Day Three, Big Cypress Preserve: Kirby Storter Park

It was our last day at Big Cypress Preserve and we decided to go birding along the Kirby Storter Roadside Park. Its right alongside Highway 41 and has a raised boardwalk that is about a mile long, roundtrip. We arrived early and were the first ones that day so we were excited about the birding possibilities.

The first section of the boardwalk passed through short cypress and tall sawgrass. The Cypress are about one hundred years old but are stunted due to the lack of nutrients. A ranger told us that the limestone was very near the surface. We did see a palm warbler flitting through the underbrush, but it’s the dry season and so the ground was dry and barren. A large spider appeared to be motionless on its huge web and I played with the focus trying to take a decent image.

A little further we entered a cypress strand. This is an area were more nutrients are available and water is in the deeper holes. Alligators, fish, turtles, and birds. Lots of birds, are concentrated. It’s like walking into an aviary. The walk turned into a crawl as we were treated to so many birds.

A crow landed below me and deftly caught a live bow fish in its beak. It then devoured the fish in little fillet size bites while watching me like a, well ravenous crow. There were so many large cypress trees and brush that the autofocus didn’t work and so switching to manual I tried to image individual birds. Renita meanwhile was using the little camera and concentrated on landscape photos.

I especially concentrated on getting a good image of a wood stork. They are plentiful here and feed on the same way as ibis, swinging their beaks back and forth through the water. The motion contacts fish, crustaceans, and worms, all tasty tidbits for a wood stork.

Great egrets dominated the flooded woodland, waiting patiently for a fish to appear. Occasionally one would thrust its beak into the water, often grabbing a fish which was quickly swallowed. A vulture spotted some food and landed before hiding the food from other vultures with its outstretched wings.

From Storter Park we drove to Everglades City. We needed to fuel up for the drive back to St Petersburg and as we passed thought the town found a great seafood place, called City Seafood. We had grouper with fries and a plate of conch fritters. I hadn’t had any conch in forty-five years, and it was till as tough aa I remembered.

A cow and calf dolphin provide the tourist draw and fourteen guided airboats took turns showing them to their clients. Finally, the dolphins left the area harassed by steady parade of boats. It was a classic example of unscrupulous guides caring more about their profits then the welfare of the dolphins, (at one time three airboats surrounded the two dolphins).

Renita wanted to find a souvenir so we stopped at a couple of gift stores but their selection was limited to t-shirts and small cheap items. She didn’t find anything to buy, an unusual occurrence for a master shopper!

Returning to camp, we arrived just as rangers were capturing an alligator. It had been fed by people and no was chasing fishermen on the bank, hoping for a handout. A fed gator is a dead gator, the same as bears in Wyoming, (this last summer two black bears were put down near in the town of Alpine after they became aggressive while searching for food.

It was obvious that people had been feeding alligators in lots of places we had visited. Signs were up stating it’s against Florida law but as usual many ignore signs. I wish they could have seen the alligator being carried away hog tied and duct taped. Clear skies.