01/11/00 Wildlife Viewing:
Sunday I got up early and drove to the northern entrance of the Canaveral National Seashore to take a long walk on the beach and do a little shelling. I arrived just before 7am but the surf fishermen were there ahead of me and set up already. High tide was a couple of hours away but they were having a good time anyway.
A sign saying "Don't Walk on the Dunes" seemed to be as far in that direction as they would go, yet they were stretched out a fair ways in the other direction.
I walked almost two hours past where the road ends, towards Kennedy Space Center, passing to tents pitched on the sand. Heading back I saw a man and a woman kinda hunched down beside their tent. A little farther on another man is standing on a little sand hill looking out to the ocean. And he's naked.
OK, I'm a swinging (pardon the expression) kind of guy and if he wants to go swimming in his birthday suit it's fine with me. I slow down to give him plenty of time to gather his nerve to take the plunge but he doesn't. Finally he turns and heads down the beach ahead of me.
I keep looking for shells and eventually he disappears into the fog and I forget about him. Nearing where I left the fishermen I see him again and he's not wearing any more than before. Then I see another guy and he's naked. And then another and another. Oh sh*t! I didn't know National Seashores were clothing optional.
The tide's all the way in and there's not a lot of room for me to walk away from them so I continue on, paying close attention to the waves and anything else out in that direction. There must have been close to 15 men hanging out (pardon that expression too) in that section of the beach. When they called this the Sunshine State I had no idea they meant sunshine all over.
Please forgive my Puritanical, Yankee attitude but prudery aside, I was shocked and dismayed to find there wasn't a 18-20 year old Playmate type amung'em. There wasn't even a 90 year old granny type there either, nor anything in between. Nothing but men. Kinda makes you wonder.
Today, I entered the National Seashore from the south entrance (the two roads do not meet) and saw several county signs saying "Nudity Not Permitted On The Beaches". I guess they got chased out of that county and moved up to the next county where, apparently, they don't care.
Well, anyway, I thought that little story might qualify for Wildlife Viewing.
I've moved down to Titusville with easy access to the south entrance to the National Seashore, the Merritt Island Wildlife Refuge, Indian River and Mosquito Bay put ins. I had been told about the Refuge and decided to spend the day checking it out plus some of the put ins in the area.
Route 406 is 5 miles from me and crosses the Indian River to Merritt Island. The first put in was on the other side of the river and is a good one. 406, on the way to the Visitor Center, is flanked by ponds, lakes, bays or whatever, on both sides. And these waters are loaded with winter birds. After finally buying a bird book at the Visitor Center I was easily able to see tons of large American Egrets (the ones I've been calling Great Snowy Egrets), smaller Snowy Egrets, a darker, Egret type bird I decided was a Limpkin. Ibis, about the same size as the Snowy Egret, but with a curved, orange beak are plentiful plus tons of ducks. Strangely, Pelicans and Great Blue Herons were pretty scarce.
Black Point Wildlife Drive is a 7-10 mile scenic drive with more, much more, of the same. Birds galore, winter here and they're right there in the water beside the road. They're not concerned (for the most part) with cars but take off when you get out.
Halfway along the drive I saw 5 white things in the middle of a small marsh field, not moving, not doing much of anything. Curiosity got the best of me so I pulled over and dug around in the back until I found my cheapy binoculars. They were storks, wood storks to be exact, kinda big and really dumb looking, hunched over. They didn't appear to be asleep because one of them would move once in a while but nothing dramatic.
Near the end of the drive is a little rest area and the Cruickshank Trail. This is a 4-5 mile trail along a dike built years ago to control the salt marsh mosquito population, which, apparently is murderous in the summer. The trail winds around a series of waterways, ponds, etc. I started off down the trail and stopped dead 150 yards along. There, across the little canal, was the first alligator I've ever seen without some kind of protective barrier between us. His full 6 feet length was stretched out enjoying the noontime sun beating down on him. I knew he was awake and watching me because as I stood watching him and not moving, his eye closed and he went back to sleep. It opened again as I moved off after snapping a single picture.
I had heard or read these guys can grow to 19 feet. This one looked pretty big at 6 feet. For the rest of the hike I kept expecting his 19 foot grandfather to appear in front of me in a bend in the trail.
I saw another wood stork feeding by himself and waited patiently for him to work his way into camera range but he finally flew away. I was surprised to find a good sized sting ray in these back waters as well as 2 pair of mating horseshoe crabs.
Then, off in the distance, I saw a flash of pink. Pink? Flamingos? I don't know of anything else that would be pink and might hang out (that phrase again) with the egrets I saw over there too. But they were too far for me to get a good look.
I saw another feeding wood stork and wasted more time trying to get a picture but this guy flew away too. Then I saw another 6 foot 'gator in exactly the same position at exactly the same distance as the last one.
More pink caught my eye nearby and I saw it wasn't a flamingo but a smaller bird and it was hanging out with an American Egret. I watched for a minute as it fed, sweeping its head back and forth and I thought I saw a spoon like bill which would make it a, duh, spoonbill. When I got the bird book back in the truck it called it a Rosette Spoonbill.
I spotted a 3rd 6 foot alligator. This one was lying in a couple of inches of water and looked as though it's jaw was swollen. I presume he was in the process of a meal.
Along the trail I had noticed several piles of feathers. No bones, no meat, just feathers.
01/12/00 Paddling Merritt Island:
Everyone was talking about how chilly it was last night in the mid-50's and were glad it would get back up into the 80's today. I don't think it did but there wasn't a cloud in the sky all day.
I was launching into the Indian River from the put in on the Merritt Island side of the 406 Bridge by 9am. The plan was simple, paddle north along the Merritt Island Wildlife Refuge and then turn around and come back. Can't go wrong with a plan like that.
