Monthly Archives: April 2019

2019 Trip 3: South Florida: April 2

Posted on April 3, 2019 by Ed Heimel and Chris Klejbuk, MN travel bloggers; ckeh72@comcast.net

This bird knows he owns the road and he is not moving until he feels like it

Everglades City, FL April 2

We spent much of the day in the Fakahatchee Strand Preserve State Park. Fakahatchee is Seminole for forked river and a strand means a long narrow, swamp forest. The Fakahatchee is Florida’s largest state park and is home to numerous wild orchids, one of which is in bloom now. The FSPSP connects Florida Panther National Wildlife Refuge (one of Sunday’s stops) to the Gulf of Mexico. FSPSP is the orchid capital of the US and has the largest population of native Royal Palms in the US.

Royal Palms in Fakahatchee Strand Preserve State Park

Met another volunteer couple staffing the welcome center; they summer in Rhinelander WI and have been volunteering here for over six years. They gave us a few pointers about the best places to hike. Instead, we ended up driving most of the time we viewed the park. The Janes Scenic Drive is gravel (not a problem) but full of potholes that suggest strongly that one drive slowly and carefully. The portion of the road that is open for cars is only 6 miles; we drove it at speeds of 3-6 mph. There were just many birds to see and it was relaxing to motor along nice and slow.

Can you spot the fawn?

Twice we headed out on hikes. For the first one, we chose to be safe rather than sorry. Signs about alligators tell you not to harass them, not to feed them, etc. The signs we read were not specific how to deal with them sitting in your trail path.
In general, alligators are not aggressive and do not attack humans. But what if they are just right there?? Alligators are big, have strong jaws and tails, and can move fast for short distances. On this first hike, the alligator was taking up about one-third of the trail. Oh, did we say they frequently just stay in one spot? Thus, the likelihood of the gator ambling along soon was low. We chose to turn around and abort this hike.

Along our hikes

On our second hike, we met another volunteer clearing the trail to assist people in walking along. We asked him about the alligator and he suggested that in the future, we should use a big stick and gently touch the alligator on the tail. That touch normally would encourage it to just move forward a bit. We thanked him but I am not sure we will take advantage of this suggestion in the future.

Along the Big Bend Cypress Boardwalk at Fakahatchee Strand Preserve State Park

All in all, we spent about three hours at Fakahatchee Strand Preserve State Park. We returned to the Ivey House, had a snack, went in the pool, and then returned to our exploring. This time we went to a different portion of the park to explore the Big Cypress Bend Boardwalk Trail. Here, we were told that a bear was just ahead on the right side and to be quiet as we approached it. Well, we were quiet but alas, the bear had disappeared. Chris, who was not excited about seeing any bear, was nonetheless 30 feet ahead of me on the trail; I was trying to look everywhere and she was just marching at double pace. In any event, it was just a walk in the woods.

Our final stop was exciting. Monday we had taken in a presentation at the Everglades National Park Visitor Center. The ranger giving the talk, besides telling us about his adventures in Alaska, advised us to take the Marsh Trail to watch the birds returning to the roost at sunset. The experience was magnificent. An observation tower is strategically placed for bird watching. We spent at least 45 minutes there until sunset had occurred.

Birds landing along the Marsh Trail at Ten Thousand Island Wildlife Refuge

Birds at Marsh Trail at Ten Thousand Island National Wildlife Refuge

When we arrived, the ponds and marsh were already busy with roosting birds. As we watched, more birds arrived in groups of 1, 2, 3 or 4. As time went on, the groups grew in size to have 20, 30, or 40 returning birds. A variety of species were landing, chirping, and gathering. But as time went on, many of the birds which had landed in the pond to our right picked up and flew to a group of trees on our left to roost for the night. It must be a safer location to avoid predators there. Only about 20 people were here, it was a great experience and lightly attended. Several of the human attendees had cameras that likely cost at least 10 times the cost of our point and shoot but our pictures are sufficient to illustrate the experience.

On our way back to the car, we saw an alligator crossing the paved trail from west to east about 100 feet in front of us, heading home evidently for the night. When we passed the point where the gator had crossed, we could see the wet trail his feet and tail had made on the pavement. This time we did not have to worry about what to do with a gator on the trail.

This marsh area was also part of Ten Thousand Islands National Wildlife Refuge. We did not observe any damage from Hurricane Irma here, evidently the barrier islands had helped to mitigate the storm. When we had taken the boat ride Monday, several islands had been hit with a 14 foot tidal surge. The amount of salt water was enough to kill a long line of mangrove trees at the edge of the islands. We did not observe that here.

