Time:  9:00 AM to Approx. 2:00 PM

 

Location: Simmons State Forest in Nassau County. 3,638 Acres - natural features include Longleaf Pine-Turkey Oak-Wiregrass communities, Low Pinelands, Sand hills, Seepage slopes, Seepage streams, Bottom land forest, St Marys River and many others.

 

Meet at the Burger King parking lot in Callahan near the 301 – US 1 23 intersection at 9:00 A.M.  Ixia member Bill Berthet, our butterfly expert, is leading this adventure.

 

Bring your lunch or snacks to eat while in the forest, don’t forget good hiking boots, hat, water, sunscreen, bug spray, Wildflower and Butterfly field guides, binoculars, and camera.

 

Trip is limited to 15. You must RSVP for this field trip no later than September 7. 

 

Carpool 3-4 high ground clearance vehicles driving on the Red and Yellow trails along the power line, with various stops looking for wildflowers, butterflies, and other critters, including a visit alongside the St. Mary’s river looking for skippers nectaring on Diodia ssp.

 

We will then caravan and drive the forest road on parts of the white trail keeping an eye out for Redroot (ceanothus microphyllus) Diodia ssp. - Carphephorus ssp. - Liatris ssp. - Eupatorium ssp. - Florida elephants-foot (elephantopus elatus) - Summer farewell (Dalea pinnata) and others.

 

Also Included is a 1+ mile hike (Moderate) on a trail following the down slope of a sand hill to a smaller trail following a seepage slope into bottomland forest with canebreak. We may be fortunate and find Catesby’s Lily (Lilium catesbaei) a favorite nectar source of Cloudless sulphurs and Palamedes swallowtails in the fall.

Contact Barbara Jackson: bjack2804@aol.com       

 

 

The University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences Florida Master Naturalist Program Freshwater Wetlands Module sponsored by the St. Johns County Recreation and Parks and Duval County Extension will be offered October 10, 12, 17, 19, 24 and 26, 2010.   Classroom sessions will be held at Trout Creek Park, 6795 Collier Road, Orangedale, Florida. This program is for adults who want to learn more about Florida’s environment. Individuals as well as educators and those in the eco-tourism business can benefit. Teachers may receive up to 40 hours continuing education credits. Topics include: ecosystems (swamps, marshes, and permanent wetlands), key plants and wildlife, and the role of humans in shaping the environment. Each module includes classroom presentations, videos, field trips, and practical interpretation. Advance registration is required. Course fee is $225.  Course instructors are Beverly Fleming and Carol Wyninger.   Student requirements include attendance, participation, and enthusiasm! For registration and program information contact the web site www.masternaturalist.org.  For further questions contact Carol Wyninger at (904)220-0232 or wyninger@comcast.net, or Beverly Fleming at (904) 284- 9488.  

 

Time:  6:30 PM

Location:  Regency Square Library, 9900 Regency Square Blvd., Jacksonville, FL 32225

Agenda:  Business meeting followed by guest speaker

Program:  Chuck Hubbuch, Assistant Director of Physical Facilities and Curator of the Sawmill Slough Preserve at the  University of North Florida; Topic is “Management of the 386 Acre Sawmill Slough Preserve at UNF and the Native Plants.” With the help of a volunteer and a few Biology students, Chuck has documented at least seven new plant records for Duval County in the Preserve.  He has also instituted an active program of exotic pest plant removal and controlled burns.

Chuck moved to Jacksonville in 2002 to start a botanical garden at the Jacksonville Zoo. He started plant records and labeling, increased plant collection from about 400 species to 1200 on a very small budget, and gained official recognition as a botanical garden by city of Jacksonville in 2004. In August 2005, Chuck moved to the University of North Florida. He started by leading the Landscape and Grounds Department. He and his crews planted have planted thousands of plants on campus. In 2006, he became Assistant Director of Physical Facilities with responsibilities for Landscape, Vehicle Maintenance, Recycling and Moving Departments. Also, in 2006, he was named Curator of the newly established Sawmill Slough Preserve.

