11/28/10 Thanksgiving Weedend VI

     These pictures are of a hunter's camp. One picture is the monitoring box which is hooked up to a car battery. The other picture is of the ladder to a tree stand. Today I was able to untie everything and take out the monitoring box. I'll have to come back for the battery and ladder. There is also an off camera reflector and feeding station which I'll have to come back for.

      A fallen tree has provided me with easy access to the far side of the river which I rarely visit.

      This area is my property and state forest. Hunting is illegal both by state law and because I don't allow it. Now that I have easy access again, I'll be patrolling heavily.

11/28/10 Thanksgiving Weekend V

     I returned to the Big Econlockhatchee to get those patches of Water Hyacinths. There turned out to be more that I thought. I took out 103 this trip, above you can see the before and after pictures. These Water Hyacinths were on dry land and rooting into the soil. They can't survive like this, but this area floods and that is what they are waiting for. The log in the picture blocked them from going down stream.
     Since I was on foot I could only take out what I could carry through thick Cypress Swamp. I loaded fifty plants in two bags and carried one bag over each shoulder. The extra weight made keeping my balance difficult in the uneven and slippery swamp ground.

11/27/10 Thanksgiving Weekend 4

     I stopped on a bike trail that leads to Big Tree Park in Casselberry Florida. The day was ending and I just had an hour left of sunlight. It is my first time here and right away I spot both Cesar Weed and Castor Bean. Castor Bean is an exotic which I don't see in the swamps where I spend most of my time.
     I picked up a large bucket of all recyclable litter, see picture #1. I don't quite understand the psychology of people who come all the way out to a secluded nature spot and then spoil it.
     I took out 110 Cesar Weeds, which is about 1/5 of how many were there, see picture #2. The Castor Bean will have to wait for another day.

11/26/10 Thanksgiving Weekend III

     I went to Mead Gardens in Winter Park and claimed a couple hundred feet from the Cesar Weeds, 200 plants in all (see top picture). I also took out one baby Ear Tree by the roots and hacked three more to the ground. I caught two Cuban Anoles and picked up some litter. I see the City of Winter Park is spraying for Cesar Weed and it looks like there is hope this park will one day be Cesar Weed free.

     I also saw a large Box Turtle (see below picture). I left it there and only took a picture, but I'm wondering now if I should have moved this land turtle to a more secluded area.

11/25/10 Thanksgiving Weekend II

     I took my canoe out into the Big Econlockhatchee River to patrol for Water Hyacinth plants and ended up in a tug of war with several Chinese Tallow Trees. I pulled out 4 by their roots and cut down 8 more. Late in the day I found a big patch of high and dry Water Hyacinths which I'll have to come back for. I also will have to come back for a hunter's camp I spotted. I disarmed their monitoring equipment which I had to untie off of one of my Bald Cypress Trees.
     My neighbor has a burning pit and she said I could use it for the Tallow Trees. She also has a million tiny Cesar Weeds which I am determined to kill. I don't know how so many got there. She lives just across a tree line from me.
     I also released my pet Musk Turtle. I spend to much time either working or out in the war against exotics I was leaving the turtle alone all day. So I took it far upriver and told it over and over, "I love you, but don't come back to my house."

11/24/10 Thanksgiving Weekend I

     I have four days off from work and I'm determined to do some environmental good. :)

     After work I went to Blanchard Park and got right to business. I pulled out 100 Cesar Weeds 52 baby Chinese Tallow Trees and a bunch of litter. I girdled several more Tallow Trees too big to pull out by hand. I found a pair of reading glasses buried in the ground. I pulled them out and I may start using them.

11/21/10 Blanchard Park

    

     Blanchard Park is a big big project. I've been working the exotic plants here for many months. Mainly Cesar Weeds which dominated the landscape every where. In the before and after pictures above you see an area infested with Cesar Weed and in the next picture returned to it's native state.
     Today I ended up collecting a lot of litter along with plants. For Cesar Weed I took out 313 plants. I also took out 7 Chinese Tallow Trees. I also collected 2 Water Hyacinth and 2 Water Lettuce plants to show to a class at my university.

11/18/10 The Big Econlockhatchee River

     Today I wanted to get some environmental good done, so I after work I made use of the few hours left of sunlight and walked out into the swamp I live on the edge of. Water levels are low and I was able to cross a fallen tree to the other side of the river. There I found several Spanish Moth "convict" Caterpillars (Xanthopastis regnatrix). I was able to identify them with the help of staff at the Lukas Nusary Butterfly Encounter in Orlando.
     I was surprised to find two, four foot Chinese Tallow Trees there which I promptly ripped out of the ground. I'm really getting to the point I can spot those spade shaped leaves from quite a distance, even through thick brush. See the second picture.
     To get used to looking for some specific thing is called "search image".