Ed and Chris Everglades City FL. April 3

Sunset over the Everglades and Ten Thousand Islands

Categories: road trip, travel | Tags: , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

2019 Trip 3: South Florida: April 1

Posted on April 2, 2019 by Ed Heimel and Chris Klejbuk, MN travel bloggers; ckeh72@comcast.net

A section of Florida not usually seen by visitors

Everglades City, FL. April 1

Florida has panthers. Not black panthers but mountain lion beige. We really had no hopes of seeing one but we hiked the only accessible trail in Florida Panther National Wildlife Refuge just because. Most of the refuge is off-limits to humans and most sightings of panthers have either been on trail cameras at night or dead panthers who have tried to cross the highway. About 10% of the panther population is killed each year by cars.

Since we wanted to get a stamp in our wildlife refuge Blue Goose Passport, we drove the interstate to the office address listed on the Internet brochure. The office was located in the Comfort Inn just off the interstate-or at least, it was until several years ago. Hoping there would be a stamp at the trailhead, we continued our drive to the refuge. There were two other cars in the lot, one belonging to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Maybe 10 minutes into our hike, we encountered the refuge ranger and a college intern. We mentioned the error for the refuge headquarters address and he gave us directions to the office. At the office (after the hike), the woman at the front desk was from Wisconsin and we chatted for a while about the Midwest. Yes, we did obtain the stamp and one for Ten Thousand Islands National Wildlife Refuge which we will be visiting during the next two days.

It is estimated that only 120 to 230 panthers still exist in the wild. Needing large acreage to exist, they live in this wildlife refuge and adjacent public land preservation areas. Generally they eat deer, raccoons, and wild hogs. The panthers are an endangered species with loss of habitat the largest challenge to their continued existence. As you have probably guessed, we did not see any on our hike.

The Florida Panther National Wildlife Refuge is 26,000 acres and our 1 1/3 mile trail hike was behind the fencing used to help protect the panthers but limited to a small section of the refuge. We hiked through wetlands, prairie and hardwood forest with a view of Florida not seen by most visitors.

Entering the western portion of Everglades National Park

After the hike, we drove to Everglades National Park. ENP has several visitor centers, this one is at the western edge of the park. ENP is the third largest national park in the lower 48 after Death Valley and Yellowstone. The views here are not similar to the grand parks of the western U.S. Even getting this area declared a national park was a challenge; Ernest Coe was a Floridian instrumental in raising the awareness of the possibilities of this area for a national park. One of the visitor centers is named after him.

A second important person in spreading the knowledge of the value of the Everglades as a national resource was Marjory Stoneman Douglas. Marjory Stoneman Douglas was born in Minneapolis but spend most of her life in Miami as a reporter and writer. Her influential book The Everglades: River of Grass was published in 1947 and was an instant best seller. It has sold over half a million copies since it was first published.

Originally we were planning to take a 10 AM boat tour Tuesday of the ten thousand island area. We changed our plans and went on the 5 PM tour today. While the Everglades includes wetlands on the mainland, it also extends into the Gulf of Mexico. The water around Everglades City at low tide is only 2-4 feet deep, even though it stretches as far as one can see. Any thing sticking out of the water is classified as an island, thus in reality there are over 16,000 islands in this area off the coasts. Islands might be just mangroves growing on a sandbar, a higher piece of land created by the Colusa Indians out of shells, or a combination of limestone and washed up sand from ocean tides.

Our boat tour was on a pontoon boat and lasted 90 minutes. We observed numerous islands obviously, some dolphins, and lots of birds. Several fishing boats were returning to the harbor after spending the day in the Gulf fishing for crabs; Everglades City is a major crab fishing locale, we hope to try some local fish Tuesday.

Osprey and chicks top, bald eagle lower left, American oyster catcher lower right

The tour was delightful way to end the evening. We will be staying in Everglades City for three nights at a local place, Ivey House. It is a combination lodge, inn, B &B. Half of the establishment is open for business, half was destroyed in Hurricane Irma and is under re-construction now. Everglades City is another town with Hurricane Irma damage. Over at the National Park, the visitor center was destroyed by the hurricane while the maintenance building next to it and constructed similarly was spared. The park is operating out of a series of modular buildings at the moment.

