaving we saw an immature Scissor-tailed Flycatcher. A wonderful find was a White-tailed Kite perched in the area where the endangered Cape Sable Seaside Sparrow resides. Late afternoon with the setting at Paurotis Pond is one of the most spectacular sights in the Everglades as egrets, storks and spoonbills fly into roost. Today was most memorable because the Great Egrets with their long plumes fanned out, were displaying. It was at the beginning of the twentieth century that these birds were hunted to near extinction as these plumes were in high demand for the hat trade.
"River of Sawgrass" |
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Roseate Spoonbills |
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Birdwatching at Paurotis Pond |
On our last day, we made one final stop at Royal Palm to view the wildlife on the Anhinga trail, where we had begun almost a week earlier. Wood Storks continued to feed in the ever shrinking shallow pools; both Black and Turkey Vultures circled high above waiting for a dead carcass and Purple Gallinules, Tri-colored Herons and Little Blue's were evading the stalking gators as they searched for their own meal. It's just another day of survival in the Everglades.
~ Adrian Binns
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