Everglades Imagery |
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Explore the unique Florida Everglades through the contrast of vast landscapes and intimate details.
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everglades_title.JPG00 - Introduction
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Fulton_050313_0683.JPG01 - Cypress Dome SunriseDawn breaks as the sun breaches the horizon illuminating a cypress dome. This iconic Everglades scene is characterized by the pond cypresses (Taxodium ascendens) which drop their needles during the winter dry season. The defoliated canopy reveals the presence of epiphytic bromeliads, many as large as bushel baskets, each of which holds its own micro-ecosystem.
Loop Road, Big Cypress National Preserve, Florida.
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Fulton_050313_0682.JPG02 - Pre Dawn Cypress PrairieSmall cypress trees dot the prairies of the Everglades and the Big Cypress Swamp. These trees, often referred to as dwarf or hat-rack cypress, are the same species as the bald cypress Taxodium distichum) that form the larger cypress strands and domes. However, in the prairie, the growth of these trees is stunted due to a lack of nutrients in the soil. Their growth rate is so slow that many of the trees that are as tall as a man are well over a hundred years old.
Loop Road, Big Cypress National Preserve, Florida.
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Fulton_050224_1626.JPG03 - Purple GallinuleThe purple gallinule (Porphyrula martinica) is one of the most colorful birds of the Everglades. These birds, related to rails, coots, and moorhens, are often seen walking across the tops of water lilies and spatterdock supporting themselves on their long yellow toes. A bird of the Gulf Coast region, it is found exclusively in freshwater marshes and is often very secretive, taking cover in dense cattails and reeds.
Shark Valley, Everglades National Park, Florida.
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Fulton_050302_0751.JPG04 - Eye of the CormorantThe bright emerald eye of the Double-crested Cormorant (Phalacrocorax auritus) in breeding plumage is quite striking. These birds are found throughout the United States, breeding in the north and wintering in the south, although a non-migratory population also lives in Florida. The birds feed primarily on fish caught while swimming completely submerged underwater. In some areas of the Everglades where the birds hunt regularly, native fish are being replaced by exotics such as oscars and walking catfish (Clarias batrachus). Oscars are much larger than the native fish which could make things difficult for the cormorants and other birds that feed on them. If the oscars grow too large then the birds cannot swallow them whole and will be unable to feed efficiently. While this has not occurred so far, cormorants do often take a longer time to swallow both the oscars as well as the walking catfish. The catfish have spines in their fins which make it necessary to swallow the fish perfectly or else risk getting the fish lodged. Ultimately, this increase in handling time of the fish reduces the feeding efficiency of the cormorants.
Anhinga Trail, Everglades Natoinal Park, Florida.
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Fulton_050218_1196.JPG05 - The Silver LiningA day dawns with a line of thunderstorms in the eastern sky. During the wet season, two opposite sea breezes, from the Atlantic Ocean to the east and from the Gulf of Mexico to the west, intersect over the Everglades. These two breezes, heavy with moisture, collide, and severe thunderstorms form nearly every late spring and summer afternoon. After months without rain through the winter, these storms can dump over an inch of rain in a matter of minutes flooding prairies of the northern Everglades.
Marsh Trail, Loxahatchee Natoinal Wildlife Refuge, Florida.
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Fulton_050614_2674.JPG06 - After the FireThe charred landscape of the pinelands is remarkably fast at bouncing back. Within days, saw palmettos (Serenoa repens) send out new fronds from the tips of their charred trunks. The flames release the nutrients that were bound up in the tissues of the ground cover, providing fertile soil for new growth. The pine canopy does not burn as fire rarely reaches that high, but even if it did, the needles form an envelope of air around the especially vulnerable parts, insulating them from the heat of the flames. Within months, the pinelands will look like they did before the fire except for the absence of the hardwoods and the presence of charred trunks of trees and palmettos.
Long Pine Key, Everglades National Park, Florida
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Fulton_050328_0088.JPG07 - Basking GatorIt was not until the second half of the nineteenth century that many Americans viewed the natural world with anything more than an eye for resources. The first Europeans to arrive in the New World sent back descriptions of the landscape that read like shopping lists: plentiful trees for lumber and ships’ masts, abundant beaver and muskrat for fur, and numerous deer for food. As pioneers began to explore the Everglades, they saw the American alligator as a source for leather and meat and a dangerous predator that should be eliminated. Alligators were hunted so enthusiastically that in the 1960s, they were placed on the endangered species list and the market for skins was strictly controlled. This protection and the market controls in particular enabled alligator populations to rebound. In 1987, it was declared fully recovered and removed from the endangered species list.
