Butterflies of Ten-Thousand Islands NWR

We saw some beautiful butterflies, including a Peacock, Queen and Buckeye

Ten-Thousand Islands

On Sunday morning our field trip was birding in the Ten Thousand Islands National Wildlife Refuge. We saw or heard almost 40 types of birds, including two Sandhill Cranes!

Into the Swamp...literally!

The mission of one of our field trips was to find a red-cockaded woodpecker (RCW), a rare bird found only in certain habitats (The trees they use to nest must be 80 years old or older). We ended up 11 miles down a dirt road in Big Cypress Preserve. Although I wish I was close enough to the woodpeckers to take this shot, this is actually a carved one found at Rookery Bay. It also shows the sap running down the tree, these are one of only a few types of woodpeckers that nests in living trees versus snags. The sap helps protect the birds and their young from climbing predators, such as snakes.

This is an actual hole in the tree, if you look really closely at the photo you can see a hole in the tree with the sap running down. They mark the trees with pink tape. We saw two or three of the RCWs and heard them calling to each other. Success!

Before finding the woodpeckers, we went searching for radio-collared Fox Squirrels - a large species of squirrels, also endangered and rare. I got to use the tracking device and follow the sounds to find a pretty female squirrel. And the sounds led us right to.....

the swamp! Chris and I faithfully followed our leader (who had located the squirrel the day before and helped me use the locater) into and through the swamp! We had not read the memo to wear shoes that could get wet...so we both ended up trudging through the water past our knees in our pants and tennis shoes...luckily we were able to wear our sandals the rest of the trip! A couple of the other people on the trip opted to stay on higher ground...but I had my important assignment of tracking and was concentrating on not dropping it in the water! It was actually really fun and worth the soggy clothes. We saw two fox squirrel nests...but I guess she was already in one of the nests so we didn't get to see her. But the journey was definately an experience we will never forget!

Kirby Storter Boardwalk

Chris and I had a little time between field trips, so we checked out the Kirby Storter Boardwalk in Big Cypress.

Everglades National Park

We got to take a walk at the Shark Valley Visitor center in the Everglades before it opened to the public. Advantage: getting the first glimpse of the wildlife. Hard to tell from the photo, but there is a black-crowned night heron, anhinga, snowy egret, tri-colored heron and little blue heron in this one spot. Nearby was a great blue heron and great egrets. We also spotted yellow-crowned night herons, white and glossy ibis, and Chris caught a glimpse of the rare Everglades Snail Kite. You can't walk more than a couple of feet without spotting something else! Disadvantage: it is not always warm in south Florida, especially at 6:45 a.m.! The alligators started to come out as the sunshine warmed things up for all of us - it ended up being a beautiful day.

Scat-ology

Leave it to a naturalist to put a photo of poop (we like to call it "scat" to make it sound more scientific). We saw it while driving around the Turner river loop in Big Cypress, and determined it to be Florida Panther scat! Not as exciting as watching a panther hunt one of the deer we saw on this drive, but finding evidence of them was fun. The sunset was beautiful, too, the wiregrass took on a pinkish tint in the fading light.

Monument Lake Campground

Our campsite in Big Cypress was great, not that we spent much time there - too much to explore! We did see these killdeer, neat little birds that will actually do a "broken wing" display to distract predators from their nests.