 

Time:  12:00 Noon for a picnic lunch (bring lunch), hike begins at 1:00 PM

Location:  Ft. Clinch State Park, 2601 Atlantic Ave., Fernandina Beach, FL 32034

Additional Information:  Fort Clinch offers a six-mile trail for hikers.  The trail begins at the fort parking lot and parallels the park drive for approximately three miles, then crosses the road and returns back toward the fort on the opposite side. Parts of the trail are heavily forested and traverse ancient dunes that are very steep. Willow Pond Hiking Trail is located centrally along the park drive. Parking is available. Two loops encircle a series of fresh water ponds, the shorter loop takes around 20 minutes, the longer takes 45-50 minutes to complete. Wildlife observation is very good on these trails. Alligators, deer, and a variety of bird life can be seen in this area.

 

Time:  10:00 AM to 4:00 PM

 

Location:  Jacksonville Landing, 2 Independent Drive, Jacksonville, FL 32202

 

Additional Information:  This event, sponsored by the North Florida Land Trust, is a week-long plein air art event, and will culminate with a free family festival on October 9 & 10.  Ixia will have an information booth one day only, on Saturday, October 9.  

 

Time:  6:30 PM

Location:  Singleton Senior Center.  Singleton is at 150 East 1^st Street, about 2 blocks north of State or Union and Market in downtown Jacksonville. The building takes up the whole block with lots of on-site parking.

Agenda:  Business meeting followed by guest speaker

Program: Carol Wyniger, on “The Key To Keys:  Unlocking the Secrets of Plant Keys”, or “How to ID Plants”

Carol J. Wyninger is a native Floridian, born in West Palm Beach. She graduated from the University of Florida with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Zoology. She then obtained her MD Degree from the University of Miami and later a Masters Degree in Public Health from the University of South Florida. In 1999 Carol became a Master Gardener with the Duval County Extension Service and in 2002 she became a Florida Master Naturalist Program Instructor. Carol volunteers over 200 hours a year teaching and coordinating the FMNP. In 2010 Carol began serving on the Board of Directors of  the Jacksonville Arboretum and Gardens.

 

Time:  Arrive at 10:00 AM at Okefenokee Adventures for a boat ride

Location:  Okefenokee Adventures, 4159 Suwanee Canal Rd., Folkston, GA 31537, 866-843-7926. 

Additional Information:  Cost is $14.40 per person for ten or more people for the boat ride.  Please bring cash and exact change only. The boat ride is 90 minutes in length.  We will pause for a picnic lunch (bring your lunch), and then have a hike. There is a $5.00 charge per vehicle to enter the park. We will probably leave the area between 3:00 and 4:00 PM.  The Sea Oats Chapter of the FNPS, in St. Johns County, plans to join us.

Fall is one the most beautiful times in the Okefenokee.  We will see plenty of fall color on the boat ride and the hike.

In southern Georgia and northern Florida there is a very special place, one of the oldest and best preserved freshwater systems in America. Native Americans called it Okefenoka, meaning “Land of the Trembling Earth”. Now this place, where earth, air, fire and water continuously reform the landscape, is preserved within the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge, created in 1937 to protect wildlife and for you to explore.

The Okefenokee offers so much, one could spend a lifetime and still not see and do everything. The refuge is vast, with almost 402,000 acres (that’s roughly 300,000 football fields in size) of cypress forest, marsh, lakes and islands. Filled with alligators, Sandhill cranes, red-cockaded woodpeckers and over 400 other species of animals, it is a wonderful place to learn about the wildlife of Georgia and Florida. The longleaf pine, cypress, carnivorous sundews and other plants make up different habitats from dry upland forests to open wetlands. Golden sunsets and thundering storms allows one to experience this magical place at its most beautiful and most awe-inspiring moments.

 

Time:  6:30 PM

Location:  Regency Square Library, 9900 Regency Square Blvd., Jacksonville, FL 32225

Agenda:  Business meeting followed by guest speaker

Program:  Dr. Quinton White, of Jacksonville University, will speak about “Manatees in NE Florida”

A. Quinton White, Jr., Ph.D., is Executive Director, Marine Science Research Institute and Professor of Biology and Marine Science at Jacksonville University. Dr. White joined the faculty at Jacksonville University in 1976, having completed his Ph.D. at the University of South Carolina at the Baruch Institute for Marine Biology and Coastal Research.  Dr. White has written numerous research and technical papers or reports and received grants and contracts to support marine research at JU.  Currently he is conducting research on manatees and king mackerel. Dr. White serves as a consultant with the City of Jacksonville Waterways Commission on manatee issues He wrote the state-approved Manatee Protection Plans for both Duval and Clay Counties. He served on the Manatee Technical Advisory Council for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. 

