Fall at Corkscrew

When moving to southwest Florida, I did not expect to see a typical fall; no colors, and no cooler weather. It is now January and many people are experiencing winter with temperatures throughout the Midwest ranging from 35° F to 0° F, and my home town in southern California a brisk 68° F; meanwhile here in Naples, Florida, the real feel today was 80° F. After hurricane Irma came through and wind stripped the needles and leaves off many of the trees, I was then SURE I wouldn’t see a fall this year, but boy was I wrong. Although this warm weather is not a typical fall characteristic, this week has also brought in some GORGEOUS colors from the Cypress and Maple trees!

 Many people associate coniferous trees with evergreens such as Slash Pine, Ponderosa Pine, or any of your go to Christmas tree species. Although Bald Cypress trees are coniferous, they are also deciduous meaning they lose their needles once a year - these classifications are mutually exclusive. This year being a unique year with the Cypress losing their needles in September (a little before they usually drop their needles), something has been signaling them recently to just now start changing colors, and I love it!

 (The same stand of cypress in November (above) and January (right)).

The reds and oranges are flowing through the cypress dome and create a whole new feel while exploring Corkscrew. These warm colors bring a new dynamic to the mostly green landscape we are now used to seeing here in the swamp. What a beautiful surprise, I guess southwest Florida does experience its own version of fall!

-Kelsie

Melaleuca quinquenervia: South Florida's Public Enemy #1

     Over the course of the last few weeks, I have been in the backcountry of Corkscrew treating a variety of invasive species. One particular species rests at the top of Corkscrew resource management's invasive species hit list. This particular invasive tree not only plagues landscapes locally at Corkscrew, but has an extensive and dense range throughout South Florida. The perpetrator of South Florida environmental degradation highlighted here-- Paper Tree (Melaleuca quinquenervia)-- has dramatically changed the landscapes of South Florida and affected both plant and animal communities in its wake.
 Paper tree, like most invasive species I have come across in my land management experiences, is a fairly attractive plant, with birch-like white bark and large clusters of creamy white flowers that resemble caterpillars latching onto the ends of the upper canopy. The narrow, lance-shaped leaves hang from stems in an alternating pattern, forming a pleasant array of grayish green foliage. In its native Australia, Paper Tree is a prized tree species that is valued by bee-keepers, used frequently in landscaped parks, and is a focal species for some areas' conservation efforts. Here in Florida, though, Paper Tree displaces native vegetation as a result of the tree's prolific seed production that can quickly establish large, impenetrable monocultures. These massive stands of Paper Tree additionally displace the native fauna that have evolved to depend on the shelter and food that native plants provide.
     Additionally, Paper Tree is changing the hydrology of South Florida ecosystems. The tree is able to most effectively colonize areas that contain peat soils and have a short hydroperiod (i.e. seasonal water inundation lasts only a short time). As the trees proliferate and grow taller, the continual shedding of leaves and bark creates more organic material that filters into the forest floor, creating more upland habitats and effectively drying out large areas of land.
     Paper Tree also changes South Florida's fire behavior. When Paper Tree invades habitats like sawgrass prairies, freshwater marshes or hardwood bottomlands that have evolved and adapted to a consistent fire regime, the amount of surface level fuels available for a fire to burn dramatically increases. The increase in surface fuels (i.e. leaf litter and bark from the tree), combined with the volatile organic compounds found in the tree's leaves, create fires that burn at much higher than normal temperatures, causing greater occurrences of crown fires and tree/plant mortality.
     Treatment of Paper Trees is estimated to cost the state of Florida somewhere around $2 million annually. The potential economic damage of unchecked Paper Tree infestations across South Florida is estimated to total in excess of $100 million, largely harming tourism industries linked to South Florida's public lands. Here at Corkscrew, Paper Tree is routinely patrolled for and treated with chemical methods. For as much environmental and economic damage it does, it was an especially satisfying feeling heading into the pine flatwoods at CSS and putting a halt to the spread of this sinister invasive species.

