The Gang Back at Home

Why settle for toad flax when you can have the toad?....

Mary and I had started our walk home from the supermarket at close to 9 PM. The sky had been cloudy while we were inside; now we were in fine drizzle blown sideways by the wind. Without any umbrellas, we would stay under the strip mall's awning for as long as we could.

This little one had the same idea but didn't seem in any hurry to go anywhere. Mary saw the toad first. She stopped, pointed. I'd been holding my camera bag close to my side against the elements. Now I whipped out the camera and flipped up the flash.

Getting my lens to focus was another matter; there was so little light to go by. I fiddled with manual controls, with telephoto. I photographed a lamp just to be sure my shutter release worked -- before I learned that if I held the button down long enough my camera would sigh and say, "Oh, all right! But you won't like it." Finally it relented and focused for a 1/40-second exposure at f/3.2.

I think this is a Southern Toad (Bufo terrestris). It seemed unperturbed as I dropped to the sidewalk and lay on my stomach a few feet off, clicking away. According to the National Audubon Society Field Guide to Florida, this 3-inch, nocturnal toad lives mostly in sandy pine and oak woods, a habitat that matches this area where it isn't developed.

Everything around here is leafing out gangbusters and the air is beginning to buzz again with pollinators. Mary has standing instructions that, regardless of how much or how little sleep I may have gotten (since sometimes I work through the night), she is to wake me up if she's up first and sees hummingbirds sampling our honeysuckle. They haven't shown up yet, but last year we saw them the beginning of April.



Common Buckeye, Junonia (Precis) coenia, Brushfoot Family. I spotted two of them in our front yard when I headed out for my post office walk. They were enjoying our toad flax immensely.

According to our Audubon Field Guide to Insects and Spiders, the buckeye caterpillar eats snapdragon (which this toad flax is), monkey flower, plantain, stonecrop, and other low herbs. "The Buckeye flies swiftly if disturbed. Males dash after others of their own and different species and even chase Carolina Locusts."



This one, head-on, shows its proboscis. Another shot of a buckeye, taken last year, is here.



Polyphemus moth (Antheraea polyphemus, Giant Silk Worm Family). At first I thought I saw a leaf stuck onto the brick wall outside the bank. A hefty breeze was blowing it off to the side. As I got closer I realized what I was looking at.

This moth's wingspan is around 5-6 inches. Its season is from February to July and October to December. (The one I photographed outside the supermarket last year had appeared in October.)



Giant Leopard Moth (Hypercompe scribonia, reclassified from Ecpantheria; Tiger Moth Family (Arctiidae), subfamily Arctiinae). Found outside the supermarket.

From Steven H. Long at Clemson University:

"This moth can be found throughout the southeastern United States ranging from New England to Mexico. The immature stage of this moth is a caterpillar, known as the woolly bear caterpillar because it is heavily coated with long black hairs, known as setae. When feeling threatened, the caterpillar will curl up in a ball revealing bright red markings between its many segments. They feed on almost any type of foliage, but only for a brief time before spinning a cocoon and emerging a few weeks later as a mature moth.

"The moth stage of this species is very beautiful. The wings of the moth are solid white, with irregularly shaped black circles all over them giving it the leopard-like appearance. The abdomen is dark blue with orange markings. After emerging from the cocoon, the male species of moth immediately begins its search for a female to mate with. The female moth releases a pheromone into the air for the male moth to find and locate her by. The male will pick up the smell and fly in a zigzag pattern into the wind until he reaches his female and mates with her. After mating has taken place, the male goes out in search of another female while the female he has mated with begins dispersing her fertilized eggs wherever she may find."

This moth was kind enough to hold its pose long enough for me to take a 3D stereogram. (In fact, it held the same pose all the time it took me to get to the post office and back.) I had seen the Buckeyes, Polyphemus, and Giant Leopard all on the same walk.



Thanks to Mary, who finally saw this hanging off our neighbor's fence in daylight, for identifying the plant as wisteria. At first I'd wondered if it were a lilac (based on its color and heady fragrance; but the petal structure is different). Then I thought it might be coastal plain lobelia (based on our field guide).

