Category: CREW Marsh Trail

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10 Reasons we love STKs (Swallow-tailed Kites)

It is one of our favorite times of the year.

We actually look forward to the arrival of the Swallow-tailed Kites with something akin to the anticipation of a birthday or holiday.

And when the first birds arrive, the flurry of emails start as people brag about who saw the very first STK of the season.

A swallow-tailed kite soars with a frog in its talons.

We’re crazy about kites at the CREW Project and we know some of you are, too. Here are 10 reasons we love Swallow-Tailed Kites.

1 – Aerodynamics

We could watch kites soar all day long. As one of our volunteers pointed out, the entire design of the bird is aerodynamic and sleek, as if their body is made to slide right through the air. They swoop effortlessly and gracefully to grab prey and it’s while soaring that we are able to easily identify them by their long, forked tail.

2 – Migration patterns

Swallow-tailed kites migrate to Southwest Florida each year from South America to breed. We are their first stop on their winter migration and they normally arrive here in the third or fourth week of February, then gradually later through the rest of Florida, according to the Birds of North America website. Once the adults arrive, they begin gathering nesting material and prepare nests often in the same spot or vicinity as they nested the previous year. Swallow-tailed kites will stay in our area until June or July, and then the adults leave several weeks prior to the juveniles’ departure.

3- Nesting

Swallow-tailed kites are raptors, but they do not have particular strong feet or talons. That’s why they use Spanish moss as nesting material! They have been seen carrying very small, lightweight sticks, but their primary nesting material is Spanish moss. They also nest very high in the “V” of pine trees which make the nests challenging to spot. And, once they chicks hatch, the adults continue to add nesting materials. So, a nest that starts out convex to hold an egg, will eventually become concave as the chick grows!

(Thank you, Kathleen Smith, CREW biologist, for that fun fact)

Swallow-tailed kite carrying Spanish moss for nesting.

4 – Challenge

Everything about the Swallow-tailed kite is challenging! Have you ever tried to get a GOOD PHOTO? Especially of one flying? It’s extremely difficult and we’ve watched plenty of wildlife photographers on the trail gasp in frustration as the birds soar past. And it’s not just capturing the birds on film that is tough – finding the nests is also hard! Because the nests are so high in the trees, and only made sparsely with Spanish moss, they are difficult to find. But, once you have found the nest, you can go back each year and check for activity. For our biologists and volunteer citizen scientists, that challenge is part of the fun of monitoring the kites.

5- Coloration

From the beautiful snow-white head and underbody to the sleek inky wings and back, the kite is a study in contrasting colors. It makes them easily recognizable in the raptor family – for their color and for their forked tail.

6 – The Tail

That gorgeous, v-shaped tail is how all of us easily identify the Swallow-tailed Kite. And, as we inch towards summer, we can tell the juvenilles in flight from the adults because the adults will have longer forked tails than the juvenilles.

7- Feeding time fun

Part of loving raptors is loving the fat that they do raptor stuff – meaning we aren’t upset when we see a bird of prey carrying home dinner. The kites are no exception. They will eat large insects, but remember, they do not have strong feet so they don’t pick up heavy prey. Instead, they mainly eat herps – frogs, anoles and snakes. As a hiker and birder, it can be quite fun to try and puzzle out what they are carrying home to feed their chicks. 

8 – Nice Neighbors

One thing that makes them different from other raptors is that the kites will nest near other kites, forming loose neighborhoods (thanks for that name, Kathleen!). That makes it a bit easier for our citizen scientists and the CREW biologists when locating nests. It also makes for easy playdate scheduling (just kidding, birds don’t have playdates).

A kite and chick within the CREW Project.

9 – The CREW Trust Logo

The Swallow-tailed Kite is the bird featured on our logo! We are very proud of the kites, and the fact that the 60,000-acre Corkscrew Regional Ecosystem Watershed is land preserved for water and wildlife and provides habitat for these migratory raptors.

10 – Bringing Friends

The nest monitoring done each year by CREW FWC biologists and volunteers has shown that the numbers of swallow-tailed kites nesting within the 60,000-acres is growing! That’s exciting for us and great news for the birds. You have a really good chance of seeing Swallow-tailed Kites at all four of the CREW Project Trails. They roost around the lake at Bird Rookery Swamp (hike out to the lake, under two miles); they swoop over the red trail at Flint Pen Strand; they have a LOT of nests around the Cypress Dome Trails; and we spot them in the pine flatwoods areas of the CREW Marsh Trails. We hope you’ll celebrate the return of the kites – and their growing population within CREW – by coming out with your friends and exploring the trails in hopes of spotting a kite or two.

special thanks to CREW FWC staff and CREW Trust Volunteers for sharing the photos used in this blogpost.