 

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Time:  6:30 PM

Location:  Regency Square Library, 9900 Regency Square Blvd., Jacksonville, FL 32225

Agenda:  Business meeting followed by guest speaker

Program: Ixia member Bill Berthet, on Rare, Imperiled, and seldom seen butterflies of Duval, Clay, and Nassau Counties, photographed at Camp Blanding, Simmons State Forest, Jennings S.F., Julington Durbin Preserve, Little Talbot Island, Branan Field Mitigation Park and Environmental Area, and his yard. Bill Berthet is a Certified Gemologist Appraiser of the American Gem Society and owner of Berthet Jewelers in Mandarin for the past 27 years, his passion for butterflies started in the 5^th grade.  He has volunteered with Florida Natural Area Inventories for the past 2 ½ years searching for rare and imperiled butterflies in N.E. Florida. For the past decade he has experimented with host and nectar plants for N.E. Florida pollinators in his front and backyard, which is around 1/5^th of an acre in size,  that has been visited by around 55 different butterflies and has photographed butterflies in Florida, Texas, Guatemala, and 7 states in Mexico.

 

Time:  6:30 PM

Location:  Regency Square Library, 9900 Regency Square Blvd., Jacksonville, FL 32225

Agenda:  Business meeting followed by guest speaker

Program: Jake Ingram, on “The Twenty Best Native Plants for a Florida-Friendly Residential Landscape”

Jake is a retired landscape architect who moved back to his hometown of Jacksonville in 2005 after a thirty-five year absence.  For the ten years prior, he lived and worked in Walton County, FL managing the landscaping efforts of the St. Joe Company’s developments, most notably WaterColor and WaterSound.  In an effort to create communities that are “of the place,” the St. Joe Company committed early on to landscape exclusively with plants native to the immediate area.  Consequently, Jake quickly had to determine which native plants were a.) available in the nursery trade and b.) work best in large-scale, designed landscapes and how best to manage them.  He established and maintained a test garden for three years utilizing dozens of native species in a variety of irrigation and mulch regimens.  It was a great, if not hurried, learning curve experience and he’s been testing and experimenting with native plants ever since, mostly at his home in Avondale.

A Florida Native Plant Society member for twelve years, Jake officially joined the Ixia Chapter in 2006 and has served as its Chapter Representative to the State FNPS Board ever since.  

 

Time:  6:30 PM

Location:  Regency Square Library, 9900 Regency Square Blvd., Jacksonville, FL 32225

Agenda:  Business meeting followed by guest speaker

Program: Prem Subrahmanyam, a computer software engineer by profession but a student of botany by avocation, has been studying Florida's native orchids for over 25 years, with his goal being to photograph every species still living within the state of Florida--a daunting task considering that Florida is host to over 100 species!  His highly acclaimed presentation, "Orchids In Our Backyard: Florida's Wild Orchids", presents an overview of native orchids in our state: their habitat, blooming times, and distribution, along with a number of photographs Prem has taken of wild orchids in the field.

Prem's website, http://www.flnativeorchids.com/ presents a number of these photographs, as well as detailed information about each orchid species presented.

Prem will also bring for sale a number of hand-signed and numbered limited edition photographic prints of some of the more spectacular native orchids, as well as tee-shirts and bumper stickers

 

 

Time:  11:00 AM—12:30 PM, followed by lunch and discussion.  Please bring lunch.

Location:  Alpine Groves Park, 20160 State Road 13, St. Johns, FL 32259

Additional Information:  Our field trip will be led by Master Naturalist Instructor, Beverly Fleming, and will focus on edible native plants, and those used for medication.  Beverly is the supervisor of Trout Creek Park in St. Johns County.

Alpine Grove River Park contains 54.5 acres and is located in northwest St. Johns County between the St. Johns River and William Bartram Scenic and Historic Highway (SR13). Access to the site is provided from William Bartram Scenic and Historic Highway, a magnificent winding scenic and historic highway defined by majestic canopy oak trees overhang the road that follows the St. Johns River’s eastern shoreline. Direct access to this site is available through Swiss Lane.

