Beetles, Roaches and Crickets, Oh, My!

I went out this evening to check on the status of the resident invertebrate population in early spring.
I brought my light, but not my chair, a concession to becoming an older person.
In an hour I saw a Sand Cockroach, a Mole Cricket and the Auburndale Scrub Beetle and a few assorted smaller beasties.
I just wanted to make sure everyone was home still.

Easter In The Scrub

Spring as arrived and as Easter approaches, the flowers are the right color--pink.
The Scrub Lupine and Roseling are blooming, adding some color to the landscape.
It's probably time for the biennial beetle survey.

   

Lake Blue Makes Nature Fest

I was pleased today to be invited to give a tour of Lake Blue as part of next fall's Polk County Nature Fest.
I'll have to do some planning to make this worthwhile.
This place is still relatively unknown to most people even though it's an island of preservation in a sea of development.
It's still mapped for industrial park on the county growth map. Go figure. State didn't want to change it when I asked a few years ago.
Anyway, some of the rare plants will be blooming still in early October, which should be cool for photogs. The lupines will not be among them, unfortunately.
The big educational opportunity will be to talk about the management challenges here, between vandalism and smoke management.
It should be fun.
Hope someone shows up.

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Recleaning The Fire Lane

I went out over the weekend two check on things.
I found a few new lupine sprouts.
I spent most of the time in the fire lane.
The FWC folks finally came in for the promised fire lane mowing work.
That exposed a fair amount of trash from my dear neighbors.
I hauled out about three bags.
I'l go back and get the rest when I have more time or more daylight.

A Good New Year For Lupine

Sprout Is In Upper Left


There are encouraging signs in the original planted Scrub Lupine patch.
Today I counted about 20 small lupines sprouting in the bare white sand.
There has been no significant recruitment up until now and having some is vital to the establishment of a sustainable population here to fulfill the goals of the recovery plan.
The other unknown is how many of these tiny sprouts will make it to maturity.
I guess we'll know in 2014 or 2015.
I say this because the initial planting in December 2008 involved somewhat larger plants. They bloomed for the first time in the spring of 2010.
I checked the newer planting area to the south cursorily. I found one sprout, but the Natal grass is so rife in parts of that planting area, it's difficult to tell. I didn't realize that planting area had not been weeded earlier or I would have tackled the problem.
The problem is aggravated by the fact that there's plenty of seed source for the Natal grass nearby because of the additional openings. It's too late to worry about that now. The damage has been done.

Another Preserve, Another Cleanup

I'd been doing wildlife surveys for several years in portions of Lake Wales Ridge State Forest in east Polk. One of the things that has bugged me for some time  was the accumulation of what appeared to be a lot of household trash in the woods next to the Lake Walk in the Water boat ramp, which is part of the forest property.

Two hours and six bags or so later the area looks much better.

There was a great amount of plastic waste, some of which was probably dumped there and some of which may have washed in from the lake during extreme high water, but there were many bottles. They were recycled.

Another Debris Pile

I was scouting for birds for next weekend's Christmas Bird Count--not much there at the moment--when I encountered an old collection of trash that's probably a relic of a homeless camp in the south tract.

I piled everthing together for later collection when I remember to bring  a couple of buckets (bags are impractical in thick woods).

For some reason, various species of sandspurs have become rife in all of the fire lanes. I have to  scrape them from my pants and shoes after each visit. The good news is that Caesar weed is less evident.