Davidson Woods

from Matt in Italy April 2008
Patty submitted on January 14, 1970
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BLOG TITLEBLOG CONTENT<hey everyone, iàve been in italy for almost two days now. our flight left jfk at 630 and we stopped at munich germany for a 2 hour layover. got into rome at noon sunday <6 in the morning our time). slept a little on the first flight but not enough to really count. needless to say, everyone was and is exhausted. we are troopers though, we did not go to bed until 1000 pm trying in vain to reset our clocks. walked down to the colosseum (our hotel is a 10 minute walk from it) had a nice dinner, walked down through forum later (the ruins of the old governmental area of rome). needless to say, rome is beautiful and amazing. everywhere you look, you see ancient ruins. and these "ruins" are actually in amazing shape. <all the old engravings are still readable, and it is incredible to see. we walked through the Pantheon, where raphael is buried, a beautiful church with an open circular dome ceiling. the guide told us that the rain must evaporate as it falls through but iàm having trouble believing it. today we had a guided tour through the Vatican state, and saw the basilica of St. Peter, the largerst church in the world. the architecture is amazing, there and everywhere else you look. we saw the Sistene chapel and michaelangleos paintings and sculptures. below we saw where the sarcophogus of many a pope lie. dad i thought of you and how much you would enjoy seeing all of this religious history. it would be fun seeing this with you, but i doubt if we would ever get out of there- there is just too much to see and way to much to comprehend. the architecture and art created in the early AD here is mind-boggling. nothing like that will ever be recreated. time to go, im in an internet cafe across from the hotel. i am well, love you all, see you soon matt
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April 5, 2008 – Key Largo, FL
Anne and Chuck submitted on January 14, 1970
We have been busy. Arrived in Ft. Myers on March 22 to enjoy the company of Mom and Dad Woods and Frank and Brian Woods. Brian left that day but not before we enjoyed some conversation with another of the great Woods grandchildren. We stored our motorhome at Siesta Bay Resort and stayed at the Davidson/Woods condominium at Hertiage Cove. We relaxed and enjoyed more than a week there. We found a few year birds and even one life bird, a brown booby of all things, while there.
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BLOG TITLEBLOG CONTENTWe have been busy. Arrived in Ft. Myers on March 22 to enjoy the company of Mom and Dad Woods and Frank and Brian Woods. Brian left that day but not before we enjoyed some conversation with another of the great Woods grandchildren. We stored our motorhome at Siesta Bay Resort and stayed at the Davidson/Woods condominium at Hertiage Cove. We relaxed and enjoyed more than a week there. We found a few year birds and even one life bird, a brown booby of all things, while there. Bunche Beach was great as always with lots of sandpipers and plovers. Possibly some of the same piping plovers that are with the Woods on Cape Cod in summer are with them in Florida in the winter. Six Mile Cypress and Shark River Valley were quiet – between the departure of some winter birds and the arrival of spring migrants – but still delightful. We toured the first with Frank and the last with our son Alex who came to visit on our last weekend in Southwest Florida. We also enjoyed a bit of domestic tranquility, baking bread and making granola at the condominium. We enjoyed returning from a morning out to relax in the pool with Mom and Dad in the afternoon. On April 1st we departed for the Long Pine Key Campground within Everglades National Park. Here we “dry camped” to enjoy the park “off season.” We found the Cape Sable seaside sparrow, but the least bittern continued to elude us. We adjusted to the April warmth and watched a five-foot diamond-back rattlesnake glide across the campsite. The evenings were quiet except for the occasional call of the chuck will’s widow and the great horned owl. Only a few campers could tolerate the heat and insects. This is a place where DEET and PABA make you safe. You become used to the oily feeling. While we spent most of our time in the park, yesterday we drove to Miami to look for exotic birds that now frequent its neighborhoods. We found several including a few kinds of parakeets, mynas, and doves. We parked at a public housing development and walked a sea wall to look up at a turnpike bridge in search of Caribbean cave swallows. We found them and an iguana too. A black gentleman looked down from the bridge and asked what we were doing. We told him and he too watched the little birds dive under the bridge to their nests. Finally we stopped at the Florida City burger king to seek out the common mynas that love French fries. We found them at the dumpster. The only target bird we failed to find was the red-whiskered bulbul. This was our second effort at this bird, but it was not at the tennis club, the elementary school “native plant garden,” nor on any of the lovely residential streets of Kendall. We may not go back again. Birding the City is not as much fun as birding the country. This morning we walked on the famous Anhinga Trail at dawn. The slough was full of swimming alligators. Then we made our next move to Key Largo. The drive was short and without adventure. The site here is small, but shaded by mahogany and gumbo limbo trees. The clear water of Blackwater Sound adjoins the RV park. We have an electrical connection and even wireless Internet. How sweet. As Chuck started the gas stove up outside he noticed a five-foot iguana in the tree above him. This is definitely not Kansas. Tomorrow we will look for black-whiskered vireos and mangrove cuckoos. It may still be a few days early, neither has been heard from yet. They may be having a last tango in Cuba before returning to Florida to settle down to nesting. After that we have snorkeling and paddling in mind. Lots to do in the sub-tropics.
