Wednesday, April 3rd – Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary
Well it’s 6:30am and we’re getting ready to drive out to
Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary. Why the early start? Tina has duty at the
Conservancy at noon and it’s about a 45 minute drive so we wanted to leave
early. After taking the dogs out for a quick walk, we grabbed a cup of coffee
and headed for the freeway.
Not much traffic on I-75 so we made it to our exit in jig
time (the correct one this time – heheheh)
and headed for Immokalee. As we rounded the last bend before heading
into Immokalee, I told Tina I thought we would be coming up on our turn about a
mile or so down the road. Well the mile or so became two, then three, then four
and finally, a couple of miles before town, we realized that we missed it. So
we turned around and headed back finally finding our road just at the end of
the final curve instead of 1 ½ miles past it. I don’t think we’ll forget it in
the future (and we’ve been out here several times before – go figure).
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| Map of Boardwalk and ecological habitats it crosses |
Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary occupies approximately 13,000
acres in the heart of the Corkscrew Watershed in Southwest Florida, part of the
Western Everglades. It is primarily composed of wetlands. These include the
largest remaining virgin bald cypress forest in the world (approximately 700
acres), which is the site of the largest nesting colony of Federally Endangered
Wood Storks in the nation.
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| Starting our morning hike |
In addition to the wood stork, Corkscrew provides
important habitat for numerous other species, including the Florida Panther,
American Alligator, Gopher Tortoise, Florida Sandhill Crane, Limpkin, Roseate
Spoonbill, Snowy Egret, Tricolored Heron, White Ibis, Big Cypress Fox Squirrel
and the Florida Black Bear. Several rare plants are also found here, most
notably the Ghost Orchid.
We finally made it to the CSS parking lot and made our way
to the entry. We were told that it should be a good walk as, with the water
disappearing, there were lots of birds. With a 2.25 mile boardwalk, we will
actually traverse a number of different ecological habitats – Pine Flatwoods,
Wet Prairie (River of Grass), Pond Cyprus and Marsh lowlands, and Lettuce
Lakes. As we walked along the boardwalk we marveled at how healthy everything
was. The Cyprus were covered in a rich green mantle and the Sabal Palms, Pines
and Palmettos were dense and lush.
We traveled about 1 ½ miles with very few sightings of
birds. We saw one Pileated Woodpecke fry off across the grasslands, several
smaller birds far off in the branches but not much else. Then, as we passed
dried up an alligator wallow, a crowd was gathered ahead of us with cameras
out. At last, a sign of what we were here for.
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| Small Alligator wallow with two alligators and about a dozen Ibis |
In a small wallow were two good
sized alligators. Surrounding the pond were about 15 mature and immature Ibis
plus a small Night Heron. The Ibis were circling the pond in a dance, picking
bugs out of the mud while the alligators were herding fish out of the deeper
part of the pool towards the shore where they would twist their head to the
side and snap up the fish. Each time the alligators caught fish the Ibis would go into a flurry of
movement just in case they were too close and might become lunch.
We watched the action for about twenty minutes before moving
on. We came upon one of the Audubon Naturalists pointing towards the trunk of a
bald cypress tree located 150 feet from the boardwalk and about fifty feet up.
He was pointing at a Ghost Orchid.
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| Ghost Orchid |
This is a very rare species of Orchid, one
of only a thousand thought to exist in the wild. Ghost orchids are so-called
because the bloom appears to float in mid-air. Area biologists nicknamed this
Corkscrew specimen the "Super Ghost," since this particular orchid
has had as many as twelve blossoms; typically ghost orchids might have between
one and three blossoms per year, each bloom occurring one after the other.
The
Corkscrew orchid now has one bloom. Thought to be decades old, Corkscrew's
ghost orchid was discovered in July of 2007, when two visitors looking for
barred owls spied it though a new opening in the trees. We looked through the
spotting scope and sure enough, there it was. Couldn’t get a photo so this one
is attributed to Andrew West.
Further on we came to another group with cameras out looking
over a large pond filled with wading birds and a baby alligator. We watched in
fascination as a Roseate Spoonbill plucked at the tail of the baby alligator
causing it to turn around and snap at the bird in irritation causing the spoonbill
to dodge away from the snapping teeth of the baby.
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| Birds galore! |
Elsewhere in the pond were
Great Egrets, Snowy Egrets, several Blue Heron, Storks, Ibis, Two Great Blue
Herons, a Green Heron, another large alligator and raccoons on the shore
looking for a handout. Below us, around one of the support posts, was a
cottonmouth snake trying to soak up some sun.
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| Mother Barred Owl |
Leaving the pond behind we came across a Barred Owl mother
resting on a branch about twenty feet away from her nest. A naturalist told us
they thought there were at least two baby owls in the nest. She was just
sitting there watching everybody take pictures.
After taking a last photo of mama owl we headed back to the
car for the drive home. Another exciting day outdoors in the Florida back
country!
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