Anhinga Trail, Everglades National Park, Florida.
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Fulton_050422_0093.JPG08 - Gator on GreenThe American alligator (Alligator mississippiensis), an apex predator, is common throughout the Everglades and an attraction for the millions of people who visit the region each year. Adult alligators are typically very dark, often black, while the young have bright yellow or orange stripes. Juveniles do not lose their colorful bands until they are several years old.
Long Pine Key, Everglades National Park, Florida.
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Fulton_050214_0170.JPG09 - Skiing PelicanAmerican White Pelicans travel long distances from their breeding grounds in areas like Utah's Great Salt Lake to winter in the warm waters of Florida. These birds are much larger than the resident Brown Pelicans and contrary to popular belief, these birds do not hunt by diving into the water from the air. Instead, they form a circle around a school of baitfish and slowly crowd together until the baitfish are in a dense mass, making it easy for the birds to plunge their head underwater and catch a beak full.
Snake Bight, Everglades National Park, Florida.
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Fulton_050313_1012.JPG10 - Backlit EgretGreat egrets (Ardea alba) are one of the most easily seen birds in the Everglades, yet also one of the most elegant. The thin, streaming white feathers, or aigrettes, suspended from the birds’ back garnished the hats of women throughout the United States and Europe in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. These delicate feathers are used during the egrets’ mating displays and are only present during the mating season. In order to obtain feathers for the millinery industry hunters would lie in wait at rookeries and shoot the adults as they came in to feed their chicks. The result was not only the death of the adults but the death of the chicks due to starvation, effectively wiping out two generations of birds. Within a matter of decades the birds’ populations crashed and the value of the feathers skyrocketed, reaching nearly twice their weight in gold. The birds made a strong recovery due to the combination of legal efforts of a then fledgling Audubon Society and changing fashion styles.
Sweetwater Strand, Loop Road, Big Cypress National Preserve, Florida.
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Fulton_050607_2604.JPG11 - Florida Bay DawnFlorida Bay is a large, shallow bay just off the tip of the peninsula. The sawgrass and sedges of the prairies are replaced by turtlegrass (Thalassia testudinum) and shoalweed (Halodule wrightii) as the marl prairie extends into the bay. Today this bay is the remnant of what was once a large ocean that covered the peninsula before receding. Ever so slowly, the bay is reclaiming the coast as sea levels rise due to global warming.
Flamingo, Everglades Natoinal Park, Florida
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Fulton_050423_0689.JPG12 - Red Shouldered DawnRed-shouldered Hawks are one of Florida's most common raptor. They are easily seen along the road throughout Everglades National Park. On a cool morning, a single hawk purchases on a cypress to survey the surrounding landscape for snakes, lizards, small mammals, and large insects.
Everglades National Park, Florida.
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Fulton_050124_1607.JPG13 - Purple GallinuleBoth of the walks at Shark Valley and Anhinga Trail are some of the premier spots to see and photograph Purple Gallinules. The difficulty is finding an opportunity to photograph this often secretive bird in the open without too much clutter.
Shark Valley, Everglades National Park, Florida.
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Fulton_050209_0430.JPG14 - Skimmer and ShorebirdsEvery winter hundreds of thousands of birds migrate to Florida Bay to spend the winter. Shorebirds like the short-billed dowitcher (Limnodromus griseus) and willet (Catoptrophorus semipalmatus) as well as black skimmers (Rynchops niger), terns, and gulls are common throughout the Bay anywhere mudflats are exposed. As the tide rises, dry ground becomes a commodity and birds crowd onto very small sandbars, often fighting with each other to make room. Once the birds have settled in, they will wait for the tide to fall, once again exposing the mudflats where they return to feed.
Snake Bight, Everglades National Park, Florida.
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Fulton_050529_2709.JPG15 - Morning's GloryThe saltmarsh morning-glory (Ipomoea sagittata) is one of many morning-glories found throughout the Everglades. While it is native to the Everglades and the southeast United States, it has been listed as an exotic noxious weed in both Arkansas and Arizona. In a system such as the Everglades where exotic species are so plentiful, it is interesting to note that a locally native species can be classified as an invasive elsewhere.