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The sweet smell of pawpaws

One of our favorite spring wildflowers is blooming! We spotted – and smelled – the first pawpaws blooming last week along the edges of the flatwoods in the Cypress Dome Trails and the CREW Marsh Trails.

For visitors lucky enough to attend one of the remaining free guided walks at the Marsh Trails with Janet Bunch, you’ll learn all about the pawpaws and likely get nose-close and personal with their sweet scent.

Pawpaws are important for several reasons beyond their beauty and smell. First, they are a host plant for zebra swallowtail butterflies. Second, the fruit they produce is a delicious foodsource for many animals including gopher tortoises.

Want to learn more about CREW wildflowers?

Additional resources to help you find and ID southwest Florida native wildflowers include:

Click HERE for a partial list of wildflowers found at CREW.

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Four reasons to add a hike to your Thanksgiving plans

Turkey. Pumpkin Pie. Apple Pie. Salted Caramel Pecan Pie.

Can you tell we really love pie?

We also like wearing normal pants to work and leaving our elastic waist pants at home, which means a little friendly exercise may be in order this weekend. And if you’ve got serious pie plans like us, we’ve got four reasons you should hit the trails this holiday weekend.

Reason #1: Burn, baby, burn

According to Livestrong.com, one hour of hiking burns between 430 and 460 calories if a person weighs 160 pounds. The amount of calories burned doesn’t just vary based on weight; it also varies based on terrain. Because most of Southwest Florida is flat, we probably burn less calories, but the article says nothing about how the high humidity makes us sweat buckets. And, since Americans consume between 3,000 and 4,000 calories during Thanksgiving Dinner, a few hours on the trail Thursday before turkey time might be a good idea.

Reason #2: Nature therapy

Trail running, forest bathing, communing with nature, hugging the trees – however it is that you enjoy the outdoors, you are getting actual benefits. Spending time outdoors can have significant positive impacts on your health – including reducing stress. Hit the trails and hike away the family drama or Black Friday shopping trauma – whatever you need to escape from, let the fresh air and warm Florida sun wash it all away.

photo credit: Bill Zaino

Reason #3: Make memories

We see it all too often during our education programs – today’s kids just don’t have the freedom and opportunity to run wild outside. Make some memories this weekend with your kids and grandkids and take a hike. Not sure what you’re doing? Grab a map at the kiosk and head out to the observation tower at the CREW Marsh trails – there and back is a very manageable (approximately) one mile hike. Your curious guests may ask a ton of questions but remember that, to enjoy nature, you don’t have to KNOW nature. Not sure what that purple wildlfower is? Download an app ahead of time to identify it OR just call it a PPW (pretty purple wildflower). Or completely make up a name because your six year old niece has no idea whether or not that flower is called a Pecanpie regretticus.

Reason #4: Florida fall

Yes, we actually do have fall here in Florida. It’s the tail end of our fall wildflower season and the red maples are turning glorious color and dropping their foliage. If you truly miss the smell of falling leaves, head out to the CREW Marsh Trails and scuff your feet through the thin layer of maple leaves that is collecting on the boardwalk. The cypress trees in Bird Rookery Swamp are changing colors as well and will soon briefly lose their needles. And don’t forget about the animals – the red-shouldered hawks are really active right now as they prepare for mating season. Unlike most animals on the trails, the noisy shrieks of the hawks completely overpowers any loud little children you’ve brought with you.

 

If you do hit the trails this weekend, please remember to do so safely – take water, wear closed-toe shoes (to protect against fire ants), grab a map from the kiosk and turn back towards the parking lot before you feel tired. And remember to practice the leave no trace principles – leave nothing but footprints.

 

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Register today for our weekly guided walks at the Marsh Trails

It’s the almost November, which means cooler temperatures, blooming wildflowers and time to register for our weekly guided walks!

Volunteer naturalist and spider enthusiast Janet Bunch returns for her second season leading our Marsh Trail interpretive hikes. Her walk takes guests through pine flatwoods and oak hammocks to the observation tower overlooking the 5,000-acre sawgrass marsh before traversing the short boardwalk and heading back to the trailhead.

Guests will learn about the plants and animals that call the Corkscrew Regional Ecosystem Watershed their home and engage in lively, scholarly conversations with Janet and other CREW Trust Volunteers.

The walks are free but registration is required. Please visit our eventbrite page to register. Guided walks are held each Tuesday from 9 a.m.-12 p.m. November-March, excluding Christmas Day and New Year’s Day.

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Ain’t no party like a BEAR CRASHING YOUR PARTY: How to properly host an event at the CREW pavillions

Often we find things on the trails and we get to use them as clues to interpret what happened.

Our most recent favorite find was in an email from Dick Brewer, our volunteer naturalist. Dick found a recently-killed alligator (or its parts) on the trail and, based on all of the clues he saw, deduced that a bobcat had taken down the gator.

