Weedon again « verdure
Weedon again
Saturday, September 5th, 2009

In our previous visit we ended up in the southern boardwalks of Weedon Island. This time we were in the northern half. These were taken on Aug 22.

Mike noticed this yellow crowned night heron. None of my pictures turned out particularly well, but it’s a cool bird, and not as commonly seen as great blue herons (this is my second sighting. The first was at Caledesi Island in December.)


More death pictures! This is a golden silk spider. Mike, and other people, call them banana spiders. The legspan on the females is 3-4″. This is the first time I’d seen one, but they were all over the park this visit. Their bite is not lethal, but I’d still rather not run into one of them.


Common buckeye butterfly that was flitting along with us. We also saw a zebra longwing, but my only picture of it was unsightfully blurry.


I’ve yet to see any live ones, but these are the shells from horseshoe crabs, which are actually distant relatives of spiders, and have been around for 445 million years.


These are mangrove roots poking up from a pool of water, for breathing I think. You can see a few of the magrove seeds, in this and the horseshoe crab picture. This was a cool anecdote from wiki:

Mangrove seeds are buoyant and therefore suited to water dispersal. Unlike most plants, whose seeds germinate in soil, many mangroves (e.g. Red Mangrove) are viviparous, whose seeds germinate while still attached to the parent tree. Once germinated, the seedling grows either within the fruit (e.g. Aegialitis, Acanthus, Avicennia and Aegiceras), or out through the fruit (e.g. Rhizophora, Ceriops, Bruguiera and Nypa) to form a propagule (a ready-to-go seedling) which can produce its own food via photosynthesis. The mature propagule then drops into the water which can transport it great distances. Propagules can survive desiccation and remain dormant for over a year before arriving in a suitable environment. Once a propagule is ready to root, its density changes so that the elongated shape now floats vertically rather than horizontally. In this position, it is more likely to lodge in the mud and root. If it does not root, it can alter its density and drift again in search of more favorable conditions.


More mangrove roots. Usually the water around mangrove roots isn’t moving this fast. I think the little bumps on the roots are lenticels, also for breathing.


We saw at least 4 racoons. The first two ran away fairly quickly, but the others were alarmingly tame.


Mike took this one of a white ibis. It turned out way better than any that I took. Then we ran out of camera batteries. On the platform behind the ibis we watched a large school of jumping mullet.

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8 responses to “Weedon again”

  1. Wow! I love Herons! I always say that seeing one is good luck. Its a superstition that I made up. That was also a great story about the mangroves! Fascinating. I didn’t know.

    Great pictures! Always fun to look at! Glad you guys had a great time!

    I was forced onto face book today. I hate it already. What is wrong with email? I think I will replace my photo with that of a tort butt.

  2. The Racoon says:

    I just want your delicious, delictable, delightful garbage. Is that too much to ask?

  3. zanna says:

    Oh! we could be friends! I only have facebook so that people can find me from high school or college if they wish. Refound Jane that way, actually. I never update my wall or whatever they call it. For a while, I accidentally had the security so locked down on it that other people could not ask to be friends. It was an overreaction to having FB repeatedly comes up with these new “features” that involve pretty serious intrusions into your privacy that I have to keep opting out of after the fact. Grrr.

  4. Okay, I will try and navigate the silly thing to find the friend request button. Net connection is slow today. I wonder if Brett is downloading a bunch of movies or something.

    Yeah, I am not liking this FB thing. It is invasive. I also don’t like it because several people who I really don’t want to talk to have found me again. I think I found you on FB, but there is no picture. So maybe you should search for me? I have a picture. It looks like me. Surprisingly enough. I don’t generally have a great many pictures of me.

  5. zanna says:

    Don’t think that was me. I have a picture on mine as well. I can’t find you either, so I’m betting that both of us have our security too high to search for each other. I’ve opened up FB to allow everyone to search for me for the moment. (I was going to add Spokane as a network, but it said I have to leave my other regional network to do that. I couldn’t find any Spokane Falls groups, either.)

  6. I think I found you. Great picture btw. I send an invite. If I am wrong, I think the face book police will try and kill me. I will add them to the list.

  7. zanna says:

    Ha, no you found me. And so did someone else from HS who I didn’t remember until I looked up their picture in my yearbook. You’re already amassing friends like a good little facebooker. But, you don’t actually have to write any updates about yourself. I generally only log in when someone adds me as a friend or someone writes me a message. Which doesn’t happen that often.

    Yeah, I don’t have many pictures of myself either. And even fewer that I feel are decent. The one I have in FB is from 2005 on a sailing trip with Mom. I was hosing off mud from the chain as we pulled the anchor in. I miss sailing.

    Do you get notified when comments get added here? If not, I need to steal your “send email when comments are added” wordpress feature.

  8. Like I said, I had all those people before I showed up. The only ones to show up after are Sabrina ( we used to game together ), Harvest ( used to be in the theatre, but then disappeared ), and Tanya ( married to the guy who married Heather and I ). Well, and you ( the person who I am writing too ). I am most assuredly not a good face booker.

    I think I will do as you suggest and only respond. Well, except for Matt, Gwen, and Steve who can only seem to function if I mail them there. I guess ordinary web mail isn’t cool enough.

    I do not get notified when comments are added here. I just check back every so often. As for getting that ability from me, tell me how, and I shall steal it for you. I just have a generic wordpress account. I don’t know if I can access their javascript or whatever.

    I miss the water too. I used to walk along the waterfronts or just ride as a foot passenger on the ferries. I never went sailing. I don’t know why. I used to watch all the people sailing around. I guess its one of those things that I would rather do with someone. Well, maybe a walk along the river today is in order!

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