Paynes Prairie State Park in Florida

My visit to Paynes Prairie State Park was a colossal disappointment.  Paynes Prairie is an area where the Florida aquifer (a gigantic underground river) comes close to the surface.  During periods of heavy rain it fills with water and becomes marshy, but during droughts the water level recedes and parts of it host grassy environments.  The fluctuating water levels prevent trees from becoming established, and it contributes to the open nature of the landscape.  A forest dominated by live oak, slash pine, palm, and red maple with an undergrowth of saw palmetto surrounds the prairie.  Supposedly, bison, cracker cattle, and Spanish horses roam the park; and guides claim it is 1 of the best bird-watching sites in the U.S.  I didn’t see any of the megafauna and only saw a paltry 4 species of birds–an egret, a turkey vulture, a red-shouldered hawk, and a small gray bird with a white tail that I have frustratingly been trying to identify for years.  I’ve seen this bird in Augusta, Georgia too, and it always seems to be hanging around water, but it doesn’t resemble any the pictures in my field guides.  I also heard chickadees and an eastern phoebe.

This egret was the only wading bird I saw in the park.

Fluctuating water levels create an open landscape at Paynes Prairie.  I took this photo from a watchtower that swayed in the wind.

I didn’t see the bison, cracker cattle, or horses.  I did find deer hoof prints.

Some of the live oaks were 6 feet thick in diameter.

I saw more wildlife in Florida outside the park than I did inside it.

Next to my hotel in an urban area of Bradenton, Florida I saw a flock of 13 white ibis.

I got an even better photo of an egret next to my hotel than I did in the park.

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Carvers Creek State Park in South Central North Carolina

Last Saturday, we visited my nephew who is stationed at Fort Bragg in North Carolina.  This gave me the opportunity to hike around Carvers Creek State Park located nearby.  Past the entrance, a long wide path borders an old field on one side and a woodland of shortleaf pine with an understory of blackjack oak and sweetgum saplings on the other side.  I heard a constant chirping of crickets in the field, and grasshoppers were also abundant.  This is ideal habitat for loggerhead shrikes (Lanius ludovicianus), a species in decline.  They nest in short trees but hunt for large insects (such as grasshoppers), mice, lizards, amphibians, and even juvenile venomous snakes; all of which can be found in this old field.  I’ve never seen a loggerhead shrike, and it’s high on my birding wish list.  I asked a park ranger where the shrikes were.  She told me they could usually be seen behind a fence where they keep their maintenance equipment, and birders using binoculars could stand near the fence and see them.  I didn’t have binoculars with me, so shrikes are still on my wish list.

The first part of the trail borders an old field humming with crickets and grasshoppers.  Loggerhead shrikes inhabit this park.

Much of the park is open woodland/savannah type environments.

Big loblolly pine.

This path leads to the former winter house of one of the Rockefellers, but it is not yet open to the public.  The state park service probably needs to renovate it, so it’s safe for visitors.  Rotten floor boards can be hazardous.  It overlooks a millpond and has glassed-in porches on the 2nd floor of both the front and the back.

The front of the WWI era Rockefeller winter home.

Back of the Rockefeller winter home.  Most of the wildlife I did see was here behind the fence.  Note the glassed-in porch.  Nice.  It overlooks the millpond.

Cypress trees ring the millpond.

Millpond.

A live oak tree grows near the Rockefeller house.  Live oak is not native to North Carolina this far inland, though it does grow near the coast.  This specimen must have been transplanted here over a century ago.  I saw gray squirrels, chipping sparrows, and blue jays foraging on acorns under the tree.  One of the squirrels was rather large, and at first I thought it might be a fox squirrel, but I caught a glimpse of white underbelly.  Gray squirrels usually have white bellies, while fox squirrels are solid-colored.  The ranger told me fox squirrels can be seen on the loop trail around the millpond, but I didn’t see them.

Live oak.

The loop trail goes through a savannah.

More open woodland/savannah.

I was surprised to see cypress trees growing this far inland.  Cypress trees grow on the edges of the millpond here.  I checked the range map and learned this site is about as far inland as they can normally be found.

The loop trail threads through open pine savannah.  I noticed fire marks on some of the pines.  This park must be managed with fire.