11/20/10 A Herpetology Lesson About Water Snakes

     These two pictures were taken my supervisor at work. The top picture is a young Florida Banded Water Snake and the lower picture is a Water Moccasin. The Banded Water Snake is non-poisonous and the Water Moccasin is poisonous.
     Water Moccasins have an undeserved reputation for being mean. I have not found this to be true, on my two encounters with them. They do have an aura about them and for me anyway you can tell them apart from a long distance.
     Many thousands of non-poisonous water snakes (Florida has Brown Water Snakes, Altlantic Water Snakes, Mangrove Water Snakes, Green Water Snakes and Banded Water Snakes) are killed because people think every snake they see in the water is a Water Moccasin. Personally I would never kill a Water Moccasin either.

11/19/10 A Return to Mead Gardens

     The November days are cooler and Sagrei hunting is slow. So I turn my focus to exotic invasive plants. For this visit to the park I pulled out 100 Cesar Weeds, 13 Chinese Tallow Trees and two Ear Trees. The Cesar Weeds here are tall and past the flowering stage. Every time I pulled one I got covered with clinging seeds.
     I met three people there who are doing a history of the park. They asked if I would also work on taking out Skunk Vine and Cat's Claw. I don't know these plants and will have to research them. I noticed many dieing Air Potato Vines and they told me the park was spraying to kill them. They warned me not to eat off the Beauty Berry Bushes also because of the spraying.
     There is a wet land on one end of a park with a big sign saying something, "Wetlands Restoration, Exotic Vegetation Threatens the ecological longevity..." I have never seen anyone other than me taking out exotics. There are several full grown Chinese Tallow Trees in that wetland and I "girdled" two of them. See the 2nd picture. Girdling is the botany/forestry term for cutting a ring of bark off a tree to strangle it. Now that I think of it, girdling a large exotic invasive tree might do some double good. If the dead tree then provides homes for wildlife, then that is a double bonus.
     The first time I learned what girdling was, it was a friend of mine who had tied a dog to a tree. The dog ran around the tree wearing the bark down with its chain. The tree later died.
     If the city of Winter Park want to remove these trees it will cost many thousands of dollars. If I kill them and let the dead trees provide homes for wildlife, it will cost nothing.

11/18/10 WebShots.com and Flicker.com

     I post Florida wildlife pictures for free anywhere I can. I do this to provide pictures for anyone wanting to learn more about the wonderful environment we have here. My hope is that the more we learn about what is out there, the less likely we are to build our own nests on it. I post pictures on webshots.com and Flicker.com.
    The top picture is of a baby Soft Shell Turtle. This is actually a digital picture of a 35mm picture I took several years ago. The lower picture is of three Sandhill Cranes, two parents and a baby. Notice the brand new high school in the background which ate up a big chunk of thier nesting grounds.

11/18/10 Why animals try to eat litter

     The top picture is of an Anti-freeze plastic bottle, chewed open by a small mammal. The bottom picture is of a beer can bitten by a small Alligator. But why do animals want to eat things made of plastic or metal? The answer is what was in there before the bottle or can was illegally tossed into a waterway. Animals are tricked by the food like smell and try to eat or eat though things that could be dangerous to them.
     A solution would be to recycle bottles and cans instead of throwing them into our water supply.

11/18/10 A Book about Invasive Species

     I recently read the book Alien Invaders by Jane Drake and Ann Love. This book is for ages 9 -12 and is fine for adults too. It covers exotics from the microscopic size to giant European pigs. One thing I liked best about this book is it lists the domestic-feral cats as the destructive exotic they are. Many books shy away from calling cats an exotic as it is not politically correct. Animals raised and bread by humans are by law called “Domestic”.  By law domestic animals must be under the control of a human at all times. Examples would be the Florida lease law for cat and dogs, or a fence restraining a herd of cows or horses. I’ve had cats as pets most of my life. I’m not anti cat by any means; I’m just anti “outdoor” cats decimating our native species.

          It’s funny how exotics often make the best pets. This book did have a chapter on Cane Toads. I once took a trip to Homestead Florida to collect some exotic Can Toads (Bufo marinus) to keep as pets. I kept four of them for years and they got bigger and fatter each month on a diet of exotic Cuban Anoles (Anolis sagrei).

          There was also a chapter on the Walking Cat Fish. I once saw a Walking Cat fish on the East side of Orlando. It was a rainy day and the cat fish was winding back and forth across a parking lot. If I had known that it was exotic at that time I would have fed it to my pet Snapping Turtle. But I didn’t know and we both went on about our day. Knowledge is power and lack of knowledge leads to trouble.

          Alien Invaders also had a chapter on Kudzu vine. I haven’t seen Kudzu much here in Orlando.  I hear it’s more a problem in North Florida and adjoining states. Here we fight Air Potato vines which often cover entire wooded areas. Once I identified Air Potato (Dioscorea bulbifera) as an exotic I set to ridding my 5 ½ acre property of it. I have rid my property of Air Potato and Cesar weed (Urena lobata) which took me a year. Now I’m working on getting the thousands and thousands of Cesar Weed plants out of Blanchard Park. I’ve removed and burned over six thousand Cesar Weed plants as of this writing.

          Also on my hit list are Fire Ants (Solonopsis invitis), Cuban Tree Frogs (Osteopilus septentrionalis), Taro plants (Colocasia esculenta), Water Hayacinths (Eichhornia crassipes), Water Lettuce (Pistia stratiotes) and Chinese Tallow Trees (Sapium sebiferum).

