A lazy day on the lake

I took just a short walk around a pond within Lake Okahumpka. Didn't fish, just looked, and came up with a few worthwhile photos.

Not a bad view.

Our young alligators, four altogether in this small pond on the shore of Lake Okahumpka, are friendly with one another as this picture captures.

Our neighborhood Great blue heron.

Another morning fishing

When the fish aren't biting, you can always focus on other life around you.

Osprey

Osprey keeping a close eye on me

Cormorant drying his wings

A morning fishing

Florida is a fisherman's paradise. I like to fish so long as I'm catching some. If I'm not, I always try to have my camera on hand. Here are just a few from today.To enlarge the photos, click on them. That will help particularly with the gators.

Great blue heron

Turtles basking in the sun

Young gators sharing a log

Chokoloskee chicken

Ibises

Great white egret

Ibises are easy to identify and distinguish from egrets by the distinctive curve to their long beaks. Ibises are social birds and congregate usually in small flocks like the one above. They can be found throughout Florida. They are thriving.

There's a small town called Chokoloskee, next to Everglades City and close to Everglades National Park. It lies on the Gulf coast and serves as a launching point to explore the Ten Thousand Islands and to fish Gulf waters. It was an outpost in the late 19th and early 20th centuries for early settlers in the area and on the islands. Ibises then were in even more abundance than today. A common bird, they were sometimes hunted for their plumes to decorate women's hats and also for food. They taste, I understand, like chicken. Thus, Chokoloskee chicken.

An everyday struggle

While I was fishing on Lake Okahumpka, this osprey dove into the water nearby and captured a catfish. The capture, however, almost took the bird's life. The weight of the fish pulled him under. You can barely see him in the picture below. If you click on it, it will enlarge. He went under several times during the fight.

After a good couple minutes of struggling the osprey managed to get airborne  but just barely as his feet and  the fish skimmed the water. It was a BIG catfish, and when the fish's feet collided with a bunch of lillypads, the osprey dropped it. 

The story of the Burmese python

In the above photo taken in Big Cypress Swamp at  top right, there is a young Burmese python swimming in leaf covered water. If you click on the photo, it will enlarge making it easy to spot it. Pythons this size, two feet or less, scare the hell out of environmentalists. Why? Young, they indicate there's  a breeding population. Plus, I saw only two, and there typically is from 20 to 60 eggs in a clutch. The fear is they will overrun the Everglades.

In its first year a python grows to six feet or longer. Fully mature they can reach 20 feet. Long before they do so, they pose a risk to their owners, children and pets. They also become problematic to feed. While mice are adequate for a very young snake, rabbits and such become the diet of more mature specimens. Zoos don't want them because there's such an abundance. Instead of killing them many owners choose to release them, and the subtropical climate of the Everglades suits them well. Cold snaps such as that in the winter of 2009-2010 killed off many. However, experts believe that overall they are thriving, and some estimate they number in the 1000s in the Everglades.

Hurricane Andrew in 1992 devastated Homestead, Florida, a city which lies just north of Everglades National Park. Many buildings were totally destroyed, including pet shops. Exotic pets such as Burmese pythons were released into the wild. Even before that, in the 1980s, park rangers had sighted a few pythons, but a breeding population didn't appear to exist. Instead of dying out the population has increased due partily to pet owners releasing them.

What makes them scarey to me is how well they blend into their environment. You have to look hard to see the one in the above photo. Out of water they are even harder to see, their brown markings blending in well with almost any ground cover. They are not aggressive but instead lie still quietly waiting for prey to cross their path.

When they sight prey, they strike and latch onto it with many, many rows of razorsharp teeth. Curved inward the teeth are well designed to make escape difficult if not impossible. Pythons are not poisonous. Constrictors, they wrap themselves around their prey and squeeze them to the point they can no longer breathe.

Due to their size pythons have few predators. Alligators pose their greatest risk. Documented matches between them have declared the outcome to be a draw, 50-50, favoring neither one. In 2005 Everglades National Park released a photograph showing one outcome of an alligator-python clash. A 15-foot python tried to eat a five or six foot gator. The gator, swallowed but still alive, clawed its way out of the pthon's abdomen, and they both died.

Environmentalists worry the pythons will disturb the balance in the Everglades. Many native animals such as deer, squirrels, raccoons, foxes, otters and others native solely to the Everglades become the python's prey. Park rangers are already noticing sharp declines in various animal populations such as deer.

Efforts to capture and kill pythons have been underway for quite a while. One unique approach is Python Pete, a beagle trained to sniff them out. The state is issuing licenses to hunt the snakes and has established a hunting season.

Spiders and friends

If you can get over fear of spiders and assorted insects, Florida's a good place to be. I'm a rank novice when it comes to identifying them, but noone can deny how beautiful some can be.

Dragonfly

Golden-orbed spider

Just above the large female is the significantly smaller male.

Unidentified

This web had a 2-3 foot diameter.

The only good cockroach is a .......

Mushrooms. Yummy. Not!

Mushrooms of hundreds of varieties can be found in Florida. The more edible they appear, a mushroom expert once told me, the more likely they could make you sick!

Wildflowers, wild plants -- a bargain

Plants native to an area are well adapted to their habitat. Some people may consider them weeds and not wildflowers, but many are quite beautiful. In any garden they are easy to maintain. In Everglades National Park all species are protected. Elsewhere many can easilty be transplanted. Free!

Mexican bluebell

Butterfly pea

Pineland acacia

Cardinal Air Plant,
Big Cypress Swamp 

The air plant with its red bloom is scarcely noticable but I've included it because the cypress trees and their reflections make such a beautiful background for it. This was off Loop Road in the heart of the swamp.

Wedelia

Purple thistle

Blackeyed Susan

String-Lily

Marsh pink

Pineland heliotrope

Marsh fleabane

Unidentified

Unidentified

Air plant

Unidentified

Scaleleaf aster

Unidentified

Snow or Everglades square stem

Pickerelweed

Madagascar Periwinkle

Water lily

Birds of different feathers

Hailing from Massachusetts, my first couple winters in Florida brought enchantment with birds I had never seen before. Below is a sampling.

Red-capped sandhill cranes

Black-necked stilt

Common moor hens



Piliated woodpecker

 Great white egret hunting in Big Cypress Swamp 

Anhinga

Royal terns

Plovers

Brown pelicans

Bald eagles

Cormorant

A common bird in many states I never noticed their emerald green eyes untl I could see them close up on the Anhinga Trail in Everglades National Park.

Green heron

Green heron

American coot