End of day after boat tour in Ten Thousand Islands

Ed and Chris. April 2

Categories: travel | Tags: , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

2019 Trip 3: South Florida: March 31

Posted on April 1, 2019 by Ed Heimel and Chris Klejbuk, MN travel bloggers; ckeh72@comcast.net

Corkscrew Swamp, Florida

North Fort Myers, FL. March 31

Sunday was a little slower. Our Evergreen hosts had a delicious egg bake for breakfast before we went to church with the husband. We headed out exploring about 12:30 to Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary, an Audubon sponsored preserve. The first detailed governmental report on this Everglades area described it as: “useless to civilized man, for any purpose”. Another description characterized our attitude towards the Everglades as fear (alligators, bears, bugs, snakes, etc), followed by greed (cattle, crops, bird feathers,etc) and concluding (hopefully) with understanding as we learn the interconnectedness of nature and how our short-sighted actions have long-term consequences (farming and over-building eliminate the fresh water aquifer that feeds both the Gulf Coast and Atlantic Coast urban areas).

Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary

Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary had to be preserved twice. In the early 1900s, hunters were killing massive numbers of herons and egrets to sell their feathers as decorations in ladies hats. Feathers were more valuable than gold on a per pound basis. Locals and the Audubon Society hired wardens to successfully chase away the plume hunters. Then after WWII, the area around Corkscrew was being logged heavily, primarily for cypress trees used in rebuilding Europe. Once again, groups of local residents and the Audubon Society worked together with the lumber companies to stop the lumbering, preserving the last and largest collection of old growth cypress trees.

When the state of Florida was unwilling to spend money to preserve the area, the Audubon Society took possession of the property and still owns it today. The initial acreage of 5,680 acres has grown to almost 16,000 acres. The most important rookery in the country for wood storks is also preserved-and off-limits.

The transition between two types of habitat, an ecotone where marsh and cypress forest come together

Our walk was on a 2.25 mile boardwalk above the swamp, allowing one to look down and up without fear of getting wet. The eco system includes (in their terms) marsh, pond cypress, wet prairie, pine flatlands, bald cypress, and lettuce lakes. The Sanctuary has numerous landmark trees, the really large and old bald cypress trees.

However, Hurricane Irma came through this area in September 2017. Nearby Naples recorded gust winds of 142 mph. Corkscrew Swamp was just 2.5 miles east of the eye of the storm. Many trees were felled by high winds, either at the root level or twenty feet up. At least three of the 12 landmark trees were victims to the storm. Rainfall was 12.6 inches on the Sanctuary over three days. Volunteers responded to the call for assistance and came out to clear debris and repair the boardwalk; it took two months before the full boardwalk and visitor center were re-opened.

A strangler fig wrapped around a tree at Corkscrew

The walk took us 90 minutes as we wandered at a slow pace, enjoying the view and listening for birds. At one point, I waited for 5-10 minutes to try to find the bird (likely a woodpecker of some species) that made a tremendously loud drumming sound. Several of us strolling on the boardwalk tried but were unable to spot it.

When we finished up Corkscrew, we headed over to another sanctuary. CREW, Corkscrew Regional Ecosystem Watershed Land and Water Trust is a public-private partnership and non-profit that coordinates the purchase and protection of 50,000 acres of land. Land once purchased is turned over to the South Florida Watershed Management District for land management. They sponsor five main pieces of land and we walked a portion of one of them, Bird Rookery Swamp.

Red tailed hawk at CREW Bird Rookery Swamp

The CREW trail starts out on a boardwalk and then segues into a grassy trail. The trail follows the old route used by logging companies to cut the cypress in the mid-twentieth century. We did not hike the entire 12 mile trail, only about three miles. The highlight of this hike was a red-tailed hawk perched on a railing and then in a tree just feet away from us. During the hike, we talked with several other hikers. One couple mentioned how a bobcat had been seen by friends of theirs on the trail a week ago. Five minutes after we left them, we heard a strange cat-like sound. We looked and looked but did not see anything. Two women coming from the opposite direction stopped and, being more knowledgeable than us, speculated that we had just heard a grey catbird. No bobcat for us.

Sunday was our final night with our second Evergreen hosts. Their home in North Fort Myers suffered only minor damage from Hurricane Irma. There were several homes in the area completely destroyed but, in general, it appears that North Fort Myers suffered less from Hurricane Irma in 2017 than Punta Gorda had suffered in 2004 from Hurricane Charlie. We expect to see continued hurricane damage left over from Hurricane Irma as we drive through the Everglades and on to the Keys.

No bob cat at CREW, just a deer

Ed and Chris. Everglades City. April 1

Categories: road trip, travel | Tags: , , , | Leave a comment

2019 Trip 3: South Florida: March 30

Posted on April 1, 2019 by Ed Heimel and Chris Klejbuk, MN travel bloggers; ckeh72@comcast.net

Can you find the alligator?