For a while I didn't know whether this was a Chinese (Wisteria sinensis) or American (Wisteria frutescens) variety. Both are in the Leguminosae/Fabaceae (bean) Family. Then I learned that American wisteria flowers have no fragrance -- at least according to Will Cook at Duke University. Floridata.com disagrees, but I suspect this plant is Chinese wisteria.

According to Floridata.com, the Chinese wisteria "thrives so well in Florida it has earned a place on the state's invasive species list but is less aggressive in colder climates."

The site adds, "A better choice for Florida gardens is the native American wisteria, which is also beautiful and fragrant [here disagreeing with Cook] but more compact and less aggressive." The site warns, "Chinese wisteria is a Category II plant on the Florida Exotic Pest Plant Council 2001 List of Invasive Species. This category consists of exotics that have increased in abundance or frequency but have not yet altered Florida plant communities to the extent shown by Category I species. These species may become ranked Category I, if ecological damage is demonstrated. This vigorously growing vine may be troublesome in similar mild winter areas as well."



American Bird Grasshopper (Schistocerca americana, also called the American Locust). This little one had flown into a magnolia tree as I approached. The shot is rotated 90 degrees to the right.



According to Patrick Coin, writing in the New Hope Audubon Society Newsletter (.pdf file), this grasshopper "occurs throughout eastern and central North America. It is somewhat migratory, ranging northward in summer to Canada. The closely related Desert Locust of the Old World, Schistocerca gregaria, is famous for forming migratory swarms and destroying crops. The American Bird Grasshopper is said to form damaging swarms on occasion, though I have not seen it in plague proportions in our area. It feeds on a wide range of vegetation, including crops, grasses, forbs, and the foliage of woody plants." Coin adds that this species "has the peculiar habit of flying up into trees when disturbed, a habit unique to this genus."



Taken outside a new apartment complex in the area. According to the University of Michigan Museum of Zoology (whose page is chock full of information), this Eastern Gray Squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis, Family Sciuridae) "ranges over the eastern United States to just west of the Mississippi River and north to Canada. Introductions have occurred in the western states and some of Canada that was not previously inhabited, as well as in Italy, Scotland, England and Ireland."

U MI continues, "A dominance hierarchy forms in males during breeding times; females mate with several males. Related individuals may defend a territory (Taylor 1969). Squirrels occupy two types of homes, including a permanent tree den as well as a nest of leaves and twigs on a tree crotch 30-45 feet above the ground. Females nest alone when pregnant, and lactating females are especially aggressive and avoided by others (Ruff and Wilson, 1999)."

These squirrels can live up to 12.5 years in the wild. A captive female lived for more than 20 years.

I've picked up framed photos for display at the art league gallery next month (a first for me, at least insofar as photos are concerned), including one that I'll be entering in the next camera club competition. As I drafted this entry, Mary brought me an interesting-looking, roughly quarter-inch-long, dead bug she'd found on the kitchen floor. We've since identified it as a kind of earwig -- though there are so many types I haven't yet identified the family, let alone the species or genus. She had coaxed the corpse upright inside a dainty little china bowl so that I could photograph it.

That one's not apt to become a gallery picture.

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Rainbow Springs State Park, Part 7 of 7

On March 13, 2006, Mary and I visited the Rainbow Springs State Park, which features the headsprings of the Rainbow River. These waters run to the Withlacoochie River, through Lake Rousseau, and finally into the Gulf of Mexico.

The park's 1,595 acres contain at least 11 distinct, natural communities: mesic flatwoods, sandhills, scrubby flatwoods, sinkholes, upland mixed forests, basin swamps, depression marshes, floodplain swamps, and hydric hammocks.

Above, Rainbow Falls cascades just to the left of an observation gazebo....



The Variable Dancer damselfly (Argia fumipennis) ranges through northern and central Florida, according to the National Audubon Society Field Guide to Florida. This little one had come to rest on the ground beside a magnolia.



I'm guessing this is a female Blue Dasher (Pachydiplax longipennis), based on photo "dash04" at Larvalbug.com and photos at Bugguide.Net.