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March 22, 2008 – Ft. Myers, FL
Anne and Chuck submitted on January 14, 1970
So it took us seven weeks to drive from Pennsylvania to Ft. Myers, the motor home doesn’t go that fast. The last piece of this long journey, from Sebring to Heritage Cove, was uneventful except showers. The rain was welcome here where the last year has been a dry one. The current weather results from a storm forming along the cold front that swept across the peninsula the day before yesterday. It reached down to the Florida Keys and there stalled. Cold fronts seldom cross the Florida Straights in late March!
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BLOG TITLEBLOG CONTENTSo it took us seven weeks to drive from Pennsylvania to Ft. Myers, the motor home doesn’t go that fast. The last piece of this long journey, from Sebring to Heritage Cove, was uneventful except showers. The rain was welcome here where the last year has been a dry one. The current weather results from a storm forming along the cold front that swept across the peninsula the day before yesterday. It reached down to the Florida Keys and there stalled. Cold fronts seldom cross the Florida Straights in late March! This is a sign that spring has not only arrived but is actually developing. We enjoyed our last day based in Sebring with a trip to the Kissimmee Prairie. Not as large and famous as the Everglades, the Kissimmee River Valley is still a grand place. It is much worse for wear, but remains unique and scenic. We left camp early so as to be there at first light. Chuck wanted to park at an abandoned barn that was rumored to house three species of owls, but have you ever tried to find an abandoned barn in the dark? It didn’t help that the barn was not along the highway as reported but back a little ways on a side road. Unable to find it we went on and first light found us at the entrance to the Kissimmee Prairie Preserve. Here we looked for sparrows and white-tailed kites. Two special sparrows breed on the prairie. One is a large rusty flat-headed and long-tailed species with a lovely song. It gives a long sweet whistle followed by one or more musical trills on different pitches. It used to be called the pine woods sparrow, but its modern and much less descriptive name is Bachman’s sparrow. The second sparrow is the Florida grasshopper sparrow. This is a smaller bird with a stubby tail that cocks its head back and goes click-t-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d. Its not called a grasshopper sparrow for nothing. Both birds effectively vanish in the palmetto and grass of pinewoods and prairies. It is almost impossible to see them except in the spring when that primal urge pushes the males up slender stalks of grass or naked twigs of bushes to give their song. Only then for a few weeks can they be properly observed. We arrived at the Kissimmee at the right time of day in the right season and were blessed to hear their cries. We set up the spotting scope and watched them perch and sing. Priceless. A young park naturalist, Paul, gave us another pleasure. We asked where we might find a black-shouldered (or white-tailed) kite. Like the wonderful swallow-tailed kite that we had been seeing around Sebring, the black-shouldered kite is a lovely-patterned bird and a graceful flier. It is found primarily in the West, and we have previously seen it only as far east as Corpus Christi, Texas. Records of its nesting in Florida have been infrequent, but we had heard recent reports of several pairs nesting at the Kissimmee Preserve. “There is a pair nesting near the campground,” he remarked. We walked out of the oak hammock that sheltered the campers and wandered down a trail listening to meadowlarks and mockingbirds. We stopped frequently to scan the prairie horizon. Anne spotted the first kite flying from an oak tree. As Chuck set up the scope it landed on a snag above the grass. A second bird was already perched there. We scoped them from two hundred yards as they behaved more like doves than hawks. We were hopping for some “x-rated birding,” but were treated only to affectionate head-bobbing and caressing. Still, we had great views of a fine bird that we had little hope of seeing anywhere else this year. Paul told us that four or five pairs are nesting in the park. That is probably half the number of this species nesting in Florida. We could have searched the marshes for additional species, but it was already the afternoon and warm. We went home to pack for our travel today glad in the knowledge that at least a little of the Kissimmee Prairie remains protected and supporting Florida wildlife.