That is a way more interesting find than the photo above, which was taken by one of FGCU’s awesome campus naturalists who was out on the CREW Marsh Trails.

In the photo you see what was once a storage shed that was located in the woods near Suzanne’s Pavillion. It sat empty this summer because, in the winter, we had incidences of hikers breaking into our plastic shed. I’m not sure what they hoped to find – gold, rare artifacts, maybe that’s where they think the panthers hide? We once stored field trip supplies in that shed, but those had to be moved and our volunteers built permanent storage solutions for those materials in order to avoid someone stealing our dip nets and plastic bins.

Now, it’s important to note that this photo didn’t suprise us. The day before this mess was found, we led a tour at the Marsh trails and Savannah and I found watermelon rinds thrown around the parking lot along with a few plastic forks. Then, out on the trails, we found pieces of blue balloons.

So this party photo – where somone decided to stash their garbage in our old storage shed?

Unsurprising. Sad, A total mess and worse – a wildlife hazard.

Who tore into that delicious trash? A bear. A bear that frequents the area, because we can see the scat when we do hikes. And now that bear has a new favorite place. I mean, if I found a storage shed full of leftover cake and watermelon, I would go back and look for more.

The stash of trash, plastic blue balloon pieces and food in the parking lot tells a story – and it’s not a good one. Someone planned a party, brought their supplies out, hiked to the pavillion, had a great time, cleaned up the trash, looked around for a garbage can, found our storage shed off the trail, busted into it and stashed their trash. Hiked back. Went home. Didn’t think about the ballons they let blow all over; didn’t think about the wildlife out there who might try and eat the balloon pieces, or the bear who would tear apart the shed to get to their garbage.

We practice leave no trace for a lot of reasons at our trails, and the number one reason is to protect wildlife. We can’t emphasize this enough – the land is there for water first, then wildlife, then humans. We come third.

So, how can someone host an event at the pavillion and avoid making a huge giant dangerous mess? Check out our suggestions below.

Only pack in what you can pack out

A big old sheet cake that requires forks, plates and napkins is going to be terribly difficult to cart to the pavillion and that’s an approximately one mile hike at the Marsh Trails. Instead, take a box of cupcakes and a plastic bag. Eat the cupcakes, put your cupcake wrappers and  cardboard box cupcake carrier into your small trash bag and stash it in your backpack. Then go enjoy the trails. Or grab birthday-cake flavored snack bars. Or pack fruit! Anything that doesn’t leave you with a bunch of waste is a great idea.

Release joy, not balloons

Instead of bringing balloons to celebrate or decorate,  opt for singing a birthday song to celebrate. Bonus if the songbirds join in. Or, if you reall need something to set the birthday boy/girl apart from the crowd, decorate their hiking stick for the day. Just not with balloons. Please.

Hike, then eat

Instead of taking all of your food out to the pavillion, opt instead to eat at our convenient ring of benches at the trailhead in the parking lot. It’s a very cool, shaded spot, and your food and drinks can stay nice and cool in a cooler in your car. That’s much better than trying to heat lunch that is boiling lava hot after hiking in the Florida sun for an hour or more. And then you are very close to your car so you can toss your waste in a trash bag that you brought, put the garbage in your trunk and drive home.

We do want everyone to enjoy the pavillions, which are a fabulous resource that we use for all of our field trips and many Strolling Science Seminars. We hope you do so respectfully and, if you need assistance or tips about how to use them appropriately, please contact our office.

A special thank you to FGCU colloquium and Brenda Thomas; the class cleaned up the garbage and the shed and hiked it all out to the trail head during their class field trip.

 

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Why is the grass long? Our answers to a few Summer FAQ’s

It’s SUMMMMMMERRRRR!

For us, it’s a much needed break from our season schedule. We’re off scouting new trails, leading a few field trips and heading off on vacations. Summer is slow for us, which can be frustrating for people trying to reach us in the office (where we rarely are) or via email (which we don’t answer on vacation). Because of this, check out our answers to a few summertime Frequently Asked Questions.

Why aren’t there any guided walks scheduled during the summer?

The majority of our visitors are seasonal, but that isn’t the only reason why we offer our guided walks November-April. Those months are also when most of our volunteers are here and we depend on their expertise and generously donated time to lead those hikes. Other reasons are trail conditions and weather. With storms almost every day, lightning is a big deterrent for us scheduling programs during the rainy season. And the trail conditions vary daily and can be wet, muddy, have tall grass – or all of the above.

What are you doing this summer?