Paddling through 1-2 feet of water I noticed a fair number of dead horseshoe crabs on the bottom. I had the spray skirt on inside out and almost stepped on one as I got out to fix it.
I soon came to a cove and turned into it. I came across 2 Ibises pecking away on the shore and honking and grunting at each other. I thought this might be a good omen for wildlife for the day. As I paddled along I could 100's, 1000's, dare I say millions of tiny jellyfish, contracting and expanding as they hurried to some unknown destination.
Out of the cove and into a bay like area, the water didn't deepen much. A few fairly large sting rays passed underneath the boat. Some fluttered off in a hurry but a couple just lay there. I got turned around and after some maneuvering managed to get a nice picture of my paddle blade. I had the camera focused on the ray as the boat drifted closer so I kept turning to keep the ray in the picture. I guess the reflexes aren't what they used to be because by the time the message to take the picture got from the brain to the fingers, the ray was almost gone and the paddle was in the frame. After some more maneuvering I managed to get a decent shot of the ray who waited patiently the whole time for me to get my act together.
I did get a good long look at these so called legs. This time they appeared to be more like little fins growing at 90 degree angles to the tail. As I said before, I was told they are used to help steer.
Looking down into the water I saw lots of tracks in the sand that looked like little tiny dune buggy (does that date me?) tracks. I guess someone was dragging his weary self from one place to another in search of something to eat, a place to hide or a place to sleep.
I spotted several rays buried in the sand so I don't know who they think they're fooling with all this camouflage stuff. Overhead, a huge cloud of some sort of black bird passed. There must have been a thousand or more. They dived, shifted directions and swerved like a huge school of fish.
The shoreline was mostly small bush like trees, or tree like bushes and not very interesting. The water was a little too deep for the wading birds. I concentrated mostly on the bottom where things seemed to be happening and didn't pay a lot of attention to the shore (said the novice paddler as several alligators closed in for the kill).
I ran out of bottom though, as I moved into deeper water and started concentrating on my stroke a little more. I took a break on a nice sandy point near a railroad bridge spanning the river. I noticed several small whelk shells and thought what a bonanza. Then I found a bunch of moon snails and others. I thought this was quite a haul and moved closer to the bridge. Here I found very large whelks shells in excess of 4 inches and the snail shells got larger too. All were uninhabited and most were half buried in the sand. My guess is the bridge pilings create eddies or something during storms and theses shells that were being swept along in heavy currents found a resting place and just settled there. And it didn't look as if anyone else had been there.
After lunch I decided to head for a couple small islands I could see in the distance rather than follow the shore any farther. As I entered deeper water I saw a dorsal fin appear. I glanced at it once and kept on paddling. So much for the excitement of paddling with dolphins. I never did see another one today.
The islands lay 2-3 miles up river and about mid-way between the 2 shores, 3 miles apart. I was pointed towards the last of 3 islands and as I drew closer I saw a boat and some people. I didn't see any strips of red or yellow or blue or green or white on those people so instead, shifted course for the second island. I didn't need any more naked people after the other day.
The second island was also occupied but at least they had clothes on. It looked like one guy fishing and one guy setting up camp so I just passed them by too.
Off in the distance it looked like quite a fire burning on Merritt Island as a lot of smoke was billowing up into the air. If it was a fire, I hope it was a controlled one because this is a place worth visiting again and I will do so.
01-16-00 Paddling Merritt Island:
This morning I planned on paddling Mosquito Bay and Merritt Island is on the way. I decided to do the Cruickshank Trail as my morning walk. I was just going to zoom down the Black Point Wildlife Drive to the trail, do the hike and then go paddling. Wrong.
One of the reasons I wanted to do the trail again was because I thought the 7am morning time might produce some additional or different views along the way. Did they!
The drive that was just supposed to be a pass through held me up. There were 100's of birds no matter where you looked. American Egrets, Snowy Egrets, Ibises, dozens of wood storks, limpkins and dozens of spoon bills. And they were all mixed together as they concentrated on feeding themselves.
This was truly a nature show. And they were right near the road. You'd leave one group of birds and there would be another group to take their place. I shot an entire roll of film before I even realized it.
I kinda suspected the alligators wouldn't be out because it was in the mid-60's and early in the day. The big question was, if they're not out sunning themselves, where are they? Lurking in the tall marsh grass waiting to pounce on some poor uninformed hiker? As I walked along the trail I saw a lot of mashed down places that may well have been 'gator resting/hiding spots.
I brought my hiking stick along to give myself a little feeling of security without looking too foolish. If I was in the kayak, a 'gator would probably chomp on it first before it got to me. If one came lunging out of the grass at me it would probably be chomping on my leg first thing. I wanted a chance to offer the stick instead.
I heard several shot gun like blasts as I was thinking these kind of thoughts that really scared the crap out of me. Then of course, I had to hear some kind of grunting noises from the water edge beyond the grasses. I think alligators grunt.
What if they were really p*ssed off because I was scaring the birds away? I've heard they're less active during cooler/colder weather. What the hell is less active? They swallow their meals whole rather than chewing each mouthful the prescribed number of times?
I wonder if I whistled and made a lot of noise if that would warn them and scare them away. Or would they think, oh boy, dinner? I saw a lone feather drifting on the nice, calm canal and immediately wondered where the rest of the bird was.
There weren't as many birds back in this area today. Probably because they were all out on the Wildlife Drive. There were some large flocks of ducks. Some black and white ones and some all black with a white bill.
I don't know about the rest of the year but Merritt Island in January I'm definitely adding to my list of must places to visit any time I'm on the Florida east coast.