SWEETWATER WETLANDS PARK IN GAINESVILLE, FL ... You Should Go ... NOW.

My intention last Sunday was to visit the Alachua Sink entrance to Paynes Prairie and soak up some gators and Sandhill Cranes... and with any luck, maybe a few wild horses and bison.

I knew I would be passing near Sweetwater Wetlands Park on the way, but I decided to save it for another day.

It was new to me, an unknown quantity, while Paynes Prairie always delivered and currently was crowded with Sandhill Cranes.

The sky which had been so blue, was rapidly clouding up and this afternoon could only be stretched so thin.

So there I was, a man with a plan, and then ... as so often happens, the plan changed... and no woman was involved.

I know, right?

Odd.

With only a few more miles to go to Paynes Prairie, suddenly, there it was!

The entrance to Sweetwater... right there on the main drag.

Ack!

A quick right turn into the parking lot  ... done! 

I paid my $5.00 entrance fee to the pipe safe thingy and parked.

It was busy, the parking lot was very full, but the park has so many trail options that the other visitors were dispersed over a large area.

One of my first "not a coot" finds was this Limpkin creeping through the aquatic plants.  I love these rascals, but I usually seem them as fleeting shadows in poor light.

Not here.

They are so accustomed to people being both present and not a threat that they just go about their business ... in good light.

Sweet!

Bang, bang, bang ... I'm busy converting this bird to megapixies when suddenly... my Canon EOS 70D camera stops.

No way, I checked the battery before leaving!

It wasn't the battery, it was the memory card ... stuffed to the gills with megapixies she was.

Good grief ... 64 gigabytes of space and it was full?

 Let's see, the last time I pulled a bunch of stuff off this card was ... hmmm... n-e-v-e-r?

My foolish mistake had me frantically deleting old pics in between awesome critters like this Wood Stork.

It went like this ...

1. Find critter. 
2. Take photos.
3. Delete old photos while walking and searching for next critter.
4. Repeat.

Not very efficient ... and not very smart to head out without spare memory in your pocket.

Because I shoot RAW and JPEG pairs of each shot, I had slurped up a ton of memory space before this expedition, plus the older shots I was deleting on the go were only JPEGs. 

This meant, I could delete a bunch and still not make much room for the way I shoot.

Between critters, I was opening up only about 14 to 20 photo spaces on the card.

It was a little bit of a flashback to the days of film when every shot was precious and the 36 exposure roll of Kodachrome always shrank far too fast.

I love ducks ... used to hunt them, and I loved them then too, but after a while I realized, I just don't like the taste of duck.

Once that happened, I couldn't justify (to me, just to me) hunting them anymore.

These Blue-winged Teal are some pretty handsome dabblers.

Then, HOLY SMOKES!

Shovelers!

I LOVE these gals.

While I was photographing these two, an airplane flew over and that lead hen tilted her head and looked up at it in with quizzical expression only a duck (and a pig) can do, .

You might remember how excited I was a few months ago to have Black-bellied Whistling Ducks nesting in my pond.

At Sweetwater Wetlands, they are everywhere! The air was full of bird sounds, but especially these guys.

... When they weren't napping.

If it itches, scratch it.

This Sora Rail came doodling out from under the boardwalk as I crossed.

You can't deny your cuteness, Sora.

It was late in the day with gathering clouds hitting the dimmer switch as this Black-crowned Night Heron showed up on the bank.

Along time ago ...

I used to spot these on night shifts in the NPS and if I put my law enforcement Maglight beam on him, I could walk very quietly up to him as he stood blinking in the bright light.

We would just stand there,about 2 feet apart, until I turned that light off and then the heron would croak away into the night.

With the daylight dimming and only about 30 minutes before closing, I headed back towards the entrance. As I walked, I could hear the din of thousands of Sandhill Cranes on nearby Payne's Prairie, but on this day they would have to wait.

NEXT:

Why, yes, there WERE reptiles there too...

Kissimmee Prairie Gators

See the large alligator in the photo above?

How about now?

This gator is big ... 7-8 feet, and it was up on the bank resting in tall grass when I walked up to the wetland area.

I never saw it until it jumped up on all four legs and KAFLOOSHED into the water.

It does give you pause when they do that.

Kissimmee Prairie is a "dry" prairie. The word "Dry" is a necessary adjective here in Florida, because we do have "Wet" prairies.  Both prairie types can be wet or dry seasonally, but they are labeled according to the most common conditions.
True to form, Kissimmee Prairie ("KP" for the rest of this post) was mostly dry, even though the whole state had received pretty decent rains from TS Debbie a few days before.
It's a prairie, so trees are clumped here and there, but mostly it is open wiregrass and saw palmetto as far as the eye can see.

I can just imagine this KP in peak wildflower season.

My hiking had been mostly through open, dry habitats, so I was happy when I came across a wetland area with pig frogs grunting and fish dimpling the surface.

There were gators too.

I don't think I have ever shot this rear view of a gator's head before.

I like it. 

This gator came cruising quietly up after I began my sadly deficient baby gator grunt call. It came from a long distance so I am giving credit to the sounds I was making, even if they were lacking in alligatorialaccuracy.

I had not practiced the nasal squeaky grunt baby gators emit for a long time, so don't laugh to hard at my expense when you watch the video.

(You already watched it didn't you? Cheater.)

While I was grunting this one in, (and marveling that she fell for it), there was a commotion out in the reeds.

I switched from still shots to video in time to catch a much larger, much more cranky, alligator charging towards my location.

So the video is a bit jerky ... I wasn't expecting that.

Now, some might say, "Gee, FC, you're a real gator whisperer. You just called that big mama right to ya'!"

I think the real truth may be that she was just irritated by my poor imitation of a baby gator.

You know, like that feeling you get when you hear some sports announcer idiot or a college kid on the local NPR  station mispronnounce word after word,  and you just want to smite them?

Whatever the reason, she was impressive, even at a distance.

This trip to the wide open prairie, this gator, the grainy non HD video, and some missed shots have finally pushed me over the edge and I think it's time for a new camera.

I found the sales receipt yesterday, and my super reliable Sony Cybershot DSC-H5, 12x zoom, 7.2 mp camera is 6 years old.

The time has come.

Dewsday Morning

Saturday was cool and rainy, so I took a photo walk without the Bear dog.

He doesn't have the patience for nature photography.

The rain had walked this path before me.

Miss Guara wearing her diamond necklace.

The palmetto that I burned in last winter's micro-controlled burn is thriving and making more frondifinous fuel for this winter's burn.

I have a lot of old laurel oaks that apparently are near the end of their short (in tree terms) life span. Every once in awhile, one just ups and quits, like this one did about a year ago.

It's mostly a main trunk now. The branches have succumbed to gravity and lie around the base.

There is a mad scramble for light going on as holly, bay, and oak saplings race for the sun.

The wild persimmon tree was all "Fally this, and fally that."

I tried to ignore her, but she kept showing off.

Spider Structural Support, Inc was busy down by the pond.

The rugged little kumquat tree surprised me with some dangling, ripening fruit.

This poor neglected tree gets frozen back to a stump about every third year or so, but it always picks itself up and starts back up again.

The yellow leaves are the kumquat's way of saying, "Hey! I'm anemic here! Helloooooooo! How about some fertilizer?"

It's not easy being a fruit tree at PFHQ.

Kayaking The OTHER Wekiva River

Come on.
Grab your paddle and I'll show you some of the "other" Wekiva River.
Around here, we pronounce it "WE-KIVA" (LONG I, ACCENT THE WE)

The other Wekiva is down around that little town that the mouse ruined ... starts with an O, but it escapes me now.
THAT Wekiva is actually a state park.

This one is not, but it should be.

Push off from that bank and I'll show you what I mean.

Since we are going upstream from the mouth, we'll need to launch on the Waccasassa River first, then paddle up to the confluence.
When the Waccasassa curves to our left, we will go straight into the mouth of the Wekiva.
Here we go ...

The Waccasassa is a beauty in her own right, but like the Wekiva, she has some blemishes.
Curiously, each and every blemish is courtesy of us.
Imagine that.

Take this old shrimp boat for example ...

(PLEASE TAKE THIS OLD SHRIMP BOAT ... AWAY!)

This vessel is pictured in the second post here on Pure Florida, April 11, 2005. She was floating back then. Today she has floundered and is a derelict vessel crumbling and rusting away ... adding who knows what pollutants to the beautiful Waccasassa River system.

I could so RANT right now, but it is such a beautiful October day.

Paddle.

We are still on the Waccasassa and you can see how tidal she is, even here, miles from the Gulf of Florida.

This is a place where fiddler crabs scuttle over cypress knees as salty ocean slowly yields to spring fed freshness.

A juvenile Yellow-Crowned Night Heron totes a crab, that even de-legged, seems too big to swallow.

Could you look just a little more dino?
Sheesh.
That eye ... I think I saw it in the kitchen in Jurassic Park.
Clever girl.

We left the Waccasassa behind after that Night Heron.
Now, we are on the Wekiva. She's fed by Wekiva Springs, miles upstream from where you and I are paddling. The water is now clearer, the bottom cleaner due to a brisk current that issues from the spring.

It's still influenced by the tides ebb and flow, but right now, with the tide out, freshwater rules.
Let's push on upstream, when we poop out we can always turn around and cruise back with the current.

No telling what is up around the next bend ... and there are lots of bends.

Somebody ought to paint that scene.
It's classic Florida Cracker Cattlesqueish.

This Cracker bull was guarding his herd as they fed in the river swamp.
I was so focused on the cows up ahead wading into the river for a drink, that I didn't notice this guy ... just a few feet to my right ...until he made that low rumbling growl ... do cattle growl?
It sure sounded like a growl to me.

I was too busy gauging the depth of the river between my kayak and his horns to focus on his voice, but I think I know menace when I hear it.

How do you explain getting gored by a bull while kayaking?

2011?
1911?
1811?
1711?
1611?

It was a scene, so timeless and Pure Floridian that I just stared at the young bull as he glared at me, framed by cypress, palmetto, and palm.

Sometimes you just have to pause and drink it in.




There were more bends of course.
I'll tell you about them in another post.

Lake Woodruff NWR, A Quiet Gem

This is the way into Lake Woodruff National Wildlife Refuge.
The last time I was here was a winter visit over ten years ago. Now, the road in is paved and a security camera or two look down on the isolated parking area, but otherwise it feels just as it did on thse earlier visits.

The entry road passes through a lush cypress swamp. There's a wood duck nest box out there in all that green lifeyness.

After you park in the wooded parking lot, a series of dike trails are open for exploring. Like many NWR's that were designated to improve waterfowl populations, Woodruff uses a system of impoundments.
Each impoundment is surrounded by an elevated dike with flood gates and culverts so that water levels can be adjusted to best benefit migratory waterfowl.

Of course, you don't have to be a snowbird to reap the benefits of managed wetlands like these.

Because of my back road travel schedule, I landed at Lake Woodruff at the worst possible time to see critters.
Smack dab in the middle of a hot late August day.
I still walked the dikes, but not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.

Ok, maybe a bird or two, but not much else.
I didn't even see a gator.

This Tricolored Heron was busy chasing minnows near a culvert outflow.

The USFWS is busy improving the impoundments and beyond this point was "outta bounds" for visitors, so my walk was cut short.

This I was thankful for. I'll be back in the winter when the air is crisp and the impoundments are heavy with birds from distant regions of the country.

It's been a long time since I was here, but I remember clouds of snow geese ...

Suwannee Scenery

I have gotten home too late each day this week to follow up on my promise to share a photo of WHATEVER it is hiding in my barn, so I'm chumming the water with these Suwanee River photos ... in the hope that you will stay around to feed and not abandon Pure Florida completely.

(Yo! That was a long sentence)


See it?
I am a sucker for gator heads in reflecting water.

I think I can get that other photo today. I just have to get home while the sun is shining.

That has been a challenge lately.
The academic team season has begun and we practice Mondays with matches on Tuesdays. That has kept me here until sundown this week, but today is looking good for an on time exit.

My nerds had their first match yesterday and won both the JV and Varsity games, so they are off to a good start.
The JV team looks strong and fast, but I think the Varsity team will have their brains kicked by tougher teams if they don't kick it in gear.
I'll keep you updated on our progress.

Things are changing here as fall finally gets rolling. Wildflowers are blooming, my woods are noisier with migrant songs, the grass has stopped it's relentless march upward, and the bugs are less buggy.

Air conditioners are earning a well deserved break too. This week has been absolutely delicious with cool sunny days and chilly nights.

And of course there is that beautiful golden tint to the light ...
...love that stuff.

My Meadow

Last winter (brrrrr), Emma and I burned a small grassy area near the FFA hog pen.


We do this every year (LOOK here and here), because ... it's fun to burn stuff, it reduces the chances of a unplanned ground fire moving near the house, and it's great for maintaining some open meadow habitat here at PFHQ.

One of the wildflowers that really seems to appreciate this burning is Elephant's Foot, (Elephantopus elatus).
It thrives in the meadow created by the annual burnings. In turn, a host of insects benefit from the blossoms of the elephant's foot. They must be pretty nectarlicious, because the place at mid-day is abuzz with moths, butterflies, bees, and beetles.

My favorite butterfly, the Gulf Fritillary.



A bug's eye view of the meadow.

I am liberated when it comes to moths and butterfly ID by my simple appreciation of their architecture and beauty with no driving ambition to KNOW that bug.

(Yes, I know they are not true bugs ... calm down)

If they were fish ... then I would NEED to know who they were. As it is, I am content to marvel at them while occasionally actually learning who they are.

This one for instance is a "Really Big Butterfly".
(Yes, I know this one.)

Don't even get me started on ID's for grasshoppers.

But ... I would like to know more about that brown object on this hopper's dorsal side.

Ideas?

Not everyone is here for nectar or pollen.

Conehead?

She's a girly girl.

Not a tiger beetle, but it should be.

Just look at those great stripes.

Skipper sipper?

Katydidish nymph with really long antennae.

Yet another hopper.

Elephant's Foot grows in almost any sunny unmowed area here at PFHQ, but it is most abundant in the little meadow area that we maintain by winter burns, just south of the now idle hog pen.

If you burn it, they will come.