Stump Pass - 10.08.12 - Post 5

Today I have a heron.  It's a Great Blue Heron.  They come up north in the summer, but even then are pretty rare.

Here's one standing on a sign in the bay.

But this is the shot I really like.  He's up in his nest.

Really, really UP in his nest!

Stump Pass - 10.08.12 - Post 4

It's Gopher Tortoise Day!  Actually, even cooler than that, it's baby Gopher Tortoise Day!

So this is a baby Gopher Tortoise.  You can tell by how small he looks even next to some blades of grass, but also by the amount of yellow in his shell.







Here you can see him against leaves and sticks in his habitat.  He's very wee!

You can see the sand on his back.  I've never seen the phrase "obligate burrower" before I started looking these guys up.  I know "obligate carnivore" from owning ferrets, but I've never seen "obligate burrowers".  But it's a good thing they are so driven to make their own holes.  Scientists have documented over 360 different species - everything from snakes to owls to armadillos will occupy an abandoned gopher tortoise burrow.

Here's a more grown up guy.  Actually, probably a grown up girl.  Though not a perfect science, most of the boys have a bony protrusion under their chin, jutting out from their shell.  Females don't have that and I don't see it on this one.

She does look like she's doing her tortoise best to say cheese for the camera.  Those are some bizarre teeth!

Stump Pass - 10.08.12 - Post 2

Just a quick post, because I find that these things growing in Florida amuses me...

We're brought up to believe that certain groups of plants and animals belong in certain climates.  That if you try to transplant these flora or fauna to a whole different biome that it won't work.

So cacti belong in deserts. Right?  They only grow in warm areas with very low amounts of precipitation.

Yet these guys were thriving on the key.  And Florida gets significant rainfalls *most* days.  There are these two or three-o'clock showers that come with the warming of the day very frequently.

And yet..

Prickly Pear Cactus (064 - 2012)

And just for fun... some of those amazing clouds that bring in those afternoon showers.  They start as whispy little things around dawn and build as the day goes on and more and more moisture is evaporated off the gulf (and whatever other bodies of water are around) until they get so heavy that you get about an hour of rain each afternoon during the rainy season.  And yet, the cacti seem to do just find in this environment.

Stump Pass - 10.08.12 - Post 1

So this is my New Year's Resolution... again.  I want to post every single day.  At least one picture.

I'm still wrapping up a lot of 2012 photos at this point, but that will change soon enough. :)

On my trip to Florida in October, we had a day with no major plans, so I suggested hitting one of the local beaches/parks.  It's a place called Stump Pass and it's on Manisota Key near Englewood Florida.  It's one of a million such little places in Florida and not particularly known for anything special.

But this is where I had that amazing dolphin pod siting that led to this brief post right when I got back from it.

The small park that we wandered through to get to the end of the key (where we saw the dolphins) contained a fair share of really awesome sightings as well.

Here are the two nifty butterflies I saw that I won't be seeing up in the land of ice and snow (otherwise known as Chicago.)

Mangrove Skipper  (2012 - 62)

This one is a Mangrove Skipper.  It doesn't look like the skippers I'm used to seeing in Chicago.

 I was afraid for a long time that I was going to have to try to identify this guy from his underside, but eventually I found one right-side-up. :)

This guy is a member of the same family as the Monarchs and Queens that we get so many of up north. He's a Gulf Fritillary.

Gulf Fritillary (063 - 2012)

He's most identified by the three white dots on his forewings with the black circles around them.

So it's only two, but two I won't get home!

Corkscrew Swamp, Everglades, FL - 10.7.12 - Post 1

I know, I know, it's like I fell off the face of the internet.  Short version: new day job, long hours, successful craft and art shop.  No time to blog.  In fact, very little time to shoot.

But I made the time to get down to Florida while I could this week and I'm doing as much shooting as humanly possible in my four and a half days down here.

Yesterday we went to an amazing place called The Octogon.  No, it has nothing to do with Mixed Martial Arts... but I'll talk about them later.

Today was Corkscrew Swamp.  Corkscrew is part of the Everglades and is a pretty amazing place with wildlife unlike anything you get to see in the great 'wilderness' of Chicago.

So I'm going to start off with a few of the highlights from what I saw today.

White Marked Tussock Moth Caterpilar (044 - 2012)

 This is a White-Marked Tussock Moth Caterpillar.  He's kind of creepy-cute, but that's pretty deceptive... he's venomous.  Not poisonous (meaning you get sick only if you eat it), but venomous.  Don't pet him!






 

There were a great many of them down a particular sub-path on the boardwalk.  We had to be careful where we leaned over the railings that we didn't get got! 

Just a quick little video of them scampering along the wood.  It's only 11 seconds.

White-Tailed Deer (045 - 2012)

These deer were adorable!  They were so small we thought at first they were Key Deer, but Key Deer actually only live on the, you know, Florida Keys.  So they're White-Tailed Deer, according to the checklist you can download from the site's website.  Anyway there were a couple of them out in the grasses.  This one stayed pretty close to us.  Here she's looking at me like, "Really, I'm eating here.  Do you have to watch?"

Eastern Lubber Grasshopper (046 - 2012)

 One last critter for this post.  A great big, very bright yellow-orange grasshopper!  An Eastern Lubber Grasshopper to be exact.

 He was pretty mellow about us walking around him and taking pictures of him.    I love that if you look carefully (and, you know, blow the picture up to full size), you can see his mandibles folded up against his face!






So there's three quick new species for this trip.  I have oh so terribly many more pictures to sort, edit and post.  This is barely even a drop in a bucket.  But hey, I have to start somewhere!