apdunbar's Journal

Sunday October 17, 2021
Birds on Gottfried Creek:
Gottfried Creek flows into Lemon Bay. At this point (my backyard) it is about a mile to the mouth. The creek here makes a wide lagoon; it is affected by the tides, which at this time of the year are usually about one-foot, but it can be two or more feet is a cycle. From this point south the banks are lined with mangroves. Occasionally manatees and otters come up this far. More commonly, alligators use the creek as a safe passage to upland ponds, but the water is too salty here for them to stick around for long. Tarpon spawn here, and mullets are everywhere.
But in the evening, especially in the winter or the fall, like now, the stage belongs to the birds. Neighbors on this bank and across the creek have groves of Australian Pines which provide regular perches for Osprey, and sometimes a Bald Eagle. An osprey comes every evening to the tree on my side, sometimes swooping into the water for mullet, sometimes, like now, calling (loudly chirping) to another bird across the water. A mate? A competitor? Don’t know.
A flock of Ibis headed south, their bellies appear black against the sun. Herons also flying south. They fly in a “V”, followed after a minute by stragglers.
A flock of Whistling Ducks, making a racket, go south, then hard right, then a U-turn, on some sort of chaotic journey that makes sense only to them.
A Woodpecker is whacking away at a tree not too far inland. We commonly see Red-Bellied Woodpeckers here, and that’s what this one likely is. A Pileated Woodpecker, which sometimes shows up, would probably hammer more noisily. Though I am sitting only a few feet from the water, there is a mockingbird nesting in a ficus tree right beside me. I know because it made a pass over my head, not too pleased that I’m here. And there’s a male cardinal. And a blue jay just visited a nearby oak tree.
The tide right now is very low, which exposes a sandbar at the edge of a mangrove island across the lagoon, and a blue heron is pecking about, for small fish I’d guess.
We had a Great Horned Owl in one of the pines last night – making spooky sounds. Maybe it will come back tonight if I stay out here long enough.
Interpretive Idea:
Make sure everybody has binoculars. See what birds you can spot and identify. Hopefully someone in the bunch will know more than me. Even better if she can identify birds by their calls, since I have to see them to have any chance at identification.

Thursday 09/29/21

Oyster Creek Environmental Park at 10:30AM
I spent a couple of hours earlier this morning across the highway at Cedar Point Environmental Park where the manager, Gerald Thompson, and I hung up the “eagle chains” to block trail access in the vicinity of the park’s only eagle nest. One large adult was in the nest and flew to a nearby tree to perch while we worked.
Also, learned about volunteer needs for the upcoming four Saturday night haunted woods hikes for children.
At Oyster Creek I walked upstream to an overlook on the water. A pleasant northeasterly breeze. Tide is coming gently in. I’d esrtimate we are about 400 yards from the creek’s mouth in Lemon Bay. The creek runs basically east to west, and at this point is about 200’ wide, with numerous small mangrove islands.
On the far bank, the southern bank, there are houses with docks and seawalls. On the park bank there is a solid wall of mostly red mangroves. They cover about 12’ of shallow creek water before the bank is solid. The substrate in these shallows looks very rich in leaves and sediment.
The creek itself is somewhere between brown and tea, and I’m sure it’s rich in nutrients, sediments, leaves, etc.
Out in the creek a profusion of jumping mullet. An osprey soars overhead. As do about a dozen buzzards in the distance.
There are birds on the mangrove islands which I’m guessing may be grackles. Black mangrove pistoles come floating by, so there are black mangrove trees nearby that I’m not seeing. The creek is full of schools of bait-sized fish, and in a tributary stream a school of about ten grown-up mullet circles about. Also leather fern along the stream.
Along the interior edge of the mangrove wall there is a sudden shift to cabbage palms and tall slash pines. The understory is dense: saw palmetto, poison ivy, muscadine vines, rosary pea, and a couple of Brazilian Pepper. Since I worked with a county and volunteer crew last winter slaying every pepper around this area, this new growth illustrates the tenacity of peppers.
I hike a ways upstream. Nutsedge borders the trail. As do macho and wood ferns. The area out of sight of the trail was “mulched” by the county as couple of years ago, so there are interesting things to see right behind the mangroves. There is some buttonwood which have lost almost all of their flowers. A squad of bees, with tiny red bands, is enjoying what’s left. Crocuses are loud.
A big insect with four shiny bronze wings is zipping around the whole area (Amberwing?) White butterflies dance in the air about 30’ up in the pines. There’s a yellow butterfly in the mangroves.
There are a lot of small shrubs, and I think I can identify Darrow’s Blueberry and immature wax myrtle.

