Our recent Florida canoeing trip was heavily photographed, unlike many others in the past. While the total hours paddling was a modest 35.5, the photos taken ran to many hundreds, taken with 5 different cameras. An equal (or greater) number of hours were hiked and birded. This post attempts to condense five separate days of hiking shots, and contains, amoung other things, a nearly-thousand-year-old tree, a rare White Dove, a beautiful blue spring with freedivers, six trails and two model horses! Thirty-four pix! vignettes my foot,... Any paddling posts are going to have to wait.
Blogging is a good way to commemorate, if not completely recall, these family trips. Come with me on what may have been our last journey South with the canoe --- and enjoy it as much as we did!
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| Colavita stealing the show |
We started, Feb 20th, at Fort Island Beach, on the Gulf, and walked some local trails there. One is called Redfish Hole trail, a name made nicer by my recent addiction to Swedish Fish. :) While some of these pix of course have horses in them, surprise, more do not. I refuse to completely abandon this lifelong habit but often it's just handier not having to set them up. Below: beautiful palm forest with cabbage palm (sabal palmetto), Florida's most common wild palm tree.
Most of Redfish Hole trail is more like this, with pines, scrub oaks and grasses on sand.
While we were based in Homosassa, Chassahowitzka WMA [Wildlife Management Area] was next. On Feb 21st we went to a small but very interesting trail, Big Cypress Boardwalk. We'd never been there before. This was a one-trick-pony place and I unfortunately did not shoot the forest along the sides of the nice boardwalk. But I did run and hike back and forth along it at least 3 times, pent up for exercise.
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| Photo by George Young |
The signs claimed this tree was hollow and thus spared from the turn-of-the-20th-century loggers. I have to say it's unusual for a cypress this old not to be 'topped' or have its top snapped off. Topping usually doesn't stop them at all; they keep growing in the most amazing ways.
On the 23rd we had an exciting multi-trail day. Deep in Chassahowitzka WMA we made our way first to Cypress Circle trail.
This trail encircled a large cypress stand or 'dome' as they are called. The domes typically are flanked by palmettos and then oak forest. A mere foot of elevation in the soil makes all the difference; cypress domes sit on poorly-drained places while the oaks and pines like the well-drained sandy ground.
This was a long, open, peaceful and yes hot walk. The transition between the flora zones was as abrupt as the above shot shows. In no way is Florida consistent with her forests! The below view shows the tops of the dome appearing beyond the palmettos. At this time of year [Feb], the cypress leaves are just barely beginning to show.
Our second trail was right across the dirt parking lot from the first. Alas, no turkeys.
Though this trail was shorter, it seemed as long since we were tireder. The scruffy oak forests showed uncovered sand in places. Occasional pricky pear appeared. Open parts revealed dramatic, statuesque pine trees: Sand Pine and Slash Pine mostly.
This trail also gave us a view of baby Turkey Oaks. Would you believe those little burning-red sprouts are actually oak trees?
After a typical in-car lunch, we left the dirt parking lot and headed out for our third goal of the day, Buford Springs. The road there gave me this post's frontispiece -- I thought the S-shaped curl was a great calendar shot. I saw it in the rearview and asked to stop and shoot it. This view probably captures the essence of driving in Florida with George: We are miles from anywhere.
Buford Springs is a diving place, a natural spring hole in the Florida limestone.
It is reached by a half-mile trail wide enough for scuba-diving-equipment carts but closed to cars.
This time I shot some side views. It may not be Tarzan's jungle but it is reminiscent of Fakahatchee Preserve State Park, which I have been to and which really is as wildly tropical as Florida gets.
Buford Springs trail boasted some fine Epiphyte clusters. So far we'd seen only 2 kinds, of which this grass-like one is the most common. The plant does not harm the host tree in any way; it just uses its structure as a convenient place to hang out.
