30 Days in June: Day 24, San Felasco (City) Park

San Felasco Park--the Big Picture

Errands and appointments yesterday put me on the far NW side of town and it seemed like a good day to visit San Felasco (City) Park. It is so confusing that we have so many San Felasco Parks. This one used to be a County park but was acquired by the City about 5-6 years ago. Many people are not aware that it even exists because it has the same name as the State Park. I think renaming it would be a big help. If anyone asks, my suggestion would be to name it after Alice Tyler, a founding member of Friends of Nature Parks, and active member of Alachua Audubon, Florida Native Plant Society, Sierra Club, Florida Trails Association and other nature support organizations. I would definitely go to Alice Tyler Park.

Mushroom and Moss on the Trail

My first visit to San Felasco Park was about 5 years ago when I was still teaching at Morningside. We had a session of summer camp where we took the campers to explore as many parks as we could during the week. The campers loved the play structures and enjoyed the walks to the cypress dome and the marsh overlook. I was able to do a little exploring on my own during my lunch break and discovered a quiet trail that led to a dark swamp in the woods. It was very enjoyable and I remember seeing Partridge Berries for the first time.

Picnic Area and Playground

I came to the park on another occasion for a guided bird walk offered by Alachua Audubon and led by the City's park biologist, Geoff Parks. We learned a lot about the park and saw lots of birds I would not have seen without his help. I could have used his help again on this trip. I'm sure he would have helped me add some new birds to my list!

Broken Bird Egg 

Maralee and I explored this San Felasco several times. It is practically in her back yard, so she knows it well. She showed me beautiful yellow Bladderwort flowers in the ditches along the utility easement just outside the park boundaries. It was always a good place for frogs and turtles, butterflies and birds.

Golden Silk Orbweaver Spider

Last year I had the opportunity to lead a guided nature walk through the park for Friends of Nature Parks. I read a lot about the history and significance of the park and walked through several times in preparation so that I could know the interesting nature to point out to my group. A friendly and helpful group of about 6 people came and we swatted mosquitoes and looked at plants and animals and then the skies opened up and it poured. But we had a great time.

Hairy Laurel (Kalmia hirsuta)

Cinnamon Fern Fiddlehead (Osmunda cinnamomea)

Purse Web Spider Tube

I was thinking of all these experiences as I walked, stopping at the shelter with interpretive panels, then at the marsh overlook. I walked up the boardwalk to the cypress dome, which was bone dry, then back up the path to the bridge over Blues Creek, also dry. I saw some flowers, but mostly there were the hints of flowers to come later in the summer. The birds were very quiet, probably due to the heat. It was late morning by the time I arrived. I heard Towhees and Cardinals and the occasional Red Shouldered Hawk.

Informative Panels

Path Through Urban Woods

I had hoped to walk along the power easement, but it was closed. I was disappointed, but also a little relieved because the path is in full sun and I was getting hot. But in turning back I saw a cluster of lovely flowering vines that I had missed while walking over.

Oh Well...

Trumpet Creeper (Campsis radicans)

I retraced my path back to the playground and decided to visit that quiet path through the woods that I had seen years ago during summer camp. The trail was hidden and narrow and I was not quite sure if it was a real path or just one made by the neighbors cutting through the woods to the park. But when I saw the wooden bridge over a dry creek I knew it was at least a little official. The path took me to the dark swamp in the woods where there was some water. And this is where the birds were. I saw an Eastern Kingbird, many Great Crested Flycatchers, Woodpeckers, Carolina Wren, Tufted Titmouse, and heard Osprey from a distance.

Narrow Path Through the Woods

Bridge Over Dry Creek

Wet Cypress Swamp

Noisy Great Crested Flycatcher

Gray Squirrel

I left the park with quite a few bug bites (the yellowflies were fierce) but no ticks. I did not see any new birds for my list, but I had a nice time in another favorite natural area. Maybe when I come back to visit it will have a new name.

Vanilla Leaf (Carphephorus odoratissimus)

30 Days in June: Day 23, O'Leno State Park and Old Bellamy Road

O'Leno Used to be "Keno"!

I have been working on my big list of favorite places I want to visit again before we move, but I have another list of places I never quite got around to seeing and always meant to. Yesterday, my photo buddy, Maralee helped bring me up to speed on a couple of Alachua County birding staples that I had managed to miss over the years. The first was O'Leno State Park, on the Santa Fe River. I had actually been to O'Leno once before for a butterfly count, but the year I was there the state was in the height of drought and there was almost no water. It was an entirely different experience, and I didn't walk any of the river trails, so this was like a first visit for me.