North Fort Myers, FL. March 31

Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge is located on Sanibel Island on the Gulf Coast of Florida. It occupies about one-third of Sanibel, about another one-third is protected conservation areas under other authorities and about one-third is developed with buildings no higher than the tallest pine tree. Ding Darling is the most visited national wildlife refuge in the U.S. with about one million visitors per year. We have frequently encountered people and Refuge rangers who said we just had to visit here. So we did.

Saturday, we spent the entire day at Ding Darling, arriving around 8:30 AM to hike the Bailey tract, a marsh area near the Gulf of Mexico. The area was quiet, some people were out hiking but it was not real busy. In terms of beauty, the area was so-so; but the function of wildlife refuges are to protect the habitat for birds and animals, not to grow public gardens.

Our tram-it filled up completely and we also observed people being turned away from the 1 PM tour

We had previously made reservations for a 90 minute tram ride at 11:30 AM along Wildlife Drive with a naturalist to talk about the refuge and what we were seeing. By now it was 9:30 and at the visitor center we made arrangements to transfer our reservation to the 10 AM tour which had a few seats available. It was a good decision, the naturalist was knowledgeable and she enlightened us about numerous topics as we drove along. Bird sightings were plentiful.

Red mangrove at Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge

Ding Darling was hit by Hurricane Irma in 2017, we could see where some of the oldest and tallest mangroves had been knocked down. Research has shown that mangrove forests can decrease hurricane impact by 30%. Where mangroves had been knocked over, new mangroves were already growing, their new shoots green under the open sky created by the destroyed, taller trees. Red mangroves have a root system that looks like your hand upside down with fingerlike roots growing down into the water that makes the tree look like it is a person walking. (There are also white and black mangrove trees.)

This estuary refuge with its combination of salt and fresh water is the only place mangroves grow, they can tolerate the mix of water types. On one stop we noticed mangrove crabs, ugly crabs that thrive living on the trees, not along the beach. At another stop, we could see manatees in the distance doing their courtship ritual, splashing and frolicking in the water instead of their usual just cruising along.

Squadron of American pelicans and a reddish egret

A squadron of pelicans was standing in a marsh, surrounded by smaller shore birds and a reddish egret. We were informed that the reddish egret is relatively rare and this refuge is one of the few where you can frequently see them. Great blue herons, ibis, egrets, swallowtail kites, osprey, and other birds were easily seen. The American pelican is the second largest U.S. bird, after the California condor. The pelican has a nine foot wingspan; the bald eagle has a wingspan ranging from 6-8 feet.

After the tram ride, we had a quick sandwich for lunch at one of the many retail hubs on the island and then back to the refuge. This time, we went on the Indigo trail with a volunteer guide. This woman and her husband are spending five months here before taking a month off to “re-position” themselves and their RV to Grand Teton National Park for their sixth, five month summer volunteering stint there.

While Ding Darling is the most visited national refuge, it has still seen its annual federal allocation reduced by 50% in the last years-a reflection of our national priorities. Volunteers are critical to its existence. The refuge has over 300 volunteers, they staff the visitor center. The volunteer groups raised the funds and built the new visitor center without federal dollars.

Ding Darling Refuge is named after J.N. “Ding” Darling, a Midwesterner who drew editorial cartoons for the Des Moines IA Register. He also spend vacations in Florida. Darling was known for his fierce emphasis on protecting the natural environment and his cartoons were an important messenger in an era where newspapers were the critical force in national life. He began the national duck stamp program, was the founder of the National Wildlife Federation, and served as FDR’s first head of the agency that was the forerunner of today’s Fish and Wildlife Service.

The two friendly alligators

The Indigo trail hike was too much for a family with three young children who preferred the beach today but the rest of us enjoyed the hike through the refuge, learning about the inter-relationship among the plants, insects, water, trees and birds. Towards the end of the hike, we watched two alligators. Initially 100 feet apart, the second slowly drifted towards the second gator, eventually laying quietly together on the shore bank just inches from each other.

A new mangrove tree growing in the estuary, likely to form another island in the future.

Following the hike, Chris and I drove the Wildlife Drive in our car, replicating the ride we had on the tram. This time although the pelicans were still around, fewer birds were to be seen and the manatees were no long visible. Switching to the 10 AM tram ride had been a good decision. After visiting the lighthouse, we left Sanibel Island at 5 PM to re-fuel at dinner for Sunday’s adventure.

Sanibel Island lighthouse

Ed and Chris. April 1

Categories: road trip, travel | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Blog at WordPress.com.