From Bearable to Unpleasant and beyond?: Mosquitoes in the Everglades

Wednesday January 29 and Thursday January 30,  2014
Flamingo Campground
Everglades National Park, Florida

 

 

And the rains come, again!

 

Rain all night.  Dark skies, no sunrise and very humid conditions this morning.   This should be the dry season here.  But it’s rained at least 4 times in the past 10 days.

 

This really is the sunrise this morning.  And shortly after, the sun disappears into the dark clouds.  But the heat continues to increase.

 

 

 

Cloudy at Eco pond as the egrets fly in.  Sure wish they wanted mosquitoes for breakfast.  There are enough to feed an army.

 

 

I come over to Eco Pond right after seeing the sun rise, such as it was, as usual.  I am here about 5 minutes and it is clear that I am going to be mince meat in my usual attire of long sleeves, long pants, hat, sox and shoes.

 

 

So, dedicated Eco Pond bird watcher that I am, I go home to get my mosquito suit. 

 

 

The problem with the “suit” is that I had my glasses on the inside and my sunglasses on the outside.  Luckily since the sun didn’t come out from behind the thick total cloud cover, I could leave the sunglasses at home.   Still, using the face cover with glasses and a camera with an eye piece is a real challenge.   Note to self:  Next time wear your contacts.

 

 

 

Round 2:  Eco pond, of course, is beautiful in all weather. 

 

 

 

 

This is my solution to the can’t see with glasses problem but it just allows the mosquitos access to my face. They are amazingly able to find any piece of skin uncovered.

 

 

Even with all my gear, including paddling gloves covering my hands up to the first knuckle of my fingers, the mosquitos are all over my the ends of my fingers whenever I try to take any pictures.   They are biting me through the netting at any point it is next to my skin.  The trick is to wear layers of clothing under the netting.  Like a two long sleeve shirts but then I am SOooooo  hot in this temperature and humidity.  

 

 

 

My pictures are turning out terribly as I jerk and slap the mosquitos so I give it up and walk back to the campground under threatening rain skies.

 

 

As I get to the campground I find this flock of white ibis going all over the grass.  What is it they are looking for?  You can see David out running in the background.  Later he said he usually runs and walks in turn but today he had to run nearly the entire time to out run the mosquitoes.  He didn’t stay out as long as usual, too hot, too humid, too many mosquitoes.  That’s getting to be the refrain for the day.   HHHm – hazy, hot, humid, mosquitoes.

 

 

 

 

Just as I get back to Winnona, it starts raining again. 

 

We’ve been told that this is a most unusual for “winter” in the Everglades.  This is supposed to be the dry season.  Many species mate when the water levels are low. It’s unclear how such this continuing rain will affect the natural cycles here.  The rains aren’t supposed to begin until May or June. 

 

 

Rain stops, for now, how about a ranger program?

 

The 1:30 visitor center program is about butterflies so we head up the Guy Bradley trail walking quickly, because of the mosquitoes, in light weight clothing because of the heat.

Ranger Christy tells us about the most common butterflies in the park including the Zebra Longwing and Giant white which we have seen.   The ranger programs at the National Parks are always excellent and very informative.  Everglades is no exception.

 

 

 

 

From Bearable to Unpleasant can Horrible be far behind?

 

After the program we go into the visitor center and check the mosquito meter.  Sure enough, it has gone up from Bearable when we first got her to Unpleasant.  Obviously this reading wasn’t taken at Eco Pond this morning or in my opinion it would have been Horrible.

 

 

 

We check out these clouds over Florida Bay from the visitor center patio.  Looks like Rain.  But we’re prepared.  I have a rain jacket and David has an umbrella.

 

 

 

Looks even more like rain as we start off down the Guy Bradley trail for our mile long walk back to the campground.

 

 

The sun keeps trying to break through the clouds.  As it gets close, it turns the sky orange. It looks like sunset in mid afternoon.   Even without the full force of the sun it is so humid and we are seriously sweating.

 

 

 

 

 

And then all of a sudden the sun breaks through and the entire place feels like a steam bath.  Hot, hot and more hot.  I’ve got a great use for the umbrella and wonder why we don’t use them as sun shades more often these days.  I don’t think they’ve been used that way commonly since the late 19th century except in other countries.   It really lowered the temperature.

 

 

 

 

THURSDAY

 

Hot and humid again today. 

 

Rain predicted but it looks fine as we head over for the ranger tree walk beginning at the visitor center.  We did this walk last year and learned so much that we wanted to do it again to refresh our memories.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Still too buggy to go into the mangroves so today we’re doing a tree walk with ranger Christi.

 

I’m not going to show you every tree we talked about just a few.  There are an amazing number of different trees here in this section of the Everglades.  Four palms alone.

I was amazed to find out how much I remembered.   We first talked about the mangroves which are the heart of this area.  The red mangroves are usually found in the water.  Their roots form intertangled arches that are pretty impenetrable and great for protection for lots of fish and birds and baby alligators.  Tough to track a bad guy through them as well.  Or chance the Seminole Indians.  

The black mangroves which grow a hairline elevation higher than the red mangroves put up these little pencil roots.  Then the white mangroves grow “behind” them at a slightly higher elevation and the buttonwoods grow on dry land.  

 

 

We see the paurotis palm which is the most tropical  looking of all the palms to me.  It has multiple trunks and is another impenetrable barrier to predators of all kinds.

 

This is the royal palm distinguished by it’s brilliant green trunk under its frons.   A frond had fallen off this tree and we had a chance to just how heavy they are.  Don’t be standing under one when this happens is all I can say.

 

 

 

The last one I’m going to show isn’t really a tree.  Well it was.  It was once the state tree, the sable palm.  But then a strangler fig attached to one of its limbs and now surrounds the palm which is barely visible.  It didn’t kill the palm although lack of sunlight surely will.

 

 

 

Looks like today is education day.

 

After the 2.5 hour walk concludes we head into the Visitor Center museum where I find more information on Guy Bradley the game warden killed at age 35 defending the ban on plume hunting.  A picture of his tombstone is also there.  I wonder if it is still on Cape Sable Beach.   “Guy M. Bradley 1870-1905  Faithful unto death as Game Warden of Monroe county.  He gave his life for the cause to which he was pledged.”

 

 

I get to see a spiny lobster which is the warm water lobster here in the south.   Totally different from the Maine lobster we had this summer, distant cousins at best.   From an eating standpoint, all the spiny lobster’s meat is in its tails.  I’ve read that pound for pound spiny lobsters have more meat in their bodies than their New England cousins.   They say spinys are a bit tougher and not as rich tasting.  I guess I’ll have to try one to find out for myself.

 

 

 

And then………..you’ll never guess.

 

We leave the visitor center to raining skies.   And of course today, since it didn’t look like rain, we had neither raincoat nor umbrella.   Oh well, it’s only just over a mile walk back and we’re drip dry.  Right???