11/15/10 A Land Planarian

     When I was in Blanchard Park on 11/11/10 I saw a worm moving oddly on the ground. It had been dry for several weeks and I didn't see why a worm would be out of the ground at all. Then I noticed it was fighting with something and appeared to be in pain. But creature it was fighting with I had never seen before, so I took some pictures and let them be.
     So I went on an extensive Internet search and finnaly found it. The yellow thing killing the worm in the above pictures is a Land Planarian (Bipalum kewese mosley). They are an invasive/exotic from Vietnam. If I had known this I would have saved the worm and stomped the Planarian into mush.

11/14/10 Chinese Tallow Tree Hunting

     It was so nice to get back into the woods this morning and back into the fight against invasive. Picture one above is a African Ear Tree blocking the sun from getting to a native Palmetto Palm Tree. I took out my survival knife and hacked the Ear Tree back to the ground. You see the freed Palmetto in picture two.
     My main focus today was Cesar Weed. I took out 500 of those. I also ripped out 10 Chinese Tallow Trees and a bunch of litter too.
     I noticed 30 Plecostomus fish (Pterygoplichthy multiradiatus), also known as algae eaters or Armoured Catfish. These exotic invasive fish which should be illegal to sell are crowding out native fish here in Blanchard Park. In a fish tank they are two inches long. In the river they grow to two feet long. They have spikes which expand when anything tries to eat them. I will find a way to get to them!
     11/16/10 Update on Algae Eaters. I looked up the FWC (Florida Wildlife Commission) website and they say there is "no bag or size limits" on taking out these invasive fish. Now I just need a method, I think bow fishing would be best or maybe a very long spear.

11/12/10 A Walk in a Playalinda Beach Forest

     Four of my friends met at Playalinda Beach on the East Coast of Central Florida. I noticed a bunch of plastic flower petals on the ground. (See top picture) I've seen this before at Hindu festivals. I've asked them before at other lakes in Orlando not to litter with plastic. A more environmental option would be to throw real flowers petals instead.
     Later on I went for a walk in a long a forest trail within the Canaveral National Wildlife Preserve. I was suprised to smell a Skunk close by. It brought back fond memories of one I used to have as a pet. Skunks are rare in Central Florida.
     There was some small patches of Cesar Weed in the forest and I pulled out every one of them. As I walked in I was creating little piles of Cesar Weeds and I picked up 38 of them one the way back out. At one point I heard a loud rattling. I thought "This will be a good picture of a Rattlesnake". It turned out to be a Black Racer vibrating it's tail in some dry leaves. I only caught a glimpse as it shot off into some brush.
     A Mud Wasp was carrying a catapillar and two Cuban Anoles ran over and ganged up on it and tried to rob it. I chased off the Cuban Anoles and the Wasp was able to continue on its way.

11/9/10 A Yellow Garden Orb Spider Visits Work

     I brought a Yellow Garden Orb Spider to work today. Many coworkers came to see it and I showed it to an environmental group also. The spider was very well behaved. Having the spider in a jar allowed even very cautious person to see it up close without fear of it touching them.
     I reaseased it the next day and it went off into the grass to go on with it's spider life.

10/31/2010 My Turtle's First Halloween

     As you can see my tiny baby Razor Back Musk Turtle went as a surfer for Halloween. The surfboard is one of those small keychain ones, but it's hard to tell the scale in this picture. She is way too young to go trick or treating. I went as Micheal Myers, the mass murdering mental patient from the "Halloween" movies.

11/5/2010 Coral Snake Sighting

     My supervisor at work took these two great pictures of a beautiful Florida Coral Snake. Like me he has a respect for native species, so he took the picture and left the snake alone. I don't kill anything native unless I have to. The Coral Snake is America's version of the Cobra. Like Cobras it has a neurotoxin venom (a venom that works on the nervous system).
     Most people bitten by poisonous snakes were trying to kill the snake when bitten. Religious snake handlers bring up the statistics and people like me who handle poisonous snakes make up most of the rest, with true accidental bites being extremely rare. That's why they make such great news. Many more people die each year from domestic dog attacks (33 in 2007, 23 in 2008 and 30 in 2009) than from poisonous snake bites (6 from year 2000 to now).

11/2/10 Some Insect Embassadors

     I have begun a new pattern of behavior. I go out on Mondays after work and look for something interesting in nature to bring in to work. I work at the University of Central Florida and we have several environmental student organizations.
     So today is Tuesday as I have brought in a Pine Saywer Beetle and a Lubber Grasshopper (Romalea guttata), both which I found out in my swamp yesterday. Both insects were very well behaved all day and many people came by to see them. Both insects are native species in Florida and many people recognized the Lubber Grasshopper.
     As well as giving a small biology lesson, I taught people how to handle insects so they would not get bitten or harm the insect. With both Lubber Grasshoppers and Pine Sawyer Beetles you can pick them up gently around their "shoulders" they cannot turn around to get to you.
     Both insects will be back in the woods Wednesday morning. Both are diurnal insects (they come out in the day) so I release them in their best element. Releaseing them at night might leave them exposed as they did not have time to seek shelter as they normally would have.