Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary

Wednesday, April 3^rd – 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).

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.

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. 

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. 

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. 

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.

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!