This new section will provide links to help you discover the magnificent South Florida environment. Please help by telling us about your favorite trips and places. Send us a link to your favorite wild areas (no commercial submissions, please), or write up a description of a great place to camp, paddle or play in the South Florida outdoors.

It was such a fine weekend. We all enjoyed it. Went kayaking (the leader trailing), with a group of 15 other members, in the southern part of the Savannas, with Pat Pazara, an expert on the Park. The water was cold, the sky turned gray and I thought for a minute that I was an Indian woman canoeing the river of grass. We sighted a group of woodstorks perched high up in a tree. We drove back to the campsite along beautiful Indian River Lagoon, seeing some sandhill cranes in a yard. We then had dinner with members of the St Lucie Waterfront Council who updated us on their activities to protect the Lagoon.

On Sunday we met with Pat Pazara, who took us again into the Savannas, on land this time. We saw a great horned owl, scrub jays, so curious and friendly they came down to see us close up. And we saw sandhill cranes in the distance. We also discovered fragrant prickly apples (very rare), female dahoon hollies (real Florida holly, not Brazilian pepper), carnivorous dews (beautiful little red monsters), wax myrtles (used to make wax by settlers long ago), and an owl pellet jam-packed with bones and fur. Watch out for pictures of these on our website!!!

The Savannas

An otter on a misty morn.
An alligator trail across the road - that wasn't there when we passed before.
A great horned owl - spooked by our presence, but chased away by...Scrub Jays!
Fragrant prickly apples - very rare.
Bobcat tracks and...gopher tortoise poop!
The sight of two sandhill cranes and the sound of more, unseen in the
wetlands.
Pond mallows, yellow-eyed grass and female (not male) dahoon hollies.
Carnivorous sun dews.
Wax myrtles (we learned how settlers made candles from the berries).
Cardinals in the bush.
Herons and egrets. Was that a pine warbler?
An owl pellet jam-packed with bones and fur.
A wise, self-taught guide.
Interesting people to share it all.

Another wonderful Sierra Club outing!

- Sabrina Carle

http://www.sfwmd.gov/org/clm/lsd/
5yr/p_savannas.html