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March 14, 2008 – Scottsmoor FL
Anne and Chuck submitted on January 14, 1970
Yesterday we visited the Kennedy Space Center. The admission fee is high, but NASA provides a good show. Many of the exhibits including a “rocket garden” are at the main visitor center. Buses take you past the famous vehicle assembly building, to a viewing station for the shuttle launch pads, and to the moon rocket museum that has the various units of a Saturn V rocket mounted horizontally overhead. This exhibit makes the building very long indeed.
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BLOG TITLEBLOG CONTENTYesterday we visited the Kennedy Space Center. The admission fee is high, but NASA provides a good show. Many of the exhibits including a “rocket garden” are at the main visitor center. Buses take you past the famous vehicle assembly building, to a viewing station for the shuttle launch pads, and to the moon rocket museum that has the various units of a Saturn V rocket mounted horizontally overhead. This exhibit makes the building very long indeed. The assembly building and launch pads for the shuttle were first built for the moon rockets, and although they are enormously significant historical sites, the facilities remain active and evolving. This morning we canoed on the St. Johns River. This is a peculiar stream that flows a couple of hundred miles north in east Florida and through Jacksonville into the Atlantic Ocean. We canoed where it is a narrow stream in dry weather, but it sports a floodplain that is a mile wide and largely in prairie. Some of this ground is grazed and some is wild. It is all very scenic. This afternoon we returned to NASA for a few hours to make a last stop at the Astronauts’ Hall of Fame. We were growing up during the “space race” and clearly remember the drama of the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs. The quest for a moon landing seemed a nearly impossible one. We dreamed of success, gasped at failures and disasters, and roared with approval at successes. We remember our first manned flight, the first orbital flight, and then the series of increasingly difficult Gemini missions. We gasped at the size of the Saturn rocket and the complexity of the space vehicles for the lunar missions. Three stages for propulsion and the service unit with the capsule and the lunar module sections. We listened closely as the pilots uncoupled and re-coupled the units in space to allow approach and landing on the moon. Finally we listened and watched the news as the spider descended to the lunar service and men walked the lunar surface. We waited anxiously for their successful return. During the Apollo 13 mission we watched and waited anxiously and prayed for the survival of a few good men. Today it seems silly, but when the oxygen tank exploded and the crew made some impolite comments, newsmen remarked that this was not NASA approved language. It was also not approved for broadcast, but such is the hazard of live coverage. There are times when swearing is appropriate to reflect the severity of a situation, and this was one of them. Swearing draws and focuses attention. Perhaps the astronauts should have had their tea, reflected, and then calmly discussed why their ship was disintegrating. It may by then have been gone, but at least no one’s ears would have been upset by the words of serious men managing a difficult problem.
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March 11, 2008 – Scottsmoor FL
Anne and Chuck submitted on January 14, 1970
The first bird we saw take off over the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge left with a flash. We stood on the bank of the Indian River at Marina Park with another hundred or so people at 2:28 this morning. We could see many more people standing along a causeway south of us. Traffic had remained steady on U.S. Highway No. 1 until a few minutes before. Now everyone was quiet and still. Then came a flash and the light flickered momentarily before a ball of fire slowly rose into view, accelerated quickly, and vanished after about ten seconds into a low cloud bank.
