February 20, 2006
Ochlockonee State Park, Sopchoppy, Florida

Arrived here last evening. Lovely park in pine flatwoods on the shore of a river of the same name “Ok-LOK-nee”. It is situate between the large St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge to the east and the Appalachicola National Forest to the West. The Gulf of Mexico is nearby to the south and Tallahassee is 25 miles north. We are in that part of Florida where the state runs east and west. We are about 35 miles from the Central Time Zone which crosses Florida (really).

As with Cedar Key, the coast line here is a bit indefinite. The land is largely swamp and marsh with pine islands and oak hammocks. The rivers wind and branch as they approach the Gulf and make all of the coastal area islands. Eventually ponds are scattered across the land and finally the land is scattered across the bays and Gulf waters. Beaches are rare and much of the “coastline” submerges at low tide. There is no shortage of wetlands here, it is the drylands that are precious and being lost to development!

The vegetation has chaned substantially since we left Cedar Key. There a few black mangroves struggled along sheltered shoreline. Here there is none. Where freshwater gives out the land becomes Spartina and reed glade. The freshwater swamp forests are of largely deciduous trees. It looks like winter here. Except for the live oaks, the magnolias and bays, and the pines, the forests are bare. The understory too is largely leafless except for the evergreen scrub oaks and the bayberry. The red maple fruits are ripe, looking like masses of red flowers, but the leaves have yet to appear. The cypresses too are naked except for the dried catkins that make them recognizable.

As farther south, the land is a mosaic resulting from differences in elevation and a history of fire, storms, and human influences. The area is lovely but made difficult in summer by heat and humidity and the resulting swarms of biting insects. Development has been limited by this fact and by the lack of beaches and navigable water. Much as there is no edge of the land there is no edge of the water and boating is less fun when the water all goes away at low tide!

The Birdmobile landed here about 4 p.m. We fussed to level the machine (we need another box of levelers) and Anne turned our Cedar Key lump crab into crab cakes. She did very well. We noticed that it was still light almost until 7:00. That will change when we cross the time zone next week, but the days are becoming longer. We awoke at 6:00 this morning and jogged along the park road. We noticed white circled pines (with red-cockaded woodpecker nest holes) along the way. We hope to see the bird this week. This has been a nemesis bird for Anne! No luck today.

After breakfast we drove east to see the St. Marks Refuge for the first time. This is a premier refuge and occasional Christmas Count champion site. We hoped to see ducks here and were not disappointed, but the weather was gray, the bay was foggy, and some of the birds have apparently already departed north. We bagged 64 species today including six new species for our expedition. With the poor weather, the refuge was quiet. Highlights were American widgeon, wood duck, ring-necked duck, and gadwall in the pond at the visitors’ center, an abundance of Yellow rumped warblers otherwise known as “butterbuts”, and a bald eagle incubating as another stood sentinel on a tall pine snag. As at Cedar Key, there was no sign of migrants. It was strictly permanent and winter residents.

We also stopped at the Wakula River. We hope to canoe this spring creek later in the week. Unfortunately you cannot canoe into the state park and land to see the spring itself. Unlike in Pennsylvania, streams are not part of the commonwealth here. To visit the headwaters and origin of the Wakula, one has to drive into the State Park. This is sad. The good news is that the entrance fee is only $4.00 per car. This gets you a look at a 75 mgd bubble of water. Compare this to $33 per person to visit Silver Springs, a 550 mgd spring near Ocala. Still, wouldn’t it be nice if you could canoe into the park, even if you had to pay?

Finally we went shopping in Sopchoppy at the IGA. No deli we bought a package of smoked turkey and a loaf of whole wheat bread. It is good we bought most of our groceries yesterday in Perry.

We hope that the weather will be fit for canoeing this week. While last week’s weather was near perfect at Cedar Key, this week’s forecast is somewhat ominous. Cloudy with showers through Thursday, cool but warming, and then clearing on Friday and Saturday but becoming cold again. Today was foggy under a white sky. People don’t often think of Florida and fog, but in Northern Florida cold air often becomes saturated from warm water in swamps, lakes and bays to make terrible fogs that cause carnage on the highways.