SUNDAY 9/19/21
“Picking a Spot”
Full Moon tomorrow night
Rising Tide at 10AM High at 1:25PM

Manasota Key North Beach
Full sun
Lots of People on the Beach
Big AA meeting in outside pavilion
Few Birds
Sea Oats on dunes
Cool side trail into dune woods with:
Shade
Insects
Cactus
Spiders
Lovers in bush (?)

Middle Beach: Blind Pass 10:20 AM
Puddles in parking lot too big to cross

Englewood Beach 10:30 AM
Pleasant south breeze
Full sun
The Beach Guy is operating for many sunbathers
Gulls seeking handouts
On Dune, sea oats, sea grapes, cabbage palms, muscadine vines; also, a lilly(?) with one large white flower
White birds flying south; gray birds flying around in dune undergrowth; calls of doves
The only shady observation point is under a palm on the northernmost boardwalk, from which I see:
Small yellow and brown flowers (later identified as West Coast Dune Sunflower)
Ants
Black fluttery moth

Stump Pass State Park 10:45 AM
Beach crowd sparse and spread out
At top of beach where the dune rises, some dead fish skeletons poissibly lefdt over from last week’s red tide.
The shade is in the mangrove forest at the top of the dune where the trail runs on the narrow strip between beachside and bayside
More of the Dune Sunflower
A jet skier with country music
Tree identified as Hercules Club (“toothache tree”)
Cactus

MONDAY 9/20/21
“My Spot” at Stump Pass
Full Moon tonight
Rising Tide at 9:15 AM High at 2:11 PM
Wind: Slight NE breeze
Bright Sun and very few people
About 150 yards down the trail from the restrooms I sit under a white mangrove looking in front of me to the top of the dune and the beach, and behind me to the Bay; nearby a squirrel
Crest of dune covered in sea grass, the Dune Sunflowers, and a vine identified as a Golden Beach Creeper
My spot is peaceful and quiet. The only human sounds are the ranger’s Jeep running down the beach and snatches of faraway conversations. Hardly a boat on the bayside, but people were launching kayaks from the parking lot when I started
A woman alone on the Beach is fishing standing up while smoking a cigarette and being watched by that egret.
Plants:
Sea Grapes, Palmettos, Cabbage Palms, cactus, that Golden Beach Creeper, and a pretty blue flower on a tiny ground vine
Animals:
Squirrel, Mullet jumping in the Bay, Small grey lizard on a twig,
Reddish Egret on beach watching a fisher, and a flock of four brown pelicans pass overhead
Insects:
Fast-buzzing flies or bees; Tiny spider on a delicate web in the mangroves; Dragonflies, and a curious black, yellow and green bumble bee among the sea oats

History:
I brought a book about the “Marine Archaeology of Lemon Bay,” and in a few pages I learn that this key may have been occupied for 4,000 years, and there is evidence of “a social organization” from A.D. 200 to 1250. While life centered on fishing, also had to dig clay for vessels, collect firewood, weave nets, and cultivate gourds and Gumbo Limbo (for bark and sap?). The nativess likely maintained their own local social identity, but late in cultural identity likely paid tribute to chiefdoms such as Estero Bay Calusa or Tampa Bay Uctita or Mocoso.
Complex social organization is evidenced by burial practices, which required marshalling labor, etc. A large network of mounds was destroyed about 1926 around Englewood Beach (Chadwick Beach) within a mile, but that scientists believe the dead normally burned in charnal houses but major bones were kept to represent the souls of the deceased. The mound is built, possibly when an important person dies: a shallow pit about 53’X20’ is dug and then tightly packed with all of those burned bones, 100 or more souls, and covered with a layer of red ocher and sand to form a slight mound. Then more sand, then shards and shells, then if another important person dies the process is repeated till you have a big mound.
Park Ranger:
I located Melanie Luce in the maintenance shed. What she likes best? “The nature, the mile and a half with no buildings. Everything nature has to offer is here.”

Interpretive Idea:
I learned that the park is not offering interpretive tours right now due to COVID. My thought is that when they are resumed, I’d like to take such a tour and then possibly volunteer to conduct one myself.