        -Hayden (Conservation Intern)

Monthly Bird Survey & 118th Annual Christmas Bird Count

One of my favorite things about being an Intern at Corkscrew is getting to participate in bird surveys. What a surprise from the bird nerd, right? As school children are on break from field trips to Corkscrew, I get to do what I love to do on my break too - go birding!

It was a really foggy morning to start!

Myself, two of our education staff members, and a seasoned volunteer hiked through a variety of different habitats from pine-palmetto flatwoods, through the wet prairie, and into the cypress swamp where we ended up thigh-deep in water.

One of the more interesting species that we found during our on-site survey in late December was the Wilson's snipe. We were walking through the pine flatwoods and to our surprise, we flushed 12 snipes from their hiding spot. It was very exciting as I have never seen one in the wild. That's a lifer for me!

Some of our higher numbers came from the following species:

wood stork (14)
red-bellied woodpecker (16)
back vulture (22)
palm warbler (44)
tree swallow (80)

The tree swallows are wintering here in Florida and it is not unusual around this time to see a large group of them darting around like flying acrobats catching up insects - thanks guys! Come anytime.

We were also very happy to see some wood storks. They are hopefully settling in and getting ready to nest soon, and I sure love baby wood storks.

Not only do we do our own bird surveys here on-site every month, but I also captained two different teams for Audubon's 118th Christmas Bird Count. What an honor!

As climate change is a huge concern these days, declining bird populations hits close to home. The data gathered from the Christmas Bird Counts around the United States is used by researchers, conservationists, and government agencies to study and ensure healthy population numbers for the future of these birds.

For the Corkscrew Bird Count, between 14 teams we tallied a total of 120 different species of birds, and a whopping 14,101 birds total recorded for the day - incredible!

Some notable numbers:
wood stork numbers were up from last year - 421 up from 200
8 bald eagles tallied total
7 northern bobwhites were spotted - which is the first time recorded on a CBC since 2011
and a popular favorite, the roseate spoonbill was counted 114 times

All in all, it was a beautiful day of birding. If you are interested in participating in a Christmas Bird Count next year near you, you can read more information about it here.

-Shelby (Education Intern)

'Tis the Season...

... for the Wood Storks!

We are starting to see Wood Storks in the area, and are anxiously awaiting their nesting. This once endangered indicator species is now the focus of many conservation efforts statewide. 

Here at Corkscrew, we have a few different surveys geared towards Wood Storks. Our very intensive fish sampling days are intended to document the prey base for many wading birds, including the Wood Stork. For these surveys, we document the amount of fish, diversity of fish (how many different species there are), and mass of the fish in a given area. These surveys are completed throughout the dry-down period when fish start to conglomerate in the few pools of water that remain throughout the dry season.

Just recently, we completed our first flight for the season over parts of southwest Florida to monitor Wood Stork nesting. I have never flown in anything besides a commercial aircraft, so the small 4 person Cessna was quite a shock! The days leading up to the flight were filled with anticipation. I have heard friends, colleagues, and professors talk about some of the good and bad things about flight surveys. A stomach of steel is highly desired, but most people don’t know if they have one or not, until their first flight. So this was going to be the day that I found out if aerial surveys were in my future.

 

(Hopping aboard our aircraft)

I prepared by bringing light snacks to eat when going from point to point, and a Sprite to settle my stomach in case I was to find out I don’t have that desired “stomach of steel”. I was also told that it usually gets really warm in the air but when we open the windows to take pictures we get some nice fresh air. Well, this seemed to be a very atypical flight for Southwest Florida. We got to the Naples Airport by sunrise and the temperature was still in the 40’s! Luckily I was prepared for cold weather, I had my ski socks on, a long sleeve and sweatshirt, but I still needed more! Once we got up in the air and opened the windows, as promised, the cold wind came in to the already cool aircraft, and now we were freezing. Luckily the 360 degree views surrounding us were a great distraction.

