Weeds and Seeds - Bailey Homestead

Every Monday, volunteers at SCCF lead a 'Weeds and Seeds' walk through one of their preserves, examining plants. Yesterday's objective was to show the 15 or so participants the invasive, non-native plants that have shown up in the preserve and what the staff do about it.

While the talk is about plants almost exclusively, it will give access to places not usually open to the public. Our Sanibel friends were there and everyone had a good time while learning many issues involving conservation of parkland.

One really should have notepad to record what you see and learn, but...

This little spring of Spanish moss in the parking lot was being highlighted by an early morning shaft of light and demanded my attention.

One of the persistent invaders is the potato vine: you can see this now dormant or dead plant on the left while the 'potato' is just waiting to drop off and sprout.

 Each plant can have many dozens of 'potatoes' every year, so getting rid of this invasion is a full time job.

Another pretty invader has these beautiful and tempting red berries: chewing one single berry will kill a person before they reach the hospital... 

Most people on the walk had a lot of experience [read: were older] and kept looking around to satisfy a constant curiosity. One walker spotted this lizard up in a tree about30-40 feet away. 

From where we stood, it was little more than a bump on a branch. This lizard is about a meter in length and we had seen one in our friend's backyard just a few days ago. Imagine that falling out of a tree...

Some areas of the property were lawns created by the former owners, or areas that had to be cleared due to invasive non-natives. This chair, swinging off a tree limb, looked like a great place to watch the lazy action of this small Egret looking for bugs.

As mentioned that was a plant walk, but even so, some birds were doing their group acrobatics where they flash white as they make their turns. You'll note that one bird's timing is just a little off...

Just a pretty bloom, about 4 inches long.

Again, birds in the distance, spotted by those well experienced walkers, this time a pair of Pileated Woodpeckers. They were really too far to photograph, but you get the idea.

Florida does have some swamp land, even in the southwest. We had a few boardwalks to help us navigate...

After the talk, we walked to a water treatment plant nearby, and saw this Anhinga just sitting on a pole. These birds do not have oil on their feathers, so while this allows them to dive deeper, it means that they spend a lot of time drying their wings if they want to fly. Anhingas are very similar to our Cormorants and both exist here. The Cormorant has a hooked back and shorter tail. The Anhinga's tail is quite a bit longer than its feet, so they are rarely on the ground itself, much preferring a post or limb, where the tail remains free.

And lastly, the well storied Wood Stork.  Quite frankly, not the prettiest bird in the flock, but certainly one of the biggest ones. This one stood nearly a mere in height when walking.

So this is most likely the way we will try to spend our Mondays. Sure beats shovelling...

[you can click on any picture to see them all larger if you want. You can also click on Links to go to different web-sites like SCCF above]