Everything we can’t do during season. We are planning next year’s programs, working on reports, and creating new programs for our volunteers, local students and visitors. We’re also doing some major projects. Last summer we walked the first potential Flint Pen Strand trail once a month to monitor how deep the water will get (waist deep for those of you that are curious). This summer we are hard at work re-routing a section of that proposed trail, installing trail markers, improving trail conditions and scouting out additional trails so that everything is ready to go when the South Florida Water Management District opens the trail.

The grass is getting long. When will you mow the trails?

This one is a VERY frequently asked question. We, meaning the CREW Trust staff and volunteers, do not mow the trails. The trails and surrounding land are managed by the South Florida Water Management District. So why is the grass long? There are two main reasons. First, mowing is not a land management priority. Now that some of the rain has come, our land managers are working to complete prescribed burns before the land gets really wet. They are also working on other land management projects that take up their time. The second reason is that, as the water levels rise, the ground gets softer. As we head further into rainy season, the mowers will not be able to get back into the trails without getting stuck. That is the case now in sections of the Cypress Dome Trails, and will be soon in sections of Bird Rookery Swamp. Remember, the land is there for water first, wildlife second, and our enjoyment third.

Bear print

I saw game camera pictures on your website but when I visited I didn’t see any animals. Why is that?

We didn’t pay the animals that day. Just kidding. Kind of. Part of seeing or not seeing animals has to do with the time of day you are on the trails. Early morning or late evening is best, and when you want to hide from the scorching hot inferno of mid-day SWFL summer, the animals do too. The other part is simply luck. We do see more animal tracks during the summer, and part of that could be because we have less people on the trails, or because some of the areas that the animals frequent have too much water so they are looking for dryer areas. Or maybe they finally got our check cashed.

I can’t do (insert favorite thing) on the trails because of trail conditions. When will I be able to do (insert thing)?

Think of this disruption of your favorite thing on the trails (walking disrupted by boot-sucking mud, biking disrupted by long grass) as an opportunitiy to try something you haven’t tried before. Head out with your friend and wade through the Wild Coffee Trail at the Cypress Dome Trails. Slosh along the edge of the marsh at the CREW Marsh Trails and use a field guide to identify all of the blooming wildflowers. Grab a kiddo (or just be a kid at heart) and take photos and identify all the tracks in the mud at any of the trails. Pretty soon rainy season will be over, the water will go down and the mud will dry up and you can go back to your normal favorite trail activities.

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Check out what you can see today at the CREW Marsh Trails!

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Mosquitos and More this December with the CREW Trust!

Looking to fill out your already bustling December calendar? We have something for everyone this December!

For the insectually curious and those itching for a bit of fun, join FGCU instructor and President of the Florida Mosquito Control Association Neil Wilkinson for Mosquitos of the Marsh: a CREW Strolling Science Seminar on Friday, Dec. 8. You’ll learn about the life cycles and histories of fresh floodwater and natural container species of mosquitos common to Southwest Florida. From identifying adult mosquitos caught in traps set the night before to using dip nets to survey for mosquiot predtaors, this is sure to be a can’t miss event! For more information or to purchase tickets, head to eventbrite.com.

Tuesdays are TrailDays at the CREW Marsh Trail! Volunteer naturalist and spider enthusiast Janet Bunch leads our free weekly guided walks from 9 a.m.-12 p.m. What can you expect in December? From the small boardwalk, you might spy string lilies blooming. Butterfly sightings may include Gulf Frittilaries and Zebra Longwings, both often spotted close to Suzanne’s Pavillion. The view from the observation tower will still show lush green sawgrass as the water levels are just beginning to dry down from our very wet rainy season. Red-shouldered hawks are pairing up and filling the air with their boisterous calls. As always, what we see depends on the day, which makes each walk different from the last! Register today at eventbrite.com. Can’t make it out to the trails on Tuesdays? You’re in luck! December’s Saturday Walk will be at the CREW Marsh Trails on Dec. 9; register at eventbrite.com.

 

The wading birds are flocking to Bird Rookery Swamp and will join us on our Wednesday walks!! Egrets and herons and Roseate Spoonbills are filling in the small ponds and are even visible at times from the trail parking lot. String lilies are blooming throughout the swamp and you may even spy an adult or juvenille water moccasin swimming slowly around the bases of the cypress trees and knees. The pied-billed grebes are back in the small canal and we’re hoping to see little tiny grebes this spring. We’re still waiting on the full trail to re-open but our Wednesday walks will continue, covering the shell path and boardwalk, then expanding onto the grassy traim once the district completes repairs and restoration. Sign up for your free spot today at eventbrite.com.

Members, make sure your calendar is marked for our Member Appreciation Picnic on Saturday, January 13! Want to join in the fun, but aren’t a member? You can become a member today and you’ll receive an invitation to our picnic, our very popular wine and cheese social under the stars; our quarterly newsletter; and discounts on Strolling Science Seminars and other CREW Trust programs.

 

 

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Views from the trails this week