Bugs and bug hunters

As I was surveying the butterfly population and checking on things this afternoon, I suddenly caught movement ahead of me.

A pair of American Kestrels were, well, hawking just above the regrowing low tree line, probably in search of large grasshoppers, of which there are some at the moment.

The Ceraunus Blue numbers are gradually recovering from freeze and drought. Today I saw 57. which is the most in three years and far more than I've seen anywhere else in Florida, particularly in so small an area.

Pulled a few Caesar Weed along the western fire lane before they formed seeds. I may control this weed yet.

Surprise in the palmettos

I was checking on the Ceasar weed patch I' ve been clearing and encountered a series of barely buried trash piles. Then I found more under a patch of palmettos nearby.
By the time I was done, I had uncovered enough to fill two trash bags.
This was a bit of surprise because I thought I had already checked this area for trash, but the palmettos have turned out to be a frequent dump site. I recall finding some transmissions in this general area in the palmettos.

Ceasar weed roundup

Yesterday afternoon I finished uprooting/.bagging a dense patch of Ceasar Weed not far from the fire lane where it had been rife in the past.e

I will have to monitor the section, but it seemed easier to do it now while the new plants were emerging and most had not formed seedheads than to wait.

Wish me luck with this experiment.

Trash, overgrown fire lane

I spent a couple hours today in may attempt to rid the fire lane of Ceasar weed only to find a big patch near the fire lane and a new trash pile. I will come back with bags in hopes of dealing with
it.

I did haul out one garbage bag of small stuff and two wheelbarrowfuls of larger stuff.

Meanwhile, the fire lane itself is becoming overgrown again, primarly Guinea grass and the tallest ragweed I've ever seen.

Some maintenanace might be in order.

Going afield to cleanup

I've been doing some trash cleanup this weekend, but a little more afield than normal.

I hauled two bags opf trash fr0m various entry points at Hilochee-Osprey along I-4 and a couple of more bags and then some at Saddle Creek Park. I removed an old fish barrier put up by commercial fishermen, I guess, and some debris in the dry creek bed.

Droughts have some upsides.

Ranging all over Florida

I'm afraid my Ridge Ranger impulses don't end when I'm on vacation.

This week I spent a couple of days helping with butterfly surveys in the Homestead/Key Largo area.

We found plenty of butterflies, including the rare and endangered Schaus Swallowtail, but also found some natural areas had been trashed.

When I left Sunday morning, I collected what I could, but on the way home I noticed one of the Sun Ray tracts had been burned and figured it was a good time to patrol for trash. As you can see from the photo, I found a lot of bottles etc. on top of the stuff I had collected in South Florida preserves, which had included a car door.

Actually, there's plenty of trash in preservation areas in Key Largo, some of it brought in by the tide and some dumped there before it was conservation land. That would make a heck of a cleanup; project and would require a vehicle larger than my truck, much larger.

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Blues vs. Buckeyes

I went out Saturday for one of the periodic butterfly counts in the north tract.

Numbers have been down everywhere as the result of the last year's freeze and the current drought, perhaps.

The predominant species in this habitat are Ceraunus Blue and Common Buckeye. The question at the moment is which one will be more numerous.
The Blues won 35 to 32.
Other species were Gulf Fritillary, Variegated Fritillary, Barred Yellow, Cloudless Sulfur, Zebra Swallowtail and Zarucco.

I also found some trash while I was wandering around.