St. Marks Wildlife Refuge

Martha went to work today. It was her first day back to work since the knee replacement surgery. I drove her and she went in at 9 am. I was to pick her up at noon. So what was I to do with the time between 9 and noon? I went to Wakulla Springs yesterday. It isn't enough time to get to St. George Island (another of our favorite spots) and back. So I headed to St. Marks Wildlife Refuge (even though it is a pretty hot and buggy season right now).

Once I was there I had to go all the way to the lighthouse. I knew I only had an hour to walk around, so camera in hand I braved the alligators (I actually didn't see any the whole time I was there), biting flies, and dragon flies.


When I was graduating from FSU both my parents came down to Tallahassee. Mom flew in first and then Dad flew down. I took Mom and Vincent out to St. Marks while Perry picked Dad up at the airport. He met us down there and we all got to explore the lighthouse area with Martha and Rachel. On that trip we did see alligators and as Dad said "mosquitoes the size of birds".

This trip I didn't see any mosquitoes. There were biting flies so I headed out for the rock jetty that we always used to climb on. The jetty goes out into the Gulf of Mexico and you can watch all types of boats go by.

Once I reached the jetty I was surprised to find that most of the rocks were gone. I'm not sure if the tide was wrong, erosion has taken place (there was an aweful lot of sand and grass), or hurricanes have rearranged things. I sat on the rocks on the jetty, my feet dangling in the water, and tried to be very still.

When I was still enough little tiny crabs would peek out of the wholes that surrounded me. Those suckers sure were fast when I tried to take their picture. I won't tell how many pictures I ended up taking of just rocks and sand instead of the crab that was there a second before the picture was taken. They must be camera shy or maybe they've had too many intruders (there were signs everywhere about No Crabbing on the Refuge). Even my shadow disturbed them.

Look close to the rock on the left side. He is a pretty big yellowish red crab hiding in the shadow of the rock. He was very leery of getting any closer.
This guy crept closer (right side close to the grass) but would really scoot when he heard the beep of the camera. I really missed Perry's much better zoom lense.

The whole trip was relaxing. The sound of the wind blowing through the palm trees, the sound of water lapping on sand and rocks, an occasional pleasure boat going by, the scurry of crabs across the sand, the feel of water and sand oozing between my toes all remind me why I like North Florida. All this is only 45 minutes from the city and for most of the time I was there I had it all to myself.
I started to go all the way around one of the ponds until I saw it came out in a parking lot where all the trucks with their boat tows were parked. Parking lots just don't appeal to me for walking so I turned back around. I only got bit by the flies a little on this part of the trip. On the way back to the car one very persistant fly bit me on the palm of my hand. I don't think I've ever been bitten there before. Ouch!

The prickly pears have lost their blooms but are still all over the walk ways. The smaller flowers around them didn't seem to show up in the pictures. Ironically the Tallahassee Democrat had prickly pears in bloom all the cover of one of their sections headed St. Mark's Stubborn Inhabitants. I kind of like these inhabitants.
-- Stephanie