Go Corkscrew Yourself!

Our last field trip was to the Corkscrew Sanctuary and visitor’s center. The site was created in order to conserve the cypress trees which were being cut down for lumber in the 1950’s. The ecosystems present in this preserve are pine flatwoods, wet prairie, Pond cypress, Bald cypress, and marsh. Some areas are systematically burned every 5 years or so and some of the trees still showed the black remains of the last burn. All of the land that is now the preserve was either donated or purchased for the purpose of preservation so it shows that one or two people can make a difference as none of it would be possible without them.  The first area we visited was a greenhouse type structure that was called a “living machine”. The bathrooms provide nutrients for the plants and it is basically a tiny self-sustaining ecosystem that even cleanses water. From what we were told “living machines” represent the growing scientific research of ecological engineering. It makes you wonder if we could somehow do something like this on a much larger scale to help filter waste into plants.

For the rest of our tour through the preserve we noticed many different types of birds, insects, plants, fish, and even alligators. The preserve is a very well known spot for bird watching enthusiasts and our tour guide told us to be quiet because they can get quite angry if we disturb their “watching”. Egrets are also conserved here as they were once sought after for the making of women’s hats. The autobahn society was founded in order to protect these birds. 

We were told about some particular plants called “Alligator Flags” as they sway back and forth as Alligators move through them. We did see a couple alligators about halfway through our 2.25 mile hike and we even saw one that was feeding on what looked to be a large fish. It was really cool to see some of this stuff up close as I really haven’t seen too many gators in Florida despite the popular belief that they are hanging out everywhere. A very interesting trip and barely any mosquitos so I was happy.