Delaware – "You Might as Well Read"

Are any of you denizens of the internet residents of Florida? Has anyone visited Florida or, if you’re a wanderer of the blogosphere from somewhere other than the U.S., have you even heard of Florida or have any idea of what it’s like? To many, Florida is a sun-drenched version of the American dream, where summer is perpetual, the beach a block away and fresh orange juice as close as the tree in your back yard. The Florida lifestyle, in fact, can be so pleasant that it’s easy to forget, or overlook, the complexities of America’s third most populous state (that’s right! Only California and Texas have more people and New York — New York! — has less. In American presidential politics, this makes Florida one big electoral prize).

Florida is literally the land of tomorrow and of yesterday; a place where you can watch a rocket launch at Cape Canaveral one day and on the next visit St. Augustine, the oldest city in the United States (founded by the Spanish in 1565, long before those English pilgrims showed up at Plymouth Rock). Florida is a land of paradox and contradictions, with disparate elements often existing in close juxtaposition to each other: a manicured golf course lies next to a mangrove swamp; Disney Land and tourist theme parks co-exist with Miami’s International Art Fair (the place to go for serious collectors of contemporary art); an alligator suns itself on a suburban driveway; egrets and herons fish alongside their human counterparts. Florida wraps this package of self-contradictions in endless miles of beautiful beaches. With the Atlantic Ocean on one side and the Gulf of Mexico on the other, Florida has more seacoast than any other continental state; its gorgeous white sand beaches and tropical waters have tempted generations of American college students south for spring break (note to anyone planning a mid-March Florida trip: take care in booking your hotel, unless you think setting off fire alarms at 3 am is the height of humor. Mr. Janakay does not and was very grumpy indeed after one of his spring Florida jaunts).

Because Florida has so many pleasurable ways to pass the time (not least, dear reader, it offers numerous opportunities to lounge on one’s porch or patio with something white and chilly in hand), it’s very, very easy to overlook its fantastic natural attractions. If you’ve wandered by my blog before, you know that I adore swamps, marshes, wildlife reserves, boardwalks, and parks; I’m basically a huge fan of any place where humanity has left even a sliver of room for non-human creatures. (Nature along the Delaware Coast; Nature on the Move). Although so many of Florida’s natural wonders have been lost to commercial development and population growth, there’s room for hope because so much still remains. Of these surviving remnants of “natural” Florida my very favorite is Corkscrew Swamp, a 13,000 acre sanctuary (about 5300 hectares) located in the western Everglades and operated by the National Audubon Society.

You may find Corkscrew and its wonders about thirty miles inland and slightly north of Naples; find Naples in the map’s lower green quadrant, put your finger on the “a” and go up a bit and you’ll have a rough idea of Corkscrew’s location.

Condominiums and beach playgrounds dominate much of the coast in this area; logging and agriculture have taken their toll. Despite visiting this part of Florida many times, I still find it hard to believe that this:

10475-Gulf-Shore-Dr-Unit-151-large-024-7-10475-Gulf-Shore-Blvd-151-5-1500x843-72dpi — Naples, Florida

is only about 30 miles (approximately 48 kilometers) from this:

0-2 — A portion of Florida’s last remaining Bald Cypress forest, visible from Corkscrew’s boardwalk.

Visiting Corkscrew and viewing its wonders is easy. The sanctuary is open every day of the year; admission fees are minimal (fourteen American dollars; admission good for two consecutive days if you save your receipt) and the two miles of boardwalk provide easy access to Corkscrew’s different habitats (if you’re not up for two miles, there’s a shorter loop you can do). Because Florida is hot, and birds and wildlife can be scarce when people are present, I always try to arrive as early in the morning as possible (the boardwalk opens at 7 am).

0-3 — It’s always fun to check the “do it yourself” list of sightings left by previous visitors at the beginning of the boardwalk. On this trip, I missed the “giant grasshopper” and “yellow rat snake” seen by others!

0-37 — The boardwalk “loop” begins at the visitor center. The first portion of the walk covers Florida prairie, marked by open space, palms and pine trees.

0-34 — A Red-bellied Woodpecker, seen near the beginning of our walk. It’s a common species in the eastern U.S. but always fun to see (and hear! They drum and make lots of squeaky sounds). The ones in Corkscrew appear darker to me than the birds found further north; this type of regional variation can be fairly common with birds.

One wonderful thing about wetlands are the sounds, which are frequently as interesting and unusual as the sights. Even though its sound recording isn’t great, this short video of Corkscrew’s prairie does give some idea of the cacophony of frogs, none of which were visible (the snuffling sound is the frogs; there’s also a bird in the background):

0-25 — By this point, the boardwalk is traversing deep swamp. Its very inaccessibility helped Corkscrew to survive: bugs, snakes, water and no roads simply made logging too difficult, at least initially.

