A lovely evening sky

This has absolutely nothing to do with land management or endangered species or the Winter Haven Ridge. It was just a memorable moment on a recent evening when I looked into the westering sky and was treated to a play of light and clouds that I couldn't recall witnessing before and wanted to share it.

Did I say three? How about four trunks?

I thought I had found something unusual when I found a three-trunked Sand Pine several months ago. It's still unusual, but weird stuff happens on the Ridge. While I was looking for Liatris and generally exploring, I found a FOUR (count 'em four)-TRUNKED SAND PINE about 100 meters north of the first one. It must be something in the soil (Archbold, for the record, according to the soil map).

Lotta liatris

The Scrub Liatris is in full bloom and is abundant this year, it seems. I didn't count the number of plants, but I'm sure there are well over 20 in the limited section I walked today. Some folks from Archbold are coming Friday to do some field work. I've got to be a blog conference at Rollins or I'd tag along.

Also, saw a single Curtiss' milkweed in bloom. I think that plant is mostly done. I also checked out the orchids in the bayhead. No blooms until January, probably.

More fence cutting

I'm off with my repair kit to fix the fence, which has been cut recently. One cut was by the power substation, where it's been cut before. The other was along the railroad siding near the First Avenue entrance. There's also a bottom strand cut on the west side by the railroad embankment.

Chopping and sweating

Not much to report. I'm still reclearing the fire lane in the south tract, which is slow work.

I'm also working getting the place remapped for Preservation on the county growth map. I was told it won't cost FWC anything as long as I do the legwork, which I already have.

Species list grows

I added three new species to the vertebrate list today. They were Great Blue Heron, Oak Toad ( Bufo quercicus ) and Worm Lizard (Rhineura floridana), which is pictured above, courtesy of animalnetwork.org image (I didn't have a camera with me at the time). These discoveries occurred in the course of clearing the fire lane. I thought the herps were likely here; I just hadn't found them. Birds are a matter of luck. By the way, the bird list here is up to 52 species, the herp list is 21 species/subspecies and the mammal list is 10 species and the fish list is 0 species because there's no water.