The Chesser Island Boardwalk in the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge

Miles of open pine savannahs formerly surrounded the Okefenokee Swamp, but that land has been almost entirely converted into enormous pine tree farms with much less floral and faunal diversity.  100 years ago, developers tried to ruin the swamp itself as well.  They felled cypress forests and attempted to drain the swamp with canals.  Thankfully, they were bankrupted because the swamp was too resilient and impossible to develop, so the government designated it a wildlife refuge.  There is a nice boardwalk at the end of Chesser Island Road that leads to an observation tower.  I walked to the tower last Saturday with my wife and daughter and took the following photos.

The entrance road leads through a slash pine savannah with an undergrowth of saw palmetto, ferns, and wiregrass.

2 big alligators were hanging around a lily-covered roadside ditch.

Ferns are abundant in fire-adapted landscapes, like the Okefenokee.  Ferns were the first plants to sprout following the K-T impact that wiped out the dinosaurs.

Fire creates the open landscape of the Okefenokee.  Without fire it would become a closed canopy cypress forest.

Barred owl.  They are common in the swamp.

The fire of 2013 killed lots of cypress trees.  Note the charred trunks.

The boardwalk is 3/4 of a mile.  I was able to easily push my wife’s wheel chair all the way to the observation tower.

I heard pig frogs and cricket frogs at this pond, and an eastern kingbird was hunting insects over the water.

Open Okefenokee marshes are called “prairies.”

Spanish moss.  Strange as it may seem, Spanish moss is related to pineapple.

Soft shelled turtle.

The list of animal species I saw on this excursion in less than 90 minutes included alligator, soft shelled turtle, rabbit, pileated woodpecker, barred owl, black vulture, red-winged blackbird, boat-tailed grackle, mourning dove, mockingbird, eastern kingbird, yellowthroat warbler, laughing gull, great egret, black swallowtail butterfly, and at least 4 species of dragonflies.  I heard chimney swifts, pig frogs, and cricket frogs, and raccoon scat littered the boardwalk.  I was surprised I saw just 1 wading bird.  On a previous trip to the Okefenokee I saw none.  I saw the laughing gulls near the county landfill just outside the refuge. I couldn’t determine if the rabbit was a cottontail or marsh rabbit.  It slipped into the palmetto before I could take a photo of it.

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