Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge's Boletim

© Photographer: William Wise | iNat observation: 101527589 Swamp Spreadwing, (Lestes vigilax) photographed November 12, 2021 near Kingfisher Landing in the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge, Georgia USA

The Okefenokee Swamp features a variety of habitats within one giant ecosystem. As one paddles, the dark canoe trails through the cypress trees fall off to reveal wide-open, sweeping swamp prairie landscapes. There is never a lack of panoramas for the landscape photographer.

But there are areas of the swamp where the runs constrict and the scrubby vegetation of Titi and Fetterbush not only impede passage, but impede the view. While paddling the red trail north of Kingfisher Landing in November 2021, I could only get a view of Double Lakes by standing in my canoe… a tricky position for a photographer!
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But when the walls close in around you, that doesn’t mean the photography opportunities disappear. If your senses remain alert to the natural world around you, one simply redirects focus and explores the details of some of the smaller plants and critters within the National Wildlife Refuge. If the open views are blocked, its time to switch to a macro lens and explore the smaller, hidden world of the Okefenokee!

© Photographer: William Wise | iNat Observation: 29932812 - Green Heron along the Trembling Earth Nature Trail; Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge, Georgia. March 10, 2015.

In 1895, naturalist Bradford Torrey wrote of the Green Heron being at home in "watery woods", such as are found in the Okefenokee Swamp:

"The day was before me, and the place was lively with birds. Pine-wood sparrows, pine warblers, and red-winged blackbirds were in song; two red-shouldered hawks were screaming, a flicker was shouting, a red-bellied woodpecker cried kur-r-r-r, brown-headed nuthatches were gossiping in the distance, and suddenly I heard, what I never thought to hear in a pinery, the croak of a green heron. I turned quickly and saw him. It was indeed he. What a friend is ignorance, mother of all those happy surprises which brighten existence as they pass, like the butterflies of the wood. The heron was at home, and I was the stranger. For there was water near, as there is everywhere in Florida; and subsequently, in this very place, I met not only the green heron, but three of his relatives,—the great blue, the little blue, and the dainty Louisiana, more poetically known (and worthy to wear the name) as the 'Lady of the Waters.'"

• Torrey, Bradford (1895). A Florida Sketch-Book.