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Question - What do you get when you take three state
biologists, a science teacher, one wildlife photographer, and five environmental
consultants, put them on a plane and send them to Florida for four days
in a quest to find as many herptilian species as is humanly possible?
Answer - Ten sweat strewn bipeds covered in mud with
sixty straight hours of fifty inch smiles.
I refuse to bore you all with an account of the what, where’s and the
why's in the hopes that you won’t interpret this as a "what did I do
on my summer vacation" paper. Rather I would like to portray a snapshot
of what ten trained naturalists are capable of finding when left to
their devices in a biologically diverse area of the Florida peninsula
in what amounted to 40 hours in the thick of it. The main spotlight
was placed on reptiles and amphibians but nothing could stop us from
noting all that flew amongst the branches or crawled and grew beneath
our feet.
I wish I could report that where ever we fared we had to watch our step
in order to avoid another turtle or snake. It was nothing like that.
Like so many field searches, you might see the signs but not the animal.
For instance almost every habitat type we wandered into, whether it was
a gulf hammock or a pine flatwood, we came across gopher tortoise burrows
but only on three occasions did we find a turtle. We found many snake
tracks but all too few snakes. The ones we did find seemed to come in
bunches. For instance we spent the better part of a day searching many
habitat types in the Green Swamp Wildlife Management area only to be consistently
disappointed in regards to snakes. It wasn’t until late that day when
our luck would change. Not surprisingly, our quarry would show up right
along the access road we were traveling on in a small depressional wet
scrubby pan. First a couple of cottonmouths were spotted followed by
a pygmy rattlesnake and topped off by a corn snake, all within an hour’s
scrutiny.
What you couldn’t help but notice was life in totem. When you’re with
a group of naturalists who spend endless time in a field it’s hard not
to notice things. This was swiftly testified at the first place we surveyed
– Tiger Creek Natural Area – where within a hundred feet of the parking
area we had passed into a cornucopia of neoptropical life. Along the
entrance trail we identified some common denizens of this conservancy
-
lynx spiders, pileated wood pecker, gulf fritillary butterfly, amberwing
dragonflies, eastern pondhawk, tiger beetle sp., antlion burrows, long-tailed
skipper butterfly, gopher tortoise burrows, paintbrush, partridge pea,
blazing star and french mulberry.
At the end of a four hour visit we had added many more species highlighted
by a newly emerged imperial moth, american alligator, florida scrub
lizard, six lined race runner, green anole, red-shouldered hawk and
yes one snake – an eastern whipsnake, racing too fast in the brush to
get his picture taken. The point of it all should be obvious to even
the casual reader of this piece – intact ecosystems harbor intense number
of life forms. The ten of us had only scratched the surface of evident
life in the peak of the afternoon when biological activity should be
at its lowest observable level. Imagine the species list we could have
produced if we had more time, traps, electric eyes, siphons, topography
maps and a field station to key it all out in. I spend way too much
time and ink telling people how the hammer is falling on a planet under
assault that I all too often loose sight of the places we do have where
life forms dance through their cycles carefree and unaware of the impending
danger.
Day two of our search was spent poking around Kissimmee state park's
extensive system of flatwoods, palms and pine forests where again we
were disappointed in regards to what we didn’t find. It wasn’t until
the day began to close that our luck would change.
Along two paths that both led away from the entrance to the park we
started hitting pay dirt. While sandhill cranes were landing in nearby
agricultural fields, we witnessed a caracara (state threatened raptor)
pulling the head off a large catfish. Barking tree frogs were found
mosquito hunting on fence posts while the earth gave birth to cricket
frogs burbling up from tire rut puddles. A few of us witnessed a lynx
frantically dash across the path into a nearby thicket. Ornately garbed
in colorful warts, oak toads appeared like impish sprits wherever we
fared. Gopher frogs, southern leopard frogs, green frogs, southern toads,
least flycatchers and palm warblers were all seen during our brief evening
survey of these trails.
The state endangered Florida Scrub Jay beckoned us from the hedgerows
for any pocket victuals we may have had. This was a life bird for me
and I was taken back a step by their pack mentality and sleek coolness. For a bird that has no apparent fear of upright standing primates it
beckons the question why are they so rare.
The answer lies in their inability to break the chains of genetic encoding
for a specific habitat type. This species can only breed in early successional
xeric oak forests like the ones found in Kissimmee state park. With
the intense development of the Florida peninsula since the early 50’s,
these fire dependent habitats have been fragmented and have quickly
given way to late stage oak hammock and sand pine forests which are
too dense and unsuitable for the jay.
Probably the most beautiful piece of nature’s art my eyes beheld was
the gulf fritillary butterfly, flitting around on a tireless quest for
nectar. This living jewel obviously took a left turn at the rainbow
and then flew through a bucket of fresh squeezed orange juice in attempt
to out-color any flower fortunate enough to be blessed by its embrace.
This species will make its way in mass to Florida from northern climes
in the hopes of finding a rich supply of its host plant – passion flower. Along with monarchs, peacocks, long-tailed and pearl crescent butterflies
the gulf fritillary seemed to follow us into the brush with magnetic
certainty, a friendly reminder that the earth still inhales the elements
as it exhales diversity in the Florida peninsula. |