Once in the deep swamp I had one of those wonderful, unpredictable experiences that sometimes occur — a wildlife sighting! This was my first view of a group of Corkscrew’s river otters:

0-22 — Otter No. 1 is checking out the boardwalk, deciding whether it’s safe . . . . .

0-27 — Another member of the gang appears . . . . . .

0-21 — Three otters are enough to begin a group wrestling match! Ultimately, the pile included 6 or 7 animals . . . .

0-23 — A head-on look. The otters were totally unintimidated by human presence . . . .

This is a brief video of the otters’ appearance. Because it was made towards the end of the wrestling match, several of the troupe had already moved along the boardwalk. You can hear some swamp sounds and (alas) the click of someone else’s very high tech camera:

Although the otters were hard (well, impossible) to top, Corkscrew has more wonders:

0-16 — One of Corkscrew’s “lettuce lakes;” it’s hard to believe there’s water under all that vegetation. The lettuce lakes provide important habitat for all manner of creatures, including . . . . . .

0-11 — baby alligators! Can you spot this one, right in the center, on one of the leaves? Don’t be fooled by the size; although this one is tiny, adults can range from 8 to 11 feet (2 to 4 meters) and weigh several hundred pounds.

0-10 — More baby alligators, sunning themselves on the bank of the same lettuce lake. On my last visit, about a year ago, I also saw a mother alligator with her brood; this time, however, I didn’t see an adult.

0-7 — Another lettuce lake. That I didn’t see any alligators doesn’t mean they weren’t there!

0-19 — An Anhinga, one of Florida’s “specialty” birds. They swim under water and stab fish with that long, nasty bill. This one is drying its wings after taking a dip.

0-18 — A profile view of the same Anhinga; this gives a better view of that nasty bill!

0-20 — I’ve almost always seen a barred owl on my visits to Corkscrew; this one came late in my walk, when I had almost given up!

0-8 — Red-Shouldered Hawks are also common Corkscrew residents . . . .

0-13 — An immature Green Heron. When this one grows up, he (or she! Hard to tell which) will lose those stripes . . . .

0-15 — A very imperfect view of Aldo No. 3, one of Corkscrew’s great bald Cypress trees. It was named after Aldo Leopold, one of the fathers of the modern conservation movement. Aldo No. 3 is over 500 years old and stands 98 feet tall. We’re lucky to still have Aldo, as logging activity was halted less than a mile away.

0-36 — This is only one of Corkscrew’s many species of flowers. . . .

0-39 — One of the swamp’s many dragonflies . . . .

You may have noticed, dear reader, that I have a tendency to preach, which I do attempt (not always very successfully) to keep under control. Chalk it up to all that earnest, didactic Victorian literature I sometimes read (BTW I’m currently engrossed in Middlemarch, George Eliot’s wonderful doorstopper of a novel!). So — skip this paragraph if you like, you’ve received your warning — but it’s impossible for me when discussing Corkscrew not to stress how incredibly difficult it’s been (and continues to be, actually) to preserve its wonders. Have you ever heard of plume hunters or noticed the feathers in all those gorgeous women’s hats, so fashionable in the early part of the 20th century? Well, those feathers had to come from somewhere and the rookeries of south Florida were easy pickings. Plume hunters could make a fortune in one successful hunt and their activities almost wiped out Florida’s heron and egret population. The trade was finally outlawed in the 1920s but even then official enforcement was lax. Audubon hired its own wardens to protect Corkscrew’s nesting sites and launched a public relations campaign against wearing the plumes. It was difficult and violent struggle — two of Audubon’s wardens were murdered in the line of duty — but their efforts were successful and the egret/heron population was saved.

snowy-egret-in-breeding-plumage-morris-finkelstein — Snowy Egret in breeding plumage. A century ago, this guy would have ended up on someone’s hat.

0-1 — The boardwalk ends, as it began, with a stretch of Florida prairie.

Because you’re observing a living biome, every trip to Corkscrew is different. For example, if you’re lucky enough to visit during October to February, you have a very good chance of seeing:

male-painted-bunting — a Painted Bunting, which spends the winter “down south.” Wouldn’t you think that something so unbelievably colorful would love to show off its plumage? Nothing could be further from the truth! These birds are very shy and are normally quite hard to see. Corkscrew, however, has bird feeders located where they like to hang out (deep brush), making for fairly easy viewing if you visit during the right season.