The topography on the site varies significantly from the geologically unique bluff overlooking the St. Johns River to the lower elevations where the creek and wetlands bisect the site. The native vegetative communities located on the higher elevations consist of mixed hardwoods, temperate hardwoods and coniferous plantation. The native vegetative communities located on the lower elevations, in the proximity of the St. Johns River tributary, consist of mixed wetlands and hardwood forest. The mixed wetland hardwood community, located at the mouth of the tributary flowing into the St. Johns River, provides habitat for the American alligator, snowy egret and tri-color heron. According to the St. Johns River Water Management District (SJRWMD)’s Priority Habitat for Wetland Species map this area is suitable habitat for 1-6 wetland dependent species. Other wildlife that can be found on this site include: osprey, owl, wild turkeys, many species of butterflies (Zebra Longwing, Red Admiral, Gulf Fritillary, Buckeye, Southern Hairstreak, Monarch, Cloudless Sulphur, Zebra Swallowtail, Tiger Swallowtail, Spicebush Swallowtail, Giant Swallowtail, Black Swallowtail and Long-tailed Skipper) fox, deer, gopher tortoise, eastern indigo snake, Florida pine snake and the endangered manatee.

 

Time:  6:30 PM

Location:  Regency Square Library, 9900 Regency Square Blvd., Jacksonville, FL 32225

Agenda:  Business meeting followed by guest speaker

Program:  Shirley Denton, on “Favorite Florida Ecosystems”

This program will focus on well managed examples of Florida ecosystems that each of us can visit.  I'll show the management that is being used and lots of photographs of the characteristic and unique plants that characterize these places.  Where relevant, the challenges to management and effective conservation of the plants and wildlife will be discussed.  The examples will cross the spectrum of natural Florida both in terms of the ecology and the locations of the featured areas.

Dr. Shirley Denton is a twice-transplant.  First from Virginia to Michigan, and then from Michigan to Florida.  She has been a Florida resident for the past 24 years, a FNPS member for 23 years, and a past FNPS president.  One of her loves is the uniqueness of Florida's ecosystems -- while most have been timbered, terpentined, and grazed, many still retain their basic character while natural systems elsewhere in the east are typically far more altered.  Dr. Denton is a plant ecologist who is employed as an environmental consultant where her focus has been on environmental surveys, rare plants, wetland hydrology and health, and various aspects of environmental land planning.  She is also a nature photographer who focuses on Florida's plants and wildlife; see her work at http://www.shirleydenton.com/.

 

Join us at the FNPS Conference

 

Time:  6:30 PM

Location:  The Mandarin Community Club, 12447 Mandarin Rd., Jacksonville, FL 32223

Additional Information:  Arrive at 6:30 PM and park at the Mandarin Community Club.  Very carefully cross Mandarin Road and walk briefly east to the mailbox of 12408 Mandarin Road, and walk to the end of the driveway.  Please do not drive down the driveway or attempt to park on this property.  Join us at the historic King House, owned by descendents of the Cummer family.  The house was built in the 1870’s, and sits on the St. Johns River.  We will have wine, non-alcoholic drinks, and appetizers on the grounds at this lovely location.

At approximately 7:30 PM, we will return to the Mandarin Community Club for dinner.  Following dinner, we will have a presentation by Dr. Craig Huegel on “Adding Life to Your Landscape: Native Plant Landscaping for Florida's Wildlife.”

We will have a native plant sale prior to dinner and after Dr. Huegel’s presentation. 

Cost:  $30.00 per person.  Your check is your reservation and must be received no later than June 4, 2011.  No refunds can be given after this date.  Make checks payable to the FNPS, Ixia Chapter, and mail with attendee names to: Barbara Jackson, 2001 Cherokee Drive, Neptune Beach, FL 32266

About Dr. Huegel’s presentation:  Florida's amazing diversity of wildlife continues to decline; due mostly to habitat loss caused by development.  For too long, developed landscapes have relied heavily on non-native plants to create an aesthetic that is artificial and at odds with Florida's ecology.  We have traded a sense of place for a place of nonsense, and we have created barriers that prevent most songbirds, butterflies and other wildlife from living with us. Adding that life back to our landscapes does not