The position this one is holding is called obelisking. "Dragonflies display a wide range of behavior in order to regulate their body temperatures," writes William Cochran in the entomology department of Colorado State University. "The thorax of dragonflies is insulated with air sacs to aid in thermoregulation. Some dragonflies can change their posture in order to thermo regulate. When too hot they can elevate their thorax and abdomen to a vertical position, called obelisking, decreasing the amount of solar radiation received by the dragonfly. Obelisking is abandoned when heat levels decrease in the insect. " (Cochran, "Biological and Ecological influences on the Behavior of Dragonflies" (.pdf file))



I was sitting at the park's outdoor food pavilion when a bumblebee started zipping about. I set my camera to its fastest shutter speed (1/1000-second), enlarged my aperture to get enough light (f/4.5), and then started chasing the bee through my viewfinder. I've brightened the shot above a bit and cropped it.



Except for cropping and compression this is as is out of the camera.

Back at home, we've been seeing the Return of the Pretty Bugs. A few days ago on my post office walk I spotted Buckeye butterflies in the front yard, a Giant Leopard Moth outside the supermarket, and a Polyphemus Moth outside the bank. (Half the fun is diving for the field guides or onto Bugguide.Net to do species ID.) Photos of those will come next. The saddlebag dragonflies are out again, too, though so far they're too zippy for me to catch on pixel.

Thanks to my friend Barbara, who identified this plant in Part 3 as a "shrimp plant" (Justicia brandegeana, Family Acanthaceae) and writes, "They are unusual in form and delightful! Just pick a sunny, some shade, sandy, well-drained spot. Butterflies love them and when they grow high enough, so do the hummingbirds. When the plant is in its native habitat, it is real dark 'pink', the pink is the bracts. The white is the flower. You seen them selling the yellow ones now."

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Rainbow Springs State Park, Part 6 of 7

On March 13, 2006, Mary and I visited the Rainbow Springs State Park, which features the headsprings of the Rainbow River. These waters run to the Withlacoochie River, through Lake Rousseau, and finally into the Gulf of Mexico.

The park's 1,595 acres contain at least 11 distinct, natural communities: mesic flatwoods, sandhills, scrubby flatwoods, sinkholes, upland mixed forests, basin swamps, depression marshes, floodplain swamps, and hydric hammocks.

The puff at center left is a sign that water is coming into the spring.

Says the park's brochure, "Rainbow Springs is a first magnitude spring complex with four main vents (outlets) in its headsprings. Numerous smaller vents and boils contribute to its average flow of 465 million gallons per day. Although none of the spring vents are large enough to allow exploration, large underground conduits likely exist that feed the springs from the surrounding karst (limestone) supported aquifer."

A movie of the "boiling action" (22 seconds, 10.5 MB) is here. (Dial-up may be unable to handle it. My library's DSL connection churned for several minutes before confirming that I'd uploaded the video correctly.)

The waterfalls, however, are humanmade....



According to the brochure, the park's waterfalls were built on phosphate tailings. Otherwise, they use the park's natural resources. The man coming into frame at center left is a member of the Citrus County Camera Club/Digital Camera Group, which arranged this day trip.



To better catch the water flow I underexposed this shot of Seminole Falls (1/1000-second exposure at f/8), then tweaked it in MS Photo Editor to brighten it. I'm not completely happy with the result, but it led me to start experimenting more with aperture size to compensate for the decrease in light.



The plaque near Rainbow Falls reads, "The water to create the garden waterfalls is re-circulated from the river. The water cascades approximately 60 feet to create Rainbow Falls. The rock formation for the falls came from the river."



Here I've again used my quickest shutter speed (1/1000-second exposure) but enlarged my aperture to f/4. Except for compression and a slight crop, this is as is out of the camera.



3D stereoscope. This was the view from the same location where I photographed the fish up top. I was surprised to learn some time ago that, given certain conditions (like an absence of wind), taking stereoscopic pictures requires no special equipment. After the first shot I stepped to the side so that I could photograph the second from a slightly different angle. View with your eyes crossed and relax your gaze while focusing on the "center" image. (Not everyone can do this.)

The final photos are mostly of insects, including a lovely female Blue Dasher dragonfly.

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Rainbow Springs State Park, Part 5 of 7

On March 13, 2006, Mary and I visited the Rainbow Springs State Park, which features the headsprings of the Rainbow River. The park's 1,595 acres contain at least 11 distinct, natural communities: mesic flatwoods, sandhills, scrubby flatwoods, sinkholes, upland mixed forests, basin swamps, depression marshes, floodplain swamps, and hydric hammocks.