Suspension Bridge Over the Santa Fe

O'Leno is a CCC era park, one of the oldest in the Florida State Park system. The picnic pavilions and cabins are charming log and chert rock structures. You cross the river over a beautiful suspension bridge and walk down to the water on sturdy block steps with rock retention walls. The river is the border at that part of the county, so we tried to concentrate on the Alachua County side of the bridge so any bird sightings would count for me. In the end, it didn't matter, because the Yellow Throated Vireo called but stayed invisible, despite our best efforts to draw it out. O'Leno did turn out to be an excellent birding location, but I had already checked all the ones we saw off of my list: Red Eyed and White Eyed Vireo, Yellow Billed Cuckoo, Pileated Woodpecker, Red Bellied Woodpecker, Barred Owl, Cattle Egret. We were met in the parking lot by a very friendly deer that people have probably been feeding.

Looking From the Alachua County Side

CCC Era Construction

The sound of the river as the water goes over the rocks and little drop is so soothing

Green Waters

Closer to the river banks, we found a some beautiful wildflowers that we don't usually see around Gainesville; Coastal Rosegentian and Swamp Milkweed. The Southern Toads are finally making an appearance for the summer and we had to watch our step so as not to squash tiny toadlings the size of beetles. There were also quite a few dead Red Bay trees, killed by the exotic Ambrosia Beetle that spreads Laurel Wilt Pathogen. It is sad to see so many of these beautiful trees dying or dead, and I wonder what this is doing to the population of Palamedes Swallowtails that use the tree as a larval host plant.

Coastal Rosegentian (Sabatia calycina)

Frog in the River

Minute Toadling (Compare to Size of Oak Leaves in Back)

Dead Red Bay

Florida is currently experiencing drought conditions, and though they are not yet quite as severe as the year I visited O'Leno when there was no water in the swimming area, sections of the park were very dry. We climbed around in a dry Cypress Swamp, looking for the Yellow Throated Vireo that we never saw. Walking through Cypress knees feels like walking in a strange alien landscape.

Cypress Knees

Gnarled Tree Roots

We stopped to look at the exhibit of rescued Gopher Tortoises by the nature center. I wanted to photograph at least one Gopher Tortoise this month and they were the only ones that I had seen in my explorations this month. Predictably, just as we were exiting the park we saw a tortoise grazing by the highway. Our cameras were stowed, so the captive tortoises will have to do for my photo record.

Rescued Gopher Tortoise and Burrow

We finished the trip with a quick visit to Old Bellamy Road, a place I had heard many naturalists mention for birds, butterflies and wildflowers, but I had never been there. All this time I thought it was just the name of a road. But it is actually a historic old road, and part of the state park system, with a parking lot and interpretive signs! Old Bellamy Road was Florida's first Federal Highway, built to connect Pensacola and St. Augustine in 1824. The road crosses the Santa Fe River over a "natural bridge" where the river goes underground for about 3 miles at what is now O'Leno State Park and comes out again at River Rise State Park. Parts of the old historic road run through state park land, which is where we went. We saw a Summer Tanager and heard Eastern Towhees and Vireos. Long-tailed Skippers darted along the grass, and we found nice clusters of Indian Plaintain, Butterfly Pea, and Sensitive Briar. I had been missing a real gem all these years.

Historic Old Bellamy Road

Old Green Grassy Bellamy Road

Sensitive Briar (Mimosa quadrivalvis)

Atlantic Pigeonwings (Clitoria mariana)

Fluffy Tanager

Every time I think I know my surroundings, I get a little reminder of how big Florida really is and how little I have seen of it. I feel like I know my area so well and then I find a place I've never been to in 20 years of living here, yet it was only a short drive from home. There are so many wonderful places, in Florida, in the US and in the world. I guess this means that I have a lot more exploring to do.

Colors on the Santa Fe River

June Challenge Count: Still the same, no new birds, but I've been to 28 natural areas.

30 Days in June: Day 18, Moonshine Creek and Creek Sink Trails

That's My Motto! 

Rested, reinvigorated and rehydrated, Thursday morning had me out on the trail bright and early. I wanted to walk the Moonshine Creek and the Creek Sink trails at San Felasco Hammock State Park before it got too hot again. It had rained a little bit the night before and more rain was in the forecast later, so the air was heavy and everything was damp. When I took out my cameras I found that the lenses were fogged. They were still cool from the air conditioning in the house and car and when the hot, humid air hit them, condensation formed on everything. I wiped them with my lens cloth, but the metal on the telephoto held the cold and it kept fogging over for almost a half hour. Therefore, I missed my chance to get a picture of the Hooded Warbler and Acadian Flycatcher I saw right by the creek. But I was just happy to have found them.

