Everglades Day Three - Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary

Heading into Day Three I was stumped, my Dad and I had exhausted all the best photography locations I had researched and still had a morning of shooting available. I Googled "best boardwalk near Naples" to get a specific location on a boardwalk we had driven past a couple of days earlier. Instead Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary popped up as the go-to spot in the Naples area. From their website:

The story of how Corkscrew Swamp became a sanctuary is one of the important conservation successes of our time. National Audubon began protecting the wading birds nesting within Corkscrew Swamp in 1905. During the 1940's and 50's, cypress forests in Florida were being leveled for their timber. Audubon realized the forest must be saved. At the time, Corkscrew was isolated and almost impossible to access. Today it is an oasis in a made-over landscape. In other areas, many of the wild swamps and much of the teeming wildlife, that were characteristic of this region less than a generation ago, are gone. Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary's value thus becomes more significant with every passing year.

Cypress Knees

A 2.25-mile boardwalk meanders through pine flatwood, wet prairie, around a marsh and finally into the largest old growth Bald Cypress forest in North America. These impressive trees, relatives of the redwood, tower 130 feet into the sky and have a girth of 25 feet. Their massive branches are draped with mosses, lichens, bromeliads and ferns. The forest is also home to hundreds of alligators, otters, white-tailed deer and red-bellied turtles. A wide variety of wading birds, songbirds, raptors and the fabulous Painted Bunting can be seen throughout the year. Photo opportunities are available at every turn of the boardwalk trail.

Early Morning mist hung over the meadow

How could we NOT visit Corkscrew? 

We arrived early in the morning and walked past a group of people in the parking lot who seemed excited. I thought they were just excited to see each other so we walked on past. Turns out they had spotted a rare little bird - lesson learned "pay attention knucklehead!"

Dad and I were the first ones to walk on the board walk that morning - let me be more specific - I was the first. Why do I mention this? My Dad trailed behind me by 10 feet or so therefore I was the first one to walk through all the spider webs that had been spun across the boardwalk overnight. Just imagine me taking a few steps, walking into a nearly invisible strand of spider web then fighting to untangle myself just hoping a spider didn't land on me in the process...while Dad softly chuckled.

My Dad, Andy, a man with a plan

The high water affected Corkscrew too - their birds were nesting later or not at all. I hoped to see their Barred Owls and went directly to the area they had been spotted the day before. The owls nest, lay eggs and when they hatch the owls spend hours getting food for their young. I asked one of the volunteers how these owls can eat when the ground is flooded after I explained that our Barn Owls in Utah eat mice, voles etc. "They eat fish." He went on to explain how the owls will perch on the boardwalk railing, oblivious to people, stare into the water to find their prey then dive down to get fish, crayfish and other aquatic creatures. That blew my mind - an owl who fishes. To any reader who says "of course they do, have you never heard that" I extend my apologies - I had no idea and I would have loved to have seen those Barred Owls fish.

In the same area of the boardwalk we spotted two Anhinga nests. How could we not, they were beehives of activity with a female vocalizing while sitting on the nest and the two males flying from bush to bush to find twigs to build the nest.  
 

The male has his twig and is headed back to the next.

The Anhinga above "looks" stately as he poses with his twig...but that's not the whole story.

The sequence starts as this young Anhinga reached out to snap off a twig. 

He tossed it in the air to rearrange it for his stately pose.

 

Strike pose.

 

 
Then he turned around, accidentally dropped his twig into the water far below and was left staring, crestfallen, as his twig fell out of reach.

I know I am putting human emotions into a bird's actions - but he really did look crestfallen...

We walked along the boardwalk and saw this Little Blue Heron. That's his official name and no I didn't supersaturate him with Photoshop, he really is that beautiful color throughout.

Another Little Blue Heron though not nearly as saturated. BTW both birds had two legs, they just chose to rest one under their feathers while I was taking their portrait.

At one point I looked up and was surprised to see an adult raccoon scuttling toward me on the boardwalk. Raccoons are pretty common but we hadn't seen any mammals in the Everglades (direct result of human introduced snakes) so I was a little taken aback. This one quickly left the boardwalk but the highlight of the day was when we heard from other visitors about the two baby raccoons nearby.

My Dad and I rushed over to see the two baby raccoons and were able to see their sweet little faces.

We spent a few minutes with them but didn't want to push them from their tree so we left after a few good photos. My Dad got a great shot of the two of them together that I hope to share in a future blog post.

Before we left I was lucky to photograph this female cardinal. The males are a brilliant red - the ladies a little more understated. We do not have cardinals in Utah therefore the only time I get to see them is on my trips back east.   

Thank you for joining me and my Dad on the Everglades trip I'll wrap up the trip with a post tomorrow then on to the greatest hits.

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