This is a first magnitude spring complex, fed by four main vents. Its average flow is 465 million gallons per day. These waters run to the Withlacoochie River, through Lake Rousseau, and finally into the Gulf of Mexico.

"Although none of the vents are large enough to allow exploration," says the brochure, "large underground conduits likely exist that feed the springs from the surrounding karst (limestone) supported aquifer." Here, beneath reflections, a fish glides past a vent feeding water into Rainbow Springs. Except for compression this is as-is out of the camera....



This is a wider shot of the same area. The vent is the swath of gray by palm reflections.



These waters teemed with fish and a turtle that meandered into view. Thus far I have been unable to identify the species of either.





The "boiling" of the spring raises tiny puffs and leaves circular patterns beneath the fish. A movie of the effect (22 seconds, 10.5 MB) is here. (Dial-up may be unable to handle it; I didn't even try to view it at home. My library's DSL connection churned for several minutes before confirming that I'd uploaded the video correctly.)


I haven't yet identified this lone flower blooming atop the spring.

Waterfalls to come.

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Rainbow Springs State Park, Part 4 of 7

On March 13, 2006, Mary and I visited the Rainbow Springs State Park, which features the headsprings of the Rainbow River. The park's 1,595 acres contain at least 11 distinct, natural communities: mesic flatwoods, sandhills, scrubby flatwoods, sinkholes, upland mixed forests, basin swamps, depression marshes, floodplain swamps, and hydric hammocks.

This is a first magnitude spring complex, fed by four main vents. Its average flow is 465 million gallons per day. These waters run to the Withlacoochie River, through Lake Rousseau, and finally into the Gulf of Mexico.

Rainbow Springs had begun serving as a tourist attraction in the 1920s and received its current name in the 1930s. "As the attraction grew," says the brochure, "the river was dredged for glass bottom boat tours, and waterfalls were built on piles of phosphate tailings. A zoo, rodeo, gift shops, and a monorail with leaf-shaped gondolas were also added."

The old zoo cages have been left in place. They are now overgrown and in disrepair but possess their own beauty and history....



Human cultures have inhabited the area surrounding the park for at least 10,000 years. Says the brochure, "People we now call the Timucua lived here at the time of European contact....Pioneers first settled the headsprings in 1839. The settlement was known by several names -- lastly, Juliette. By 1883, about 75 people lived in this agricultural community, which had a railroad station, sawmill, hotel, stores, and a post office. The hard freezes of the mid-1890s destroyed the town's important citrus industry, so the people migrated downriver to the new phosphate mining community of Dunnellon."

Rainbow Springs closed in the 1970s due to competition from the larger theme parks, but reopened as a state park in the early 1990s.



The glass-bottom boats are gone, replaced by canoes and kayaks. The rodeo and monorails are gone and empty, broken cages are all that's left of the zoo. But there is still a gift shop (we walked away with a T-shirt, mug, postcards, and some books), and a lovely outdoor dining pavilion. From the pavilion I spotted this dogwood, draped with Spanish moss.



Large beds of these flowers sit outside the Visitor's Center...



... not far from magnolia blossoms.



I saw this trap hanging in a loquat tree beside the trail, but don't know whom its intended guests are.

The park's humanmade falls are still there -- but the next entry will turn to its natural waters.

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Rainbow Springs State Park, Part 3 of 7

On March 13, 2006, Mary and I visited the Rainbow Springs State Park, which features the headsprings of the Rainbow River. The park's 1,595 acres contain at least 11 distinct, natural communities: mesic flatwoods, sandhills, scrubby flatwoods, sinkholes, upland mixed forests, basin swamps, depression marshes, floodplain swamps, and hydric hammocks.

This is a first magnitude spring complex, fed by four main vents. Its average flow is 465 million gallons per day. These waters run to the Withlacoochie River, through Lake Rousseau, and finally into the Gulf of Mexico.

Five days before St. Patrick's Day, we found this bed of three-leaf clover growing around a small, humanmade pond....



Prairie Iris, also known as Anglepod Blue Flag, Iris hexagona var. savannarum. Flowers bloom March through June. (Source: National Audubon Society Field Guide to Florida)

My own gardening has dealt mainly with vegetables. Once my swing set days in Brooklyn were over, my parents had converted our postage stamp-sized back yard to a vegetable plot that yielded lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini, green peppers, and chives. I took that magic with me to Cambridge, Massachusetts, maintaining a plot in the Whittemore Avenue Community Garden for five years. Mine was one of 60 plots, each one unique, growing everything from corn to cosmos.

