Honeymoon Island State Park, Our First Visit

The most visited state park in Florida is called Honeymoon Island State Park. The drive is through four cities and so the thirty-mile drive took is a little over an hour. The park wasn’t very busy. It was midweek, and upon entering we first stopped at the Nature Center. There were nice displays and two park rangers who answered all our questions.

Upon leaving the building we looked north toward the Osprey Trail area. You could see the dominance of the slash pines. These were so named as workers would slash them with knives releasing the sap which would be collected and boiled down to form turpentine.

There was also a small garden of native Florida plants and we took our time to photograph/image them, so we would have references.

Some of the plants were coontie ferns, snow berry and Christmas berry bushes, scorpion tail, and hairy beach sunflowers, all pictured in order.

We then drove to the picnic area and ate our lunch before grabbing our gear, binoculars, phones, and cameras and headed up the Osprey Trail. Just as we started walking, an osprey flew over us! Renita spotted it and correctly identified the fish it was carrying as a sheepshead.

I am so lucky to be married to a Junior Range, duly sworn and badged at a National Park near Natchez, as she is a constant source of information and is always correct, (whew I hope I said that right).

We passed several other ospreys before we reached the Great Horned Owl nest. There were reports of two adult owls in the area, but we didn’t see them. There were quite a few red bellied woodpeckers and I finally got an ok image, good enough for an identification.

We passed several other birders before we reached an area where the trail was barricaded.  The reason the trail is closed is because two bald eagles have arrived at their December nesting site and if you look careful you can see them! If you can’t find the second one here is a hint, look for the bright yellow talons.

We headed back to the vehicle on the Pelican trail which then met the Osprey trail. While there were several lgb’s, little grey birds, that wouldn’t hold still so we could id then or photograph them, we did see four more of the red bellied woodpeckers.

Arriving back at the truck we next headed to the four mile stretch of beach. Parking near North beach we walked out on the beach and discovered that there were lots of shells and several determined shell collectors.

Renita got out her sack and we both collected quite a few small unusual gastropods. She also found a type of sundial gastropod that was different from the ones we find at Matagorda, Texas. They are a pretty colored, small shell and should make some nice earrings.

It was time to head back to our bungalow and Renita drove taking a different route. I had taken the fastest way, but she drove along the shoreline and even though it was a little slower, it was much more scenic, The Junior Ranger was right again! Clear skies