And then, if you’re incredibly lucky (not ordinary luck, but the kind where you’d win the powerball lottery), you might see — a Florida panther!

panther_remote_camera — Needless to say, this is NOT my photo! Despite being quite willing to trade several years of my life for the experience, I’ve never seen on of these beautiful animals.

I can’t resist using this great video, lifted directly from YouTube. There’s a naughty expression at the end, so if you’re sensitive to such things you may want to turn off the sound. I’ve left it in, as it so exactly expresses how I would have felt!

Florida Panther

Audubon calls Florida panthers an “umbrella species,” i.e., if they survive, so do lots of other things that use the same habitat. Once they were found over the entire southeastern U.S.; now there are about 100–150 left in a few spots in southern Florida. Cause for despair or reason to hope? Because the numbers have grown since 1995, when the population was down to only 20-30, you decide.

0-1 — Although it’s hard to make out, the rocks and beach are covered with shorebirds, stopping to feast on horseshoe crab eggs before heading to the arctic ….

I am consumed with shame (well, figuratively if not literally) when I realize how little I’ve posted lately. I can’t say I have any reason for my sloth, except that I’ve been enjoying the incredible luxury of unscheduled time; in other words, I’ve been slothful because I’m slothful! I’ve read a few books (but not written any reviews — too analytical, for my present mood); done a little museum hopping (not nearly as exciting to normal people as pub crawling); and made a half-hearted attempt to clean up a closet or two. The closet cleaning has been quite distracting, as I’ve uncovered a number of lost or forgotten treasures — a great old paperweight (I warn you, I adore paperweights, so you probably have a Monday Miscellany on this subject headed your way); a wonderful glass fish that’s only got a slightly broken tail — it’s got to be good for something; and a lifetime supply of yellow sticky notes! Have any of you wanderers on the internet discovered similar wonders in your closets or cupboards?

In addition to these rather domestic activities there’s always something interesting going on in the natural world. Even casual birders such as myself have certain little rituals they observe, particularly in the spring when there are actually some birds to look at for those of us living in the (mostly) urban portion of the northern hemisphere. One of these, which I posted about last month, is a trip to Magee Marsh, a wonderful natural area and major stopping off point for song birds migrating through the central United States. Another, which comes a little later in May, is a short trip north to the shores of Delaware Bay, where every spring the horseshoe crabs come ashore to lay their eggs. In one of those marvels of the natural world, the egg laying coincides with the arrival of hundreds of thousands of shorebirds trekking from South America to their far northern breeding grounds. Unfortunately for the birds, horseshoe crabs are extremely useful in medical research and commonly used as bait, and are being heavily over-harvested, leaving the famished birds with nothing to eat. This misuse by humans threatens to break yet another strand in nature’s great web of life.

First, for a little geographic orientation:

Delaware Bay, with the prime horseshoe crab areas marked in orange.

Mid-Atlantic_region_map — A very simplified map of the eastern United States. As you can see, Delaware is a small state with lots of sea coast; south of New Jersey and New York, it’s also a relatively short drive north of Washington, D.C.

Have any of you ever seen a horseshoe crab? They’re actually not crabs. Popularly referred to as “living fossils,” they belong to a far more primitive species closer akin to scorpions or anthropoids. And — they’re big! I believe there are only four species left on the planet; three are in the Indo-Pacific area and one is found in the coastal waters of North America.

Unknown-1 — A single horseshoe crab. You NEVER see just one — when the tide is right during their breeding season, these things come to shore by the thousands to lay their eggs.

4035246616_cdbff6b3a5_b — This gives you some idea of what the Delaware beaches are like when the horseshoe crabs show up to lay eggs. The shorebirds, needless to say, are delighted.

IMG_1270-1200x800 — A group of Red Knots, a type of sandpiper. They’re extremely dependent on horseshoe crab eggs to survive their incredibly long migration from southern South America to the Arctic. Because humans are overharvesting the crabs the Red Knot population is in sharp decline.

Although Red Knots tend to be popular favorites, they’re only one among many bird species that feast on the crab eggs. On a good day, you can also see Ruddy Turnstones, Dowitchers, Dunlins, Semipalmated and Least Sandpipers, and Yellowlegs. One of the best viewing areas that I’ve found is:

0-17 — The DuPont Nature Center has a great observation deck (the photo at the beginning of my post was taken from it) and lots of information about birds, horseshoe crabs and other critters.

In addition to all these attractions, the Nature Center even has art work:

0-18 — Do you recognize this? It’s a sculpture of a Red Knot, done by a local artist. As you can tell by the human in the background, this is seriously NOT done to scale!

In addition to the Horseshoe Crab-shorebird spectacle, a trip to Delaware in the spring offers other delights. You pass through several scenic little towns (but beware! many of them have speed traps!) with odd little bits of local history: