We spent the afternoon at the Turtle mound Trail in the Canaveral National Seashore. This is a site that I have always loved visiting. We have a good idea of what to expect in February, but there are always surprises. The small bees and wasps are always fun as well as identification challenges.
This spider, hiding in a clump of mangrove leaves will remain unidentified until we are back in Michigan. It was about an inch long and quite hairy.
But it’s not only insects that keep us coming here, after all they can be weather dependent and hard to observe. There are many plants that we know occur here. Scorpiontail and Nickerbean are two plants that are easy to see at Turtle Mound.
Today we were pleasantly surprised by the number and diversity of butterflies. The Cassius blue finally landed allowing us time to watch and photograph it. The poor photo of the Snout butterfly was an exciting find. I’ve only seen one other Snout in Florida. The Black Swallowtail is neither rare nor hard to find.
Sometimes we do have exciting discoveries, which in this case was when Susan “thought” there was a hummingbird landing on a twig. That turned into a mating pair of Long-tailed skippers. They’re not nearly as attractive when viewing their underwings. But, after they were done I was able to relocate one of the pair, allowing us to enjoy the body color. All of these butterflies were easily 20-30 yards away – thus the less than best photos.
Like bees and wasps, flies are quite challenging to identify. But still fun.
Lovevine, is a parasitic plant. This little yellowish-orange plant is not uncommon, but it was fun to watch while it was flowering.
Our final fun sighting of the day was a Gopher tortoise. The last time we were here we found a few in the National Seashore. So far this is our first this February.
More tomorrow…
Michael's Place 