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BLOG TITLEBLOG CONTENTThe first bird we saw take off over the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge left with a flash. We stood on the bank of the Indian River at Marina Park with another hundred or so people at 2:28 this morning. We could see many more people standing along a causeway south of us. Traffic had remained steady on U.S. Highway No. 1 until a few minutes before. Now everyone was quiet and still. Then came a flash and the light flickered momentarily before a ball of fire slowly rose into view, accelerated quickly, and vanished after about ten seconds into a low cloud bank. I had lifted my binoculars, but the brightness of the explosion made them useless. Anne snapped a few pictures. The engine blast was overexposed. For a few seconds it seemed dawn seemed to be breaking, but then darkness returned. The floodlights that before had illuminated the clouds now lit up the exhaust trail. It took almost a minute for the sound of the rockets to reach us. It started as a gentle roar and became an almost deafening vibration. Then the sound faded away and we were left only with the night. Cars started and the audience began to leave. It took us five minutes in a queue to turn right onto U.S. 1 and begin our ten-mile return to the campground. We had gone to bed early so as to enjoy four hours of sleep before a midnight departure to Titusville. Our early departure assured a parking space and a great viewpoint. After the launch of the space shuttle Endeavor, we slept two hours and rose again in search of more familiar fliers at the refuge. Our early arrival was frustrated by finding the gate locked. The refuge is closed for three days before a shuttle launch. It normally opens at 7:00 a.m. This morning it was locked tight until an hour later. We made good use of the hour by walking along the causeway. There we found some birds and a few hundred “campers” who had stayed put after the launch. We monitored the gate with our binoculars and observed the refuge crew arrive, remove the barriers, and open the gate. Then we entered. The refuge supports a colony of the endangered scrub jay and ducks and shorebirds. Sadly a proposed expansion of the NASA operation threatens both the wildlife and visitation. We can understand that the refuge comprises federal land that was not needed by the military and now is, but as wild lands become more and more scarce, the loss of any national park, national forest, or national wildlife refuge land becomes tragic. We hope an alternative can be selected that minimizes the loss of wildlife and public access. We found our scrub jays but could not find our main target bird, the black rail. We are looking early in the year, but what makes the search most difficult is that so little of its habitat is easily accessible. It nests in both the Merritt Island and the St. John’s Refuge. The former is closed at night and the later is always closed to the public. The bird is tiny and sings loudly only at night. We have made pre-dawn visits to promising locations accessible to us without hearing “kick key poo, kick key poo, kick key poo.” We will keep listening and looking.
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March 8, 2008 – Brunswick, GA
Anne and Chuck submitted on January 14, 1970
Moving south once again we toured the Savannah River National Wildlife Refuge from our motor home with auto in tow. We seldom attempt to bird this way. There are risks. Low hanging trees can force a turn around, and the double rig needs a large radius. Backing up is impossible. Still, worst case is to unhitch, turn around, and then have to reconnect. A nuisance certainly, but not the end of the world.
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BLOG TITLEBLOG CONTENTMoving south once again we toured the Savannah River National Wildlife Refuge from our motor home with auto in tow. We seldom attempt to bird this way. There are risks. Low hanging trees can force a turn around, and the double rig needs a large radius. Backing up is impossible. Still, worst case is to unhitch, turn around, and then have to reconnect. A nuisance certainly, but not the end of the world. In this case there were no problems, we just had to skirt a few low-branching live oaks. Spring has definitely arrived here. The willows are leafing out and the oaks are flowering. The maples are bright red with samara fruits. Flocks of blue-winged teal greeted us in the ponds. This is the duck that migrates the farthest south in winter, and we found it here for the first time this year. We parked and cooked lunch in the motor home before continuing south. Our intention had been to camp near the Okeefenokee Swamp, but the campground never answered the phone. So, we came to this campground in the “Golden Isles” area of Georgia. We made a mistake. A private campground it offered a discount, but the sites are small and the highway too near. A few miles away is a lovely county campground in the woods next to the marsh. It would have cost no more, but we did not find it until after we had registered here for a week. Good news is that the Wi-fi service is very good. I bought Turbotax and have made good progress. Still I find it increasingly irritating to have to spend some twenty to thirty hours at this business. When we were making more money there seemed to be some sport in the effort. We also had an accountant to complete the forms. Now, we pay $40 for the software. I don’t know how we would fill out the forms without it. Still, the process is a tedium and each year