Starting on the Trail

Sun Rays in the Forest

Moonshine Creek

Moonshine Creek at San Felasco is one of the first trails my family and I hiked when we first moved to Gainesville. It has changed a lot over the years but is still a great place to hike. I like to come for butterflies in the fall and Jack in the Pulpit and Trillium in the Spring. The hurricanes of 2004 took out lots of big trees and then the drought a few years later dried up ponds and swamps. But everything changes. A wet prairie will be flooded one year and dried up the next. A big tree falls and opens up a big patch of sunshine into dark woods and new plants grow there that never could before. Things change. Pine beetles, coral ardesia, and hard winters, dry summers. You can't be sure that the things you saw one year will be there the next. It makes life precious and interesting. It's important to appreciate what you have while you have it, but it is just as important to be able to improvise and adapt when you don't. Change is good for you because it forces you to think in new ways. I'm thinking of our move this way--lots of new places to experience, things to learn and people to meet.

Sadly, this trail has a real problem with Coral Ardesia. Please don't plant this at home. The berries are attractive to the birds and they take over.

Huge Grape Vine

Muscle Wood (American Hornbeam) with Poison Ivy

The trail through the woods was much cooler than I had expected and I started thinking that this was the best way to be active in the hot summer--go to the dark woods! But as I walked lower into the sink area, closer to the creek and the pond, it got wetter and muggier, and soon I had sweat through all my clothes and was having a hard time moving the dials on my cameras because my hands were so wet with sweat. When I stopped to look at something, the breeze I was creating with my motion stopped and sweat would pour down my face. It was intense. But at least there were no bugs! I don't know why, but the mosquitoes were mercifully absent, and somehow I didn't get any ticks.

Tall Trees

Cool, Dark Path

It was lusciously dark and green. And noisy. The tree frogs were barking and the buzz of the cicadas was so loud that my ears were almost numb. When I walked up and out of the woods and I couldn't hear them anymore I felt like I'd been at a concert or had cotton in my ears. It was hard to use sounds sounds to locate birds because they were drowned out by the cicadas. But I'm not complaining. It made the whole experience richer to be buried in the deep, dark woods. I saw a deer from a distance and so many squirrels. I'm sure there were lots more birds than what I saw, but the path was uneven and I had to watch my step in addition to watching the trees. I was on the lookout for snakes, too, but didn't see any. I saw Woodpeckers and Cardinals, Carolina Wrens and Parulas and a big Titmouse family.

Moss Covered Tree Trunk

Watch Your Step

This is Where the Bird Action Is!

What I did see were spider webs, everywhere. I wasn't able to get a photo that showed the perfection of the orb weaver webs in the misty rays of sunshine, but they were stunning. Some of them were 2-3 feet across. I also saw a slug and some snails eating tree fungus.

Giant Webs

Spider Web in the Woods (The photo doesn't do it justice)

Snails Eating Fungus

Carolina Mantle Slug Eating Fungus

When I walk by myself I do a lot of thinking. Sometimes I am composing the blog that I am writing about my hike. Sometimes I'm going through lists of things that I have to do. (I'm making a lot of lists these days). Sometimes I go over conversations that I have had or that I want to have. Sometimes I just look and enjoy. And sometimes I get a stupid ear worm stuck in my brain, a dumb song that goes on and on and I can't shake it. I don't know what brings them on, maybe it's the rhythm of my walking pace, or maybe it's a phrase that pops into my mind and starts it. But in the middle of San Felasco, I had the refrain from "Uptown Funk" playing over and over and over.

I'm too hot (hot damn)
Called police and fireman
I'm too hot (hot damn)
Make a dragon wanna retire man
I'm too hot (hot damn),
ETC, ETC, ETC, ETC AAAGH!

It was driving me crazy. It's a fun song, but only once or twice, and not running on repeat in my brain, and definitely not in the woods while I'm trying to listen for Yellow Throated Vireos over the drone of the cicadas. But I was too hot, and the sweat dripping down my face kept reminding me. But I concentrated and eventually I was able to push "Too Hot" out of my brain and I got back to my tranquility.

Web of Tree Roots Extending Across the Forest Floor

Back at the parking lot I saw what I first thought was a gigantic (6 inch long) slug on the ground. But it turned out to be a banana that had been in the sun a while. Hah! But then I almost jumped when I saw the Broad Headed Skink with its head buried in the banana, munching away. Who knew that skinks ate bananas? This one was quite content. And so was I. It was a great morning!

Nom Nom Nom

This Skink Has Been Busy!

 Total: 92 (95) June Challenge Birds and 22 Natural Areas