The millpond is u-shaped. Note the cypress trees in the water.

Carvers Creek Park is a recent and valuable addition to North Carolina’s state park system.  Much of the area around the park has been transmogrified into pine tree farms, an environment that supports almost no wildlife at all.

 

William Bartram’s Visit to St. Simons Island in 1774

I didn’t go to St. Simons Island this summer as I’d initially planned, but I wasn’t disappointed.  I’m sure the island is not as interesting as it was when William Bartram visited it in the spring of 1774.  Bartram stayed for a few days with James Spalding, then the president of the settlement of Frederica and a merchant involved in the Indian trade.  Although a remnant of an old growth maritime forest has been preserved for the modern day naturalist to enjoy, Bartam had the opportunity to see the island when it was mostly undeveloped.  One day, he left Frederica on horseback to survey the island.  Thick groves of live oaks surrounded the town.

500 year old live oak on John’s Island South Carolina.  There may have been quite a few trees of this age on St. Simons Island when Bartram visited in 1774.

Bartram rode through the virgin live oak woods and found a “beautiful green savannah” about 2 square miles in extent.  Long-horned cattle, horses, sheep, and deer fed in this natural pasture.  On the other side of this savannah, he followed an old road that had fallen into disrepair.  The road went through an open woodland of live oaks and longleaf pines spread far enough apart that grass and shrubs could grow in the understory.  The road ended after 5-6 miles when he reached an impenetrable thicket growing on a sandhill.  The thicket was composed of live oak, myrtle, holly, beautyberry, silverbell, alder buckthorn, hoptrees, bully trees, hornbeam, and bignonia.  Several of these species are evergreen and subtropical.  Greenbriar vines covered the thicket, and there was a salt marsh on the other side of the sandhill.  Bartram referred to it as a “salt plains.”

Bartram did find a freshwater creek between the forest and the salt marsh.  Here, he rested and enjoyed the fragrant beauty of diamond frost, morning glory, lycium (a thorny plant in the nightshade family), scarlet sage, and white lily; all of which were blooming in April.

 Diamond frost in the Euphorbia genus.  It is related to the more famous Christmas poinsetta.  This is one of the flowers Bartram saw growing on St. Simons Island.  Actually, it is the leaves that look like flowers. 

Bartram turned south and found the beach where he saw living and dead starfish, corals, jellyfish, snails, whelks, clams, and squid; all washed upon the sand.  He left the uninhabited beach and headed west, coming across 50-60 beehives lined up in a grove of oaks and palms.  He met a farmer and beekeeper who was resting upon a bearskin rug after a morning spent hunting and fishing.  The man gave Bartram venison and honey-sweetened water spiked with brandy.  They had a picnic amidst the mockingbirds, painted buntings, and hummingbrids.  Jasmine, honeysuckle, and azaleas scented the air. 

William Bartram met a farmer and beekeeper on St. Simons Island who was lounging outside on a beer skin rug while drinking brandy mixed with honey and water.  He must have caught the bear raiding his bee hives.

  

An apiary.  Beekeepers and bears do not get along.

On his way back to Frederica, Bartram saw many abandoned plantations.  Even Fort Frederica itself, still manned at the time by a small garrison, was falling apart.  Peach, fig, and pomegranate trees grew through the broken walls.  General Oglethorpe had ordered the construction of the fort 60 years earlier, but funds in 1774 were not available to maintain it.

Fort Frederica on St. Simons Island, Georgia.  General Oglethorpe ordered it built circa 1712 to repel any possible invading colonial force such as the Spanish.  By 1774 it was already in ruins.

I envy the bucolic life of the farmer that Bartram met.  The man had half of St. Simons Island to himself.  For an 18th century existence, this was living in paradise.  Poor city folks in London then were lucky if they had bread.  But this man lived on a beautiful plantation with quite a variety of food available from both land and sea.  On the other hand, he didn’t have air conditioning and television.  And the bikini had yet to be invented.  Today, his plantation has been transmogrified into a landscape of condos built as closely together as possible.  If this farmer could visit the present day for a week, I wonder if he would envy our modern life as I envy his or would he wish to return to his old life.  I wonder…would he trade places with me?