is more complicated. The good news is that all of the w-2’s, 1099’s, and various other numbered documents seem to have arrived in proper order this year. Last year we had to file an amended return to address items that came later in the year. The system has become so complicated that businesses need until April to get us the forms, and then we are supposed to file by April 15. Congress should be ashamed not only of the amount of money they demand from taxpayers but what trouble they make us go through to file. Our taxes are further complicated by the fact that we have income from two states with very different tax systems. This adds another six hours of work to the process. At least today the Internet lets us readily obtain the various esoteric forms needed to make the joint filings made necessary by this. In years past one had to check off a list of forms needed, request them by mail, and wait for them to arrive. But in years past one needed many fewer forms. The current madness would have been impossible. Technology has made it easier to deal with a stupidly complex tax system that is made possible only by the technology. Here we are near the beach and also not far from the great Okeefenokee Swamp. A primary objective was to run our canoe in this inland wetland. We selected a fabulously beautiful day and paddled about. The preserve is without roads. We drove to the eastern entrance and put our boat in the Suwannee Canal. This was dug in an effort to drain the marsh to allow logging and farming of the land. Our good luck is that a combination of technical errors and a failing economy caused collapse of the project. Still the land was logged, and the ivory-billed woodpecker was lost. Then the land was abandoned to the government. The CCC completed excavation of a string of shallow channels that allow easy transit by small boats throughout the refuge. The Okeefenokee includes cypress and hardwood stands, pine flats, reed beds, and shall lakes. Most of the land is soggy and many of the so-called islands are really floating masses of peat that can be induced to shake and wobble by jumping. This “land of the quaking earth” is thus wonderfully unsuited for development. In early March the golden-club plants are in full bloom. Their yellow phallic spadices fill the marshes. A bull alligator roared and shook near the landing where we ate lunch. Florida cooters struggled through the weeds to dive into the soup as we approached. Egrets called. A breeze required only a sweater, and sunscreen protected us from the brilliant light. What a fine day in the wilderness. Yesterday a cyclone passed by and brought a day of rain and thunder showers. This morning brightened clear and windy. The air should quiet and chill tonight. Will this be the last blast of winter? Tomorrow we will return to Okeefenokee, this time for a hike through the pinewoods in search of red-cockaded woodpeckers and spring flowers. On Monday we drive on to Cape Canaveral just in time for the shuttle launch that night. We will definitely stay up to see the night turn to day.
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Okefenokee Swamp, GA March 9, 2008
Anne and Chuck submitted on January 14, 1970
Okefenokee is the word Native Americans gave for this "Land of the Trembling Earth". It is a large wet depression in southern Georgia, with pine trees, cypress, live oak, palmetto and lots of water. We spent 2 days there. One, a canoe ride up the old Suwanee Canal that was built in the 1890's and the other a hike through the wetlands. When we started the latter, there was a sign that sections of the trail 'may be covered with water'. That was an understatement. Fortunately the 'Neos' we keep in the trunk of the car came in handy.
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BLOG TITLEBLOG CONTENTOkefenokee is the word Native Americans gave for this "Land of the Trembling Earth". It is a large wet depression in southern Georgia, with pine trees, cypress, live oak, palmetto and lots of water. We spent 2 days there. One, a canoe ride up the old Suwanee Canal that was built in the 1890's and the other a hike through the wetlands. When we started the latter, there was a sign that sections of the trail 'may be covered with water'. That was an understatement. Fortunately the 'Neos' we keep in the trunk of the car came in handy. Hopefully I'll be successful in attaching some photos from these 2 trips. Our designated family journalist will follow later with well written descriptions.
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Music Please
Therese submitted on January 14, 1970
Hi Everybody! Does anyone have any new music to listen to? Any ideas? Anything on YouTube? Thanks!
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BLOG TITLEBLOG CONTENTHi Everybody! Does anyone have any new music to listen to? Any ideas? Anything on YouTube? Thanks!
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February 28, 2008 – Hunting Island, SC
Anne and Chuck submitted on January 14, 1970
Almost noon and we are back inside. It has been a beautiful morning even if the temperature was only 30 at dawn and is now 43 degrees F. The sunshine is brilliant and the breeze light. We walked a trail through the dune forest and found two new year-birds. The first was a golden-crowned kinglet. This sprightly elf darts about in the foliage and characteristically flicks its wings. Racy wing bars and an eye stripes are field marks. It loves to stay hidden in foliage, especially during the breeding season. Here it is wonderfully more exposed even in the leafy live oaks.
