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.

.

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.

The burn and the Bonamia

I took a walk through the scrub during the past two afternoons in search of stray piles of trash (broken glass, etc.) that might be visible after some post-burn weathering of the soil.

During the walk I saw Bonamia beginning to bloom practically everywhere . It responded well to an accidental fire several years ago before the Natal grass came in.

That is still the unanswered question is whether Natal grass will become rife in more sections of the preserve as it has at the sites of the burn piles on the east side. Also, it's unknown whether it will persist or eventually be crowded out by native plants, as some claim. I don't know. Otherwise, we'll have to live with it. Treating it or pulling it on a landscape scale is impractical.

Beetles are really back

Went out Tuesday night with Paul Skelley to look for beetles. We found at least 30 as well as a handful of what he calls "rain beetles" because they're only active when it's raining.
Rain was threatening Tuesday night, but only a trace fell in the area, despite the thunder and lightning in the near distance.

It is spring. I saw my first Common Nighthawk of the season soaring and diving overhead and heard a Chuck-will's-widow calling from the south woods, which is a different location from recent years.

I'm planning to go out tonight and try again for beetles in the south woods.

The beetles are back

I had been fruitlessly mon itoring for beetles for a researcher since late March with no luck. Thursday night one finally showed. Now that they're out,we'll see what the population is like. They didn't emerge last year and I was beginning to get worried this year, but we'll see. The Common Nighthawk that kept me companylast year didn't show. So far, no Chuck will's Widow is calling from the pines, though I flushed one the other day.