We wanted to take advantage of highs only in the mid seventies on a weekend in mid April (forever ago!), so we headed up to Withlacoochee River Park. When we were nearly at the park, which is down 5 miles of a country road, a fire truck was blocking the road. There were no accidents, but we later passed a utility truck, so maybe a power line had come down. We were driving the GTO, and there is no alternate route that we know of that is paved, so we drove back to Dade City and looked for alternate parks, but decided just to try Withlachoochee River Park again, and by then the fire truck had left.

There was a chance of rain, but we only got a few small drops while we were at the park. It remained overcast all day, which left us at the edge of enough light to take photos much of the time, but we never had the harsh contrast from bright sunshine to shadow either. The ressurection ferns were fully unfurled, covering the oak branches.

There were a substantial number of frogs, but we’ve posted those before, so instead here are some interesting fungi and lichen.

A buzzing on the forest floor brought our attention to a fight between a cicada and a wasp. After a minute or two, the wasp flew away, leaving the cicada twitching on the ground. There is a cicada killer wasp, but that wasp doesn’t seem to have the painted stripes on its thorax that ours did, and it’s a digger that hauls the cicada to its burrow.

Crickets, like cicadas, are much more often heard than seen.

This looks like an eastern pondhawk to me, which are not described as dragonfly hunters, but perhaps the victim presented itself as too easy a catch

A ball of baby spiders

Pipewort!

We don’t know what kinds of moths these are.

Mike did the conversions. I took the pipewort, papery fungi and cricket picture. The rest are his.