Purple and Orange - The Royal Poinciana

Few trees are as showy as the Royal Poinciana (Delonix regia). Native to Madagascar, the Poinciana is a beautiful shade tree that was introduced to Florida decades ago. It’s a nice enough tree throughout the year, but as the rainy season kicks into full gear this month, the Poinciana – also known as the “Flamboyant Tree”, bursts with showy orange blossoms and gives color to a generally green landscape here in South Florida.

Cruising around the island of Everglades City, this particular tree was unanimously voted the most beautiful Poinciana around. The flaming-red spoon-shaped blooms will last for a few weeks into summer. The downside is it has a shallow root system that spreads out wide and wandering, preventing natives from growing and upending sidewalks and roughing up building foundations.

In addition to the flowery fireworks this month we also have many of the local residents putting on a spectacular air show. Purple Martins (Progne subis) ducked in and out of their condo and gourd-shaped homes, taking to the air to feast on unsuspecting insects or bringing in nesting material for their clutch of all white eggs.

The largest member of the Swallow family, the Purple Martins spend the winter in South America before returning to North America for the breeding season. Scouts arrive in January in south Florida and conclude nesting later in the month before heading south.

White apparently is the most attractive color to paint a Purple Martin house. I would assume they don’t mind Orange either.

Orange & Purple - Royally Flamboyant

Few trees are as showy as the Royal Poinciana. Although not native to the U.S., the Poinciana is a beautiful shade tree that was introduced to Florida and elsewhere decades ago. It's a nice enough tree through out the year, but as the rainy season kicks into full gear, the Poinciana - also known as the "Flamboyant Tree", bursts with showy orange blossoms and gives color to a dessicated and bland "winter" landscape here in south Florida.

Cruising around the island of Everglades City, this particular tree was unanimously voted the most beautiful Poinciana around by everyone on our boat. To top it off, the local residents were active and showy themselves. Purple Martins ducked in and out of their condo and gourd-shaped homes.

The largest member of the Swallow family, the Purple Martins spend the winter in South America before returning to North America for the breeding season. Scouts arrive in January to south Florida and conclude nesting around this time of the year before heading home.

White apparently is the most attractive color to paint a Purple Martin house. I would assume they don't mind Orange either.

The Wicked Witch of Key West

There was serious concern today that I ran over the Wicked Witch of Key West while out on tour in the Everglades. Friend and fellow guide Dwayne of the East reminds all wicked witches that you don't mess with safari guides. The witches well-tanned toes must have shriveled up and disappeared before we noticed her thong-sandal under the wheel of my van.

Backhanded Slap From Fay

I need to keep my mouth shut. 500 tours and I have never had one as wet as today's. It was my first Everglades tour since Fay headed North and with a forecast of partly cloudy (a departure from the usual thunderstorms), we figured to have an interesting day of checking out Fay's damage. Our first stop was Lake Trafford where we take our airboat ride. The lake had hit an all time low of 4 feet in June. By August 4th the level had risen slightly.

Fay passed directly over the lake and dumped 12 inches on Tuesday, a few more yesterday and despite the "partly cloudy", dumped another 6 inches of rain today as one of the rain bands whipped back down south and provided a lengthy monsoon rain, soaking everyone on the airboat. There was no room on the boat, so I had to stay behind. When they returned, one little British girl was covered in mud but no one was sure how or why!
It continued to rain all day and the lake level has come back to a near record high with 3 months left in the rainy season. I wanted excitement. I got it. Picture above is from July 11th. Below is from August 21st. Same dock. Vegetation is gone.
The Everglades National Park was still shut down from the storm and Everglades City had been under a foot of water on Tuesday, but our walk in the Fakahatchee was productive with many alligator sightings and this happy little pup, glad that the rains have come back.

Happy 60th Anniversary

Diamond is the traditional gift for those celebrating their 60th anniversary. I would have thought fiber but I don't make the rules. The Everglades National Park turned 60 today, having been dedicated on December 6th, 1947 by Harry S Truman in Everglades City.

I celebrated by attending the anniversary events in Everglades City which consisted of a reception complete with what I will assume was fried alligator, hog testicles and refreshments, followed by politicians and park administrators thanking each other for attending, septuagenarians trying to remember if they were or were not at the dedication ceremony in 1947 and back to back to back airings of the classic 1962 tv show Everglades! The exclamation point is part of the title and not a symbol of my exuberance. Having said that I may have neglected a period at the end of the last sentence.

I was by far the youngest person in the crowd of 40+ people. In 1947 a reported 5000-10,000 honored the parks inauguration and in 1997 several hundred returned for the 50th anniversary, including Al Gore who read Truman's dedication speech.

It seemed fitting that the turn out tonight was less than that of a Krispy Kreme Grand Opening. It's one of the least visited National Parks presumably because it has no glaciers, 350 foot trees, 1000 foot waterfalls or a pressurized steam vent that blows fart-smelling water out of the ground.

I love the Everglades and I love the park. It's just hard to know what gift to pick for a 60th anniversary. $20 billion would be nice. Congress recently overrode Bush's veto of the latest Water Act that would see billions of federal dollars finally help languishing Everglades projects.

A new aquifer might be thoughtful considering the last one is nearly depleted and where salt water doesn't come out of the taps, air does. (The picture above was taken today. This should be under 2 feet of water.)

Maybe a crash in the housing market and a stop to the rampant development? What are the chances that will happen? It's happening? Fantastic. I'll go halvsies.

Park Superintendent Dan Kimball encouraged hopefulness this evening. But we need to stop developing in the Everglades. We need to get Big Sugar out. We need to remove as much of the flood control devices as possible. We need to clean up the pesticides, ag runoff and other pollutants and we need to conserve the water. If you live in or travel to Florida - it's partly your responsibility to figure out how. If you don't live in Florida and don't travel here, you need to be supportive of the federal dollars that are spent on the "world's largest wetlend restoration project". The Everglades and all of her plants and wildlife deserve it.

I might be around for the 100th anniversary and I hope the park will be too.