Flowers had adorned my Brooklyn yard, too: roses and hyacinth, violets and tiger lilies. The lilies had been my favorite flower among them, rising by the side of a Rose of Sharon tree.



I haven't found anything that looks like this, either in my field guides or on the Web. I love the tiny hairs on this thing. It reminds me a little of Blue Curls, except that the color and the blooming season are all wrong.



This wild azalea, Rhododendron canescens, is in the Heath Family and blooms February through April.

"Tame" azaleas, those shown in Part 2, first made an appearance in the Brooklyn front yard when I was already well into high school. Back then I learned the value of coffee grounds to acid-loving plants.

According to the Azalea Society of America, "Azaleas have been hybridized for hundreds of years. Around 10,000 different plants have been registered or named, although far fewer are in the trade." All azaleas are in the genus Rhododendron.



The camellia was declared Alabama's state flower in 1927 (the only state symbol not native to Alabama), but the plant itself is from Asia. According to State History Guide Resources, "Camellias are named for G.J. Kamel, a Jesuit priest who traveled in Asia in the seventeenth century. The introduction of Camellia japonica L. in Italy is dated about 1760, but only during the XIXth century this species became popular....They belong to the Tea family of plants."



I developed a greater appreciation of flowers from attending the New England Flower Show, and was lucky enough to live within a mile's walk of the Bayside Expo Center, where it was held.

More flowers to come -- plus excursions elsewhere in the park.

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Rainbow Springs State Park, Part 2 of 7

On March 13, 2006, Mary and I visited the Rainbow Springs State Park, which features the headsprings of the Rainbow River. The park's 1,595 acres contain at least 11 distinct, natural communities: mesic flatwoods, sandhills, scrubby flatwoods, sinkholes, upland mixed forests, basin swamps, depression marshes, floodplain swamps, and hydric hammocks.

This is a first magnitude spring complex, fed by four main vents. Its average flow is 465 million gallons per day. These waters run to the Withlacoochie River, through Lake Rousseau, and finally into the Gulf of Mexico.

Says the park's brochure, "The magnificent azalea bloom in early spring attracts visitors from around the country." The flowers were in full, glorious bloom during our visit. This was one happy bumblebee.....



I've been told these are coots, but they don't have the coloration shown in my Peterson's Field Guide to the Birds of Eastern and Central North America, for either the American or Caribbean species. However, that black stripe across their bills fits the description.

The Peterson had been my first field guide. Years ago I had put up a bird feeder at my old place of employment, and soon was e-mailing a birding coworker with descriptions and the question, "What is this?" He was always very accommodating, but after a few queries I asked him about field guides, and bought the Peterson soon afterwards. Although still a great resource, recent migrations and temperature changes have rendered it a bit out of date.

Various azaleas follow:



Hiking and camping are activities where my upbringing and Mary's had differed widely. They were de rigeur in her family; by the time she was a teenager she had scaled California's 15,000-foot-high Mt. Whitney. I grew up a couch potato, due in large part to my mother's poor health.

One summer my family and I had stayed in a bungalow colony. I went off exploring on my own and found a "sanctuary" of red rock. It wasn't much to look at, but it was a secret place and it was mine. I treasured it.



I began hiking once I was living on my own, and especially after I got my driver's license at age 31. One of my first road trips took me to the White Mountains in New Hampshire and the same motel where I had gone with my family in the mid-70s. Unlike those childhood trips, however, this time I took daily excursions along the Wilderness Trail.

I had always loved walking; as a child I'd ranged with friends across Brooklyn. Urban hiking had come to me naturally. Just outside the town of Dunnellon, Rainbow Springs is not urban but neither is it completely wild. Its grounds are well-manicured and maintained, including an extensive sprinkler system that keeps its plants water-fed.



This smaller variety of azaleas greeted us at the park entrance.



For a 3D effect, view with your eyes crossed, relaxing your gaze as you focus on the "center" image.

More flower varieties to come -- including a lovely and unusual plant that I haven't yet identified.

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