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BLOG TITLEBLOG CONTENTAlmost noon and we are back inside. It has been a beautiful morning even if the temperature was only 30 at dawn and is now 43 degrees F. The sunshine is brilliant and the breeze light. We walked a trail through the dune forest and found two new year-birds. The first was a golden-crowned kinglet. This sprightly elf darts about in the foliage and characteristically flicks its wings. Racy wing bars and an eye stripes are field marks. It loves to stay hidden in foliage, especially during the breeding season. Here it is wonderfully more exposed even in the leafy live oaks. The second year-bird was a yellow-throated warbler. It is easily distinguished from other small birds by a bright yellow throat and a jazzy black-and-white striped face. A bit of a creeper, it clings to the sides of branches. It was this bird that turned me into a birder when quite young I observed one scurrying about a citrus tree at my grandfather’s home in south Florida. I had his 1940’s style binoculars and struggled to focus both lenses (separately) on this moving bird. I succeeded and for an instant clearly saw this bird dressed in a gray jacket with a white belly, yellow throat, and striped face. I was amazed that a small bird could look so sharp. I had an old Peterson Field Guide and leafed through it to find a picture of the bird I had seen. I noticed that there were two pages illustrating a couple of dozen species of brilliant wood warblers. I decided to see them all. That took a few decades. The only one I missed went extinct in the 1960’s before I could find it. At that time I was clueless as to how and why a bird could sport such a brilliant pattern. It was only later that I read the thoughts of Darwin and came to see how natural forces could create bizarre and brilliant patterns. In this species the pattern is muted by distance, and the bird is effectively camouflaged to avoid predation. The brilliant pattern up front serves another purpose. It says, “I am hot.” And it is. Even primates love to see its face.
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February 27, 2008 – Hunting Island, SC
Anne and Chuck submitted on January 14, 1970
We have made another move to another beach park in the Carolina “Low Country.” We enjoyed some five days at Huntington Beach. The weather varied from almost warm to quite chilly. The campground is relatively open, a wide clearing in a low pine back flat forest, and we chose an open campsite to collect as much sun as possible. Other campers backed their motor homes and tents under the gracious live oaks. Here the forest is a simple woods with a live oak, laurel oak, and loblolly pine canopy over an understory of yaupon holly, wax myrtle, and juniper.
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BLOG TITLEBLOG CONTENTWe have made another move to another beach park in the Carolina “Low Country.” We enjoyed some five days at Huntington Beach. The weather varied from almost warm to quite chilly. The campground is relatively open, a wide clearing in a low pine back flat forest, and we chose an open campsite to collect as much sun as possible. Other campers backed their motor homes and tents under the gracious live oaks. Here the forest is a simple woods with a live oak, laurel oak, and loblolly pine canopy over an understory of yaupon holly, wax myrtle, and juniper. A trail to the beach takes us through this maritime forest, across a bridge over a narrow cattail-filled lagoon, and over three narrow grass-covered dunes. The natural beach is narrow at high tide but opens a broad window onto the sea. The ocean has less energy here than at Hatteras and seems peaceful even in winter. We walk the beach a mile to Murrell’s Inlet and its jetty twice during our stay to watch red-throated and common loons diving in the channel, and Bonaparte’s gulls and horned grebes in the sea beyond. Other walkers join us in the quest of the jetty, fishermen, dog-walkers, and lovers. Our stay was uneventful. We shopped in the popular Myrtle Beach area and could see high-rises north and south from the jetty. Still, Huntington Beach remains a quiet getaway between the more crowded beaches. Today we drove southwest through coastal forest and marshes. We crossed the Charleston metropolis. We have a relationship with this town where Alex went to college and enjoyed a brief glimpse of it. A bit further down the shore is Hilton Head Island. Like Myrtle Beach it is another overdeveloped coastal area. The campground here is in a live oak and sable palm hammock between the beach and salt marshes. Scattered large southern Magnolia trees add to its charm. The foliage seems much more tropical than that of Huntington Beach. We were hopping for warmer weather here, but a hard freeze is forecast for tonight and tomorrow night. Then may the warming trend begin. We were disappointed to find that we can stay only until Saturday. That was a surprise. We called last week and were told that there was plenty of space. We will have to be more careful about reservations from here on out. With our schedule now demanding that we leave Florida before the end of April, we will arrive there in March, and March and even April are busy there. Alas, it is harder being a gypsy in the East than in the West.
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