Everglades National Park, Florida
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Fulton_050404_0360.JPG16 - Budding CypressIn the northern United States conifers such as pines and spruces retain their needles through the winter while hardwoods such as oaks and maples lose their leaves in the fall. In the Everglades, the opposite occurs. Cypresses lose their needles while most oaks and other hardwoods retain their leaves throughout the winter. As the rains return each spring the cypresses leaf out with refreshingly bright green needles which contrast with the silvery brown trunks and branches.
Everglades National Park, Florida.
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Fulton_050313_0709.JPG17 - Sweetwater SloughAsk a group of people to describe the Everglades and you will hear descriptions ranging from a big, empty, lifeless prairie to a primeval swamp overrun with deadly creatures and mosquitoes. Some people think the Everglades are the Florida Keys or Miami. Some think that the Everglades are only within the boundaries of the national park. Some include the Big Cypress Swamp and Rocky Pinelands while others focus solely on the sawgrass prairies. However the Everglades are defined, they are a complex system of intricate interactions that to this day we barely understand.
Loop Road, Big Cypress National Preserve, Florida.
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Fulton_050410_0674.JPG18 - Flooded DomeThe dry season in a cypress dome leaves the ground bone-dry and covered in fallen needles and branches. Only a few months later, after the first heavy rains, several inches of water now cover the floor. Dappled light sifts through a canopy, once again full of vibrant green needles.
Everglades National Park, Florida.
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Fulton_050306_1338.JPG19 - OspreyHope for the Everglades is inspired by the sight of the abundant ospreys that hunt in the area around Florida Bay. Only a few decades ago, osprey populations were crashing along with other birds like the bald eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus). Use of the pesticide DDT caused the thinning of eggshells in these birds and reduced the hatching rate of these raptors. The watershed book Silent Spring by Rachel Carson brought the dangers of pesticides to the awareness of the general public. By the end of 1972, DDT had been completely banned from use in the United States. In the years since, both the osprey and bald eagle populations have recovered significantly. Today, ospreys and eagles are relatively common sights throughout the country, giving visitors hope for the future Everglades, an equally magnificent ecosystem.
Flamingo, Everglades National Park, Florida.
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Fulton_050427_1440.JPG20 - Buttonwood OvenbirdThe ovenbird (Seiurus aurocapilla), a species of warbler, is one of many species of songbirds that migrate from their breeding grounds in the northern United States to wintering grounds in tropical Central and South America. These birds, along with vireos, thrushes, sandpipers, ducks, and many more species migrate not only to avoid the harsh winter of the north but to take advantage of the abundance of food in the tropics.
Ft. Jefferson, Dry Tortugas National Park, Florida.
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Fulton_050605_2684.JPG21 - Storm in the Pines #1As a thunderstorm darkens the eastern sky, the setting sun highlights the bleached white trunks of pines killed in past fires. Before modern fire suppression, pineland fires started naturally through lightning strikes from storms like this. Today, prescribed burns are used to replicate the natural process while still preventing damage to structures.
Long Pine Key, Everglades National Park, Florida.
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Fulton_050605_2679.JPG22 - Storm in the Pines #2While thunderstorms like this are common throughout the summer and early fall, the Everglades see very little percipitation during the winter and early spring. In reality, the seasons of the Everglades are divided into the wet and the dry rather than spring, summer, fall, and winter as across temperate region.
Long Pine Key, Everglades National Park, Florida
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Fulton_050423_1253.JPG23 - Moonrise GatorPonds, such as Nine Mile Pond in Everglades National Park, hold an extremely high density of American alligators, particularly in the dry season. Some ponds in the Shark River Slough, while covering less than an acre, can support over 200 alligators. These deep ponds, often formed as a result of mining limestone to build roads, never dry out during the dry season. Therefore, they are able to hold larger populations of fish, turtles, and other vertebrates than prairies, providing an abundant food source for top-level predators such as alligators.
Nine Mile Pond, Everglades National Park, Florida.
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Fulton_050212_1861.JPG24 - Royal MoonFlorida royal palms (Roystonea regia) are one of the most handsome species in the palm family. They are widely used in landscaping throughout South Florida and were harvested from large stands in the Big Cypress Swamp, specifically the Fakahatchee Strand. Royal palms produce large fruits which are eaten by a variety of birds including the white-crowned pigeon (Patagioenas leucocephala), a bird found only in South Florida and the Caribbean. The large pigeons feed on a variety of tropical fruits including poisonwood (Metopium toxiferum) and strangler figs (Ficus aurea), two trees common throughout the Everglades ecosystem.