 

(An aerial view of Naples development)

After rows and rows of houses and development, suddenly we came to an island of Cypress and greenery. We saw marsh, pines, cypress, and finally the boardwalk, with no houses to be seen. It was such a wonderful sight- a sight I’m sure would have been even more amazing years ago when this island of greenery was more like an ocean. But for now, the island of protected lands managed and cared for by many different agencies and organizations will suffice.

  

(The island of protected land, green for as far as the eye can see)

We traveled to different predetermined points from the Caloosahatchee River to Corkscrew. Once we got to a point, we would circle the area to determine if there was any Wood Stork activity and if there was where they were located. At our first point of the day, we found Wood Storks high in the canopy of the Cypress. I was amazed at the ease of seeing these majestic birds – seemingly unbothered – from the air. We locked down on the storks circling tighter to get the best, closest, clearest pictures possible while almost sitting parallel to the earth’s surface and bouncing around in the wind.

Once we got the OK that the photos came out clear enough, we were on to the next 4 more points. The views were always changing, back into civilization, then over water, circling small desert islands, watching Great Blue Herons flush from one island, and Great Egrets continue their day on another. But one thing was constant; the turbulence. The bouncing around and prolonged periods of circling one area led to a feeling in my stomach that was not promising. 

 

(A small island in the Caloosahatchee with what was though to be nesting Great Egrets)

After an hour and a half of going from point to point, circling many different areas, it was time to go back to the airport. On the way back, the pilot took us up higher where the air was calmer leading to a more pleasant flight. Through our headset I heard the pilot say, “that was a rough flight! That felt like flying in New England, not Florida!” Hearing this, I have hope that the next flight will be even better, and maybe I don’t have a stomach of steel, but maybe it’s not too bad. 

What's next on the adventure?
-Kelsie (Research Intern)

12/15/17- Bat Monitoring at Big Cypress National Preserve

     Working at Corkscrew has its perks. In the course of gaining invaluable experience in conservation in an old-growth cypress swamp, you meet plenty of interesting people that are usually involved in other regional conservation efforts in Southwest Florida. This week, I had the chance of helping volunteer and donor Ralph Arwood conduct bat monitoring surveys in another place he is heavily involved with-- Big Cypress National Preserve.

      Ralph is a jack of all trades. In my experience, he is almost solely responsible for clearing backcountry roads that are critical to resource and research staff at Corkscrew in the wake of Hurricane Irma. When he's not here wielding a chainsaw from sunup to sundown, he can be found assisting resource management projects at Big Cypress that span from tracking and collaring panthers for monitoring efforts to operating and servicing acoustic monitoring stations that listen in on Florida Bonneted bat calls. Today, I helped Ralph service an acoustic monitoring unit just off of 11-mile road in Big Cypress. Here's Ralph syncing the unit with a GPS that not only inputs spatial tags on the data, but also links up the unit with the time so that the acoustic monitor will turn on at sundown and turn off at sunrise. 

 Getting to this acoustic monitoring station was a real treat though. Just down a buggy path that runs deep into the preserve, there are multiple cypress domes bordering large pine flatwoods. These are no ordinary cypress trees, though. Due to the lack of available organic soil, these cypress are bonsai'd, giving them the physical appearance of pond cypresses but with a significantly reduced stature. Here's a glimpse of what the walk in looked like:

 Back to the Florida Bonneted Bats, though. Florida Bonneted Bats actually roost in vacated cavities created by Red Cockaded Woodpeckers, a target species that resource managers at Big Cypress plan and manage for given that these woodpeckers serve as an indication for a healthy forest stand composition. Here's what a Red Cockaded woodpecker cavity and perhaps future Florida Bonneted bat roost look like:

From the stroll through a miniature pond cypress stand to learning about different wildlife monitoring projects taking place in the greater Everglades area, today was both super informative and just plain fun.