A Fall Day in the Florida Salt Marsh

Observation Tower Robinson Preserve, Florida

It’s fall in Central Florida. This means azure blue sky, low humidity and moderate temperatures. On this day we visited the Robinson Preserve in Manatee County. The Gulf breeze brought refreshing cool air to the salt marsh, attracting numerous people to enjoy the recreational benefits of the salt marsh.

We talked to one couple that had completed a loop of the marsh in kayaks. They told us of seeing roseate spoonbills, bald eagles and a family of raccoons. The kayak vendor informed us the masked bandits feed in that section of the marsh every morning to chow down on clams.

We unpacked our picnic basket of leftover turkey sandwiches and chocolate chip cookies next to the dark blue water, and watched the leaping mullet. Overhead osprey circled and chirped. Only a few clouds adorned the sky so we decided to put on sunscreen, but we skipped the DEET. We hoped the wind would keep the mosquitos at bay.

A Stampede of Fiddler Crabs

After lunch we passed through the marsh on our way towards the mangrove swamp boardwalk. At one of the ponds, we witnessed a large collection of male fiddler crabs. It looked like something out of a science fiction movie.

We climbed the observation tower to get a better view of the surrounding marsh, the Gulf and the Sunshine Skyway bridge. Many kayaks and paddleboards floated on the open water at this point. People are discovering the many recreational opportunities offered by the salt marsh. It's important to ensure the conservation of these wetland areas that fish and birds rely on.

Sunshine Skyway bridge

A boardwalk meanders through the mangrove swap. It provides hikers numerous opportunities to see wildlife. Along one section it follows the Gulf shore. Fisherman and hikers can make their way through the massive sea grape stands, and dip a line or their feet in the Gulf waters. One can also get a good view of the Sunshine Skyway bridge, and downtown St. Petersburg.

On this day we saw several osprey and ibis. We also saw an egret and a juvenile black crowned night heron. There were lots of hikers, bicyclists, and kayakers. On this day wildlife was minimal, however the great weather and scenery made for an enjoyable trip.

Juvenile Black Crowned Night Heron

Osprey enjoying a fall day at the Preserve

In Response to the Latest Episode on The Walking Dead

Autumn in the Florida Swamp

Lettuce Lake an Urban Wetland prolific in Nature

View of Lettuce Lake from Observation Tower, Photo by Bruce G. Smith

We enter the boardwalk behind the Audubon Center. The path splits, and we take the left fork that eventually leads us to the observation tower. At this point the Hillsborough River widens to form a slow moving expanse of water known as Lettuce Lake.

In 1982 Hillsborough County created Lettuce Lake Park. It is an urban wetland nestled close to the University of South Florida campus. It forms part of the flood plain for the Hillsborough River, and provides an excellent habitat for wildlife.

It is a great place for bird watching and observing alligators. On this day we saw several alligators and turtles. We also observed ibis, egrets, herons and many other birds. During the migratory season the boardwalk provides an astounding array of waterfowl. We often see snakes hiding in the foliage.

Alligator Lettuce Lake, Photo by Bruce G. Smith

 As we near the tower an alligator suns itself on a log. It’s a rare day that visitors don’t see a gator or two around this log. After taking several pictures of the young gator and a few turtles, we continue on to the observation deck.

From the top of the observation deck, most of the park’s 240 acres are visible. In front of the deck is the largest portion of open water. The canoe and kayak launch is not far from here, and it is entertaining to watch novices honing their skills.

Banded Water Snake along Boardwalk, Photo by Bruce G. Smith

We’ve been visiting the park for the last ten years. Initially, it had very few visitors, and its pristine beauty in the middle of Tampa amazed me. These days it gets many visitors, and trash has become a problem. Unfortunately plastic water bottles float around the alligators. Please remember to recycle your water bottles or better yet use refillable containers.

We climb down from the tower, and walk back towards the Audubon Center. The boardwalk covers about 3500 feet. Except in the driest years the boardwalk is over water with open water on one side and cypress trees on the other. One end terminates as a dock on the Hillsborough River, and the other end provides a canoe and kayak launch.

Wolf Spider on Boardwalk, Photo by Bruce G. Smith

On this excursion it is not too crowded, and we walk the length of it several times taking pictures and chatting with other people. The park has become a favorite location for photographers to practice their skills, but today most of the visitors are locals enjoying a break from the summer rains.

A large family group is a head of us, and we choose to skip the dock. Instead we take a spur that leads to the parking lot and playground. Usually connecting spurs don’t provide much in the way of wildlife, but at Lettuce Lake this is not true.

Bull Frog at Corner of Spur and Main Trail, Photo by Bruce G. Smith

We see as much wildlife along the spur as we see along the main boardwalk. Birds, baby alligators, snakes and spiders abound along the walkway. Once I encountered otters swimming under the spur’s boardwalk. That was a pleasant surprise.

Lettuce Lake is a great place to spend a couple of hours outside enjoying wildlife and nature. On some weekends it gets crowded especially if all the picnic pavilions are rented and in use.

This trip occurred on a Saturday afternoon in late summer. We received lots of rain this season, and the water levels were high with some parts of the park flooded. It was not crowded, and very relaxing. It’s a great place for visitors with a busy schedule to get a taste of Florida wetlands and wildlife. 

A Look Back at the Prince of Tides

Low Country Beaufort South Carolina

“Deep, dark depression, excessive misery. If it weren’t for bad luck, I’d have no luck at all. Gloom, despair and agony on me.”  This Buck Owens and Roy Clark tune could be the mantra for the Wingo clan in Pat Conroy’s Prince of Tides.

Published in 1986, it follows the Wingo family’s desperate attempt to survive the South Carolina low country, each other and their rural community. They are a family of shrimpers dependent on the whims of nature. The twins Tom and Savannah were born in a hurricane. In the company of their older brother Luke, we learn to enjoy the beauty and solitude of the low country in spite of its difficult conditions.

The story flashes back and forth between New York City and South Carolina. Savannah has physically escaped her family and the low country by fleeing to New York, but mentally she is still imprisoned. The City and the world have embraced her poetry. Tom is a former high school football coach that can’t find a job. Tom travels to New York City to assist his sister recover from slitting her wrists. Prior to leaving South Carolina his wife, Salley informs him she is having an affair, and she’s not sure she wants Tom to come back home from New York.

Tom meets Savannah’s psychiatrist, Susan Lowenstein. She rich, she’s married to a famous violinist, and she is completely unhappy. Tom dumps his family’s tragic history on her in an attempt to heal Savannah, and possibly help himself. In a perfect example of misery loves company, Tom and Susan become extremely close friends, and end up dancing in the sheets.

Conroy uses the location as an antagonist in the story. Like the other characters the low country has tremendous superficial beauty, but the personality is mean. The low country symbolizes Conroy’s construct of people; pretty on the outside but cruel on the inside.

Conroy not only destroys the people in the story, he also destroys the low country.  Based on a true event, the government builds a plutonium factory in the middle of the salt marsh destroying the town, the Wingo’s home, the shrimp industry and ultimately their family. 

Conroy wrote a masterpiece. He writes very descriptive prose that helps the reader visualize the low country. At times he seems to drift breaking up the flow of the story, but it fits the literary style of the day. Prince of Tides received rave reviews, and Hollywood made a movie of it. Jimmy Buffett wrote a song about it. The story was written thirty years ago, but has anything changed?

The story epitomizes the sentiments of today. The characters have little respect for other people, and treat each other badly. The story contains a high degree of greed, and little respect for the environment and conversation. The plutonium though highly regulated still exists today. The plant is in the process of being upgraded to convert weapons grade plutonium to fuel for nuclear power plants and waste.

Getting to Know A Salt Marsh, Robinson Preserve

Brackish Pond Spoonbill Trail, Photo by The Quiet Image

A couple of weeks ago, we hiked the Spoonbill Trail at Robinson Preserve in Bradenton, Florida. We had planned on following the Osprey Loop on around, but we arrived during the hottest part of the day in the hottest month, August. The heat index spiked over 100 degrees. The afternoon clouds didn’t form, and there was no breeze off the Gulf of Mexico. We didn’t carry enough water, and we decided to turn back before climbing the forty foot observation tower.

We visited Palma Sola Botanical Garden in the morning, and decided to try Robinson Preserve in the afternoon. It was our first time to explore both of these destinations.  As I climbed out of the car at Robinson, the smell of salt marsh smacked me in the face. It brought back many fond memories of Eastern Shore, Virginia and St. Mark’s Wildlife Refuge, Florida. I’ve spent a considerable amount of time exploring both of these locations.

I prefer swamps and salt marshes to the beach. Wildlife is much more abundant around these locations. I never grew out of playing in the mud, and photographing birds and reptiles. These days I rather walk on a well marked elevated trail than trudging through knee-deep mud. I’ve graduated from a VW bug with a rusted out floorboard to a Honda Civic with carpeting. Also, my wife gets upset if I come home covered in mud.

In high school, I was lucky enough to attend marine biology camp at Chincoteague Bay Field Station, Virginia each year. I loved it. I got to play on the beach and inter-coastal for a week, while everyone else was stuck in a classroom studying for exams. I learned about the plants and animals of the salt marsh, and its importance to the ecosystem. The salt marsh smell became ingrained in my brain.

Some people don’t like the smell of the salt marsh. It smells like the anaerobic degradation of dead grass and animals mixed with a little bit of sulfur and salt water. To me it smells like renewal and life. The marsh provides an abundance of nutrients for animals to grow and thrive. Fish spawn in the pools, and fingerlings hide among the grasses. Without the salt marsh the oceans and seas would become barren wastelands.

The marsh provides fertile nesting grounds for birds. At Robinson Preserve we saw roseate spoonbills, ibis, great blue herons and ospreys. We even spotted a bald eagle. Thanks to marsh restoration programs like Robinson Preserve bald eagles are becoming more numerous.

We enjoyed our brief jaunt through the salt marsh in Bradenton. We plan on returning later in the year and spending more time once the weather becomes cooler in October. We look forward to doing the Osprey Loop, and walking on the boardwalk through the mangrove swamps.

Reality Is a Figment of Your Imagination

Phillip K. Dick liked to say reality is a forgery. His stories challenged reality. They challenged the norm. He fully embraced the drugs and counterculture of the sixties. At one point, it is said, he was taking 1,000 amphetamines a week, but I can’t verify this statistic. He suffered many mental breaks from reality, and his writing portrayed his strangeness. In the end, P. K. Dick was insane, and spent some time institutionalized after an attempted suicide in 1972. Dick lived in a different reality than the rest of the world, but that is what makes his books interesting.

Some say his identity crisis derives from the death of his twin sister. She died six weeks after their birth. His paranoia and schizophrenia come from the part of him that went missing when she died. He spent his entire life trying to find himself through the use of religion and drugs, and he shared the search through his stories.

Dick published 44 extremely strange novels and over 121 short stories. He worked in the science fiction genre telling stories of metaphysics, alternative history, religion, drug abuse, paranoia and schizophrenia. His writing voice screamed of an alternative reality, and his lifelong search for wholeness.

The books are not well written. Dick is not famous for his prose. He is famous for his uniqueness. When you finish one of his books, you sit back, and go WTF. The story does not draw in the reader rather its oddness hooks the reader. You find yourself trying to figure out where the story is going, and what is Dick trying to say.

At least eleven of his books have been turned into movies, Blade Runner, Total Recall, A Scanner Darkly, Minority Report and The Adjustment Bureau are just a few. Only Matheson may have more stories converted to movies.

Recently I read The Man in the High Castle. He won his only Hugo Award in 1962 for this book. Japan and Germany won World War II. Germany controls the east coast of the former United States and Japan runs the West Coast. The middle part of the country including Denver is technically free.

We don’t meet the protagonist, Juliana, until half way through the book. We are introduced to her earlier in a scene about her ex-husband, but we don’t actually meet her until much later. Are we getting the story from her point of view; I’m really not sure.

I tried to stop reading the story a couple of times, but it strangeness kept me intrigued. After finishing, I still think about it. What did I actually read? What was the story about? I’ve come to the conclusion it is a schizophrenic’s view of post World War II, but I haven’t figured out what is reality and what isn’t in the book. Possibly, you should give it a try.

Be warned it is not an easy read. On a number of occasions, you will ask yourself, why I’m a wasting my time with this? It is also very non-politically correct, and many may find it offensive, but then it is a world ruled by the Nazis.

What makes a good book? Certainly a book should be well written. It should entertain. But shouldn’t it also cause us to question our beliefs and our values? After reading a book are we content to throw it on the floor, and walk away. I think, a good book is one that causes us to think about long after we have finished reading it.