Anhinga Trail. Everglades National Park, Florida.
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Fulton_050312_2485.JPG25 - Bromeliads and VinesIn the Everglades the sawgrass prairies are so massive that they are nearly impossible to fully grasp. The chaotic and dense vegetation inhibits complete comprehension of the Big Cypress Swamp. The interactions between the prairies, forests, swamps, and islands involve so many factors that it is difficult to establish the cause for any event. Ultimately, the Everglades as a system are just too immense to fully experience. Therefore, while keeping in mind the importance of the system as a whole, we must focus on what is in front of us, the minute details: a dragonfly on a branch, a bird singing from a clump of sawgrass, or a tiny bromeliad growing on the trunk of a cypress tree. It is through these intimate details that we derive our understanding of this vast landscape.
Fakahatchee State Preserve, Florida
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Fulton_050410_1982.JPG26 - Fuzzy Wuzzy SnakeskinEpiphytes such as this fuzzywuzzy airplant (Tillandsia pruinosa) and ferns use the trunk of the cypress tree for support, but they do not generally cause harm to the tree. Instead, these non-parasitic plants harvest all of the nutrients necessary for survival and growth from the air and rainwater. While the plants do not extract nutrients or resources from the tree, they can sometimes be detrimental to a tree. For example, in strong winds or heavy rains, the plants add extra weight, often contributing to the breaking of branches or possibly even the trunk.
Everglades National Park, Florida.
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Fulton_050529_1535.JPG27 - Pineland AllamandaAnother tropical herb found throughout the Rocky Pinelands is the pineland allamanda (Angadenia berteroi). Blooming year round, its yellow flowers are conspicuous in the undergrowth. Despite its local abundance, it is a state-listed threated species in Florida due to its small range. The allamanda’s sap is a mild poison, causing irritation of the eyes as well as a mild skin rash in sensitive individuals.
Long Pine Key, Everglades National Park, Florida.
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Fulton_050606_2755.JPG28 - Mahogany in the SkyThe great West Indian mahogany (Swietenia mahagoni) is one of the largest trees in the Everglades. The vast majority of the old growth trees was removed in the early twentieth century to be used in the lumber industry. The deep rich reddish wood is very dense and very strong, providing a great many uses from ship work to furniture. By the end of World War II, the Everglades would have only a few old growth trees remaining.
Mahogany Hammock, Everglades National Park, Florida
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Fulton_050124_0242.JPG29 - AnhingaThe proximity of the Everglades to major urban areas such as Miami, Ft. Lauderdale, and Naples is both a blessing and a curse. The impact of urban encroachment, increasing pollution, and introduction of exotic species are well documented. However, this proximity can in fact be a benefit for the Everglades. It provides an opportunity for people to visit the Everglades and view the miracles of nature on a daily basis. The more people that begin to understand the Everglades ecosystem, the more likely that restoration projects will be completed. These long term, extremely expensive projects do not happen on their own but take the collaboration of scientists, businesses, and citizens to understand and support the effort to preserve the Everglades.
Shark Valley, Everglades National Park, Florida.
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Fulton_050420_2695.JPG30 - Red-bellied WoodpeckerThe thick bark that protects slash pines from fire also provides exceptional habitat for a wide variety of insects, thereby attracting the red-bellied woodpecker. The woodpeckers are opportunistic predators, feeding on anything from seeds, fruits, and nectar to insects and small vertebrates. Red-bellied woodpeckers seem to prefer beetles and ants over other insects. These woodpeckers have even been seen feeding on the sap dripping from pines.
Long Pine Key, Everglades National Park, Florida
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Fulton_050505_1151.JPG31 - Least Tern CourtshipNorth America's smallest tern, the Least Tern, is protected throughout its range. In early spring, they choose mates through mating rituals where the female sits on the beach and the male catches a minnow, feeds it to the female and goes out for another one. This process can go on for hours and likely days before the birds actually mate.
Tigertail Beach, Marco Island, Florida.
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Fulton_050201_0033.JPG32 - Gator EyesVisitors come from all over the country to see these massive reptiles in the wild and the Everglades is full of them. Any visitor can easily see more than a hundred of these apex predators during a day visit to the park. Squeals of delight emit from the children and families each and every time they see one.
Anhinga Trail, Everglades National Park.
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