Seen Any Alligators?

Seen Any Alligators?Coming from two cities that seem to be an eternity away from natural alligator populations, I was never too weary when jumping into water of any kind. However, now that I am here in Florida, there are alligators all over the place. To quote my boss, Ms. Allyson Webb, “anywhere there is a body of water, there is probably going to be an alligator.”

I have now begun the process of learning to spot the large, armored predator throughout Corkscrew. Every time I see an alligator, I try and send a picture of it to my ever-worrying mother and ask her to try and spot the gator, just to freak her out a little bit. Naturally, she always says that the alligator would have eaten her. To be honest, sometimes I send her close-up photos of alligators just so she can say she spotted one. Regardless of my mother’s ability to spot gators in photos, seeing alligators all over the area is definitely a benefit to living in Florida, especially for a herpetology enthusiast like myself.

-Alex

A Wave Goodbye as I Grow New Scales

It is hard to believe my six months at Corkscrew have come to an end. I have learned so much about conservation work through this internship. I have met some amazing people that helped me grow and learn. I have also been lucky enough to have had the chance to do some truly amazing things.

Driving the swamp buggy

As a 60/40 conservation intern, I got to work in both the land management and research fields. I gained new skills from those specific fields, but I also learned how those two fields work together to keep an amazing place like Corkscrew healthy. Most of my work in the land management field was herbicide application to mostly invasive plants. It was interesting learning about the different herbicides and how every plant species gets treated a little bit differently. I also dabbled in prescribed fire and chainsaw work as part of that field. One of the coolest new skills I gained from this field was driving a swamp buggy. It was manual which I had never driven before so that is definitely something that will come in handy.

Getting ready for the WOST flight

My work in the research field included wading bird surveys,

In the swamp!

mammal monitoring using trail cameras, a Wood Stork (WOST) flight, and fish sampling. The fish sampling was probably my favorite thing I did at Corkscrew, mostly because I love learning about fish. We would go out with throw traps to catch the small fish and then I got the chance to process many samples from the swamp. The WOST flight was also cool, as I had never done anything like that before. The plane was small and I was a little nervous but everything worked out and it was definitely an experience I will remember.

On an electrofishing boat at Fish Slam

In addition to my main work at Corkscrew, I got some pretty cool volunteer opportunities. One such opportunity was an event put on by the United States Geological Survey (USGS) called Fish Slam. The aim of this event was to catch as many invasive fish species as possible out of the freshwater ways around south Florida. The Fish Slam I attended was in Vero Beach. I also had the chance to help with some Burrowing Owl research in Marco Island through the University of Florida and a shark tagging program through Rookery Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve.

I have had such an amazing time working for Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary and met many incredible people that I will never forget. I will take what I learned with me to my future jobs and adventures. My next adventure takes me to South Carolina, working with the state as a freshwater fisheries intern. I am very excited for this next chapter, but am also looking forward to hearing about the great future I know will Corkscrew have.


Thank you,

Kendall Williams
Conservation Intern

The Start of a New Journey

The Start of a New Journey

Hello! My name is Brian Fedak, and I have just started interning at Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary as a conservation research intern. 

I graduated from Florida Atlantic University in December 2018 with a degree in Biological Sciences. At FAU, I had the privilege of working under Dr. Rindy Anderson, assisting her laboratory with Bachman's Sparrow research. I have also had experience in leading shorebird surveys for FAU’s ecology club. 

I have lived in south Florida all my life, and I am passionate about the conservation of our unique local ecosystems. My main interest is bird conservation, and I usually spend my free time bird watching and hiking all around Florida. Some of my favorite Florida birds are the Snail Kite, the Roseate Spoonbill, and the American Bittern. I also enjoy photographing birds while I'm out birding.

Last week was my first week interning at Corkscrew, and I love it here already. Some days I spent in the lab working on organizing daily bird sighting data that dates back to 1997. I find extremely interesting to see what birds have been seen here throughout the past couple decades using such a large citizen science data pool. Other days I spend in the field helping with wading bird surveys, trail cam checks, and even Wood Stork nest surveys conducted from a plane!

In short, I am very excited for what the future holds while working with Audubon here at Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary. 

Slow Down and Look Around

Slow Down and Look Around

Earlier last week while I was working, I was moving at a fast pace and became pretty overheated and sore. In Land/Resource Management we are usually pushing ourselves to work-work-work. I don't doubt other people experience this in their own jobs as well.

The stress, the mental exhaustion, and not having time to appreciate the things we experience on the route towards our goals.

While I had been moving so fast, I barely stopped in time to see a little mud turtle on the road that I was driving on. But I had stopped, and I took the cutie to a pond so he would be safe.

That was a lesson to me in that even though we need to work hard for our goals, we have to remember to slow down so that we can appreciate the things or the beings that we are working for.

Whether your goals are to make money in order to live well, to make sure your kids are happy, or to make a difference for those that do not have human voices, we should slow down so that we can really see and appreciate what we have and how our efforts are affecting our goals.

Maybe then it wouldn't feel so draining and we could learn to appreciate the here and now more instead of always missing the present because we are so wrapped up in the future.



In other words, we need to slow down on our paths so that we see the turtles on the road.