We were on the trail for birds, and not involved with diving in any way. This made our contact with divers rather, umm, socially shy. Birding is a solitary sport; diving, not at all -- they always go in pairs or threes. As canoers who have paddled FL springs, we could appreciate this incredible body of beautiful blue water deep in the forest; but as onlookers, we did not even dip our toes (though I did fish out some trash when no one was looking).
It is so fascinating to see a water sport of which we know so little, so close up. Those plumes of bubbles are from scuba divers already beneath the lip of the cave. Below: the water emerges from the springs and flows away into the forest in a river. As I've told on my FB, this was my first time seeing freedivers. They could stay under for up to 45 seconds (we timed them) by holding their breath.
It was so beautiful and peaceful to sit there and watch them.
After we left and were safely alone again on the trail back, I indulged myself with a horse pic. I'd brought one foal. (Cozmic One to the hobby.) My original intention was to name him in FL but a week before departure he came up with one on his own: Cahuenga [p. kah-wenga]. Those who know me will not be surprised to learn that Cahuenga was the street upon which Edward Bohlin's saddle shop was located.
Didn't I say I'd bitten off more than I could chew with this post?!? We'll finish off with 2 more places, either of which could've been a whole post in themselves, and the second will feature Colavita (Breyer's Miss Independence) seen in the beginning.
On Feb 27, after we'd changed bases to Apalachicola, Salinas Park on St Joe's Peninsula gave me my closest insight yet into the mindset of a trophy hunter.
I really can't describe it other than to say I went temporarily crazy. The desire to secure [a pic of] a fabulous rare animal swept over me and all else fell before it. I'm afraid a family squabble happened because of this bird. Such passion -- as though it were a unicorn or a white stag! In fact, it was merely a leucistic Mourning Dove.
It's not like I'd never seen leucistic or partial-albino animals or even birds before, although the Mourning Dove was a first. It was clear from the start what it was. I scrambled with my cell, but in the end the best pix were taken with my digital Fuji.
The Fuji allowed better close ups and finer focus. The flock was moving around on the grass and I could easily get them in view.
It was an amazingly pretty bird. I snapped and snapped. I chased it across the road. I think my total came to 18 pictures, clear evidence of besottedness. I even took a movie. Let's see if Blogger will let me upload it:
The lesson of the White Dove, if there is one, would be to pay more attention to the efforts of your birding partner when he is trying to help you, and not cling so hard to your own frame of reference,...
On Feb 27 we went to St George's Island and the East Slough Overlook trail of the Dr Julian G Bruce SGI State Park. There are some very nice boardwalks along this trail. The day was seriously foggy. I'm not going to brighten these photos. Here's the long boardwalk without Colavita/Miss Independence,
and with her.
If you're curious, I have whitened her mane. That's Dry the Sea's Orange Hackamore, which should be familiar to readers. Dry's Orange Here's the other side: of the horse? of the trail!
Although it's not captured in the above, there was a Bald Eagle nesting tree in that rank of pines. Alas, although signs were up to prevent hikers from coming near it, it was abandoned by the birds.
Alone, out here in the wild, on trips, yes I do sometimes ride them, at least pictorially.
This shot was taken at our turnaround point, a bridge across the marsh. It shows a little of the fog racing past. This day really was rather unusual with its moving fog. I liked the path of the lighter reeds showing the water channel.
Something I haven't covered much in these FL posts is the flowers. My dear travel partner is extremely devoted to shooting flowers, sometimes taking a dozen shots of the same bloom. But here I was interested myself. These lovely yellow trumpets were only found in a few places along the mile-and-a-half trail.
I was unable to resist touching. Don't ask what flowers these are; alas, for all our knowledge, we did not know their name, although we've encountered (and shot) them before.
My last photo for St George's Island is this one, from a pullover on E Beach Gulf drive, on the way back home. It captures the faraway tropical feel of my Florida experiences: straggly palm trees, salt grass meadows, and endless distances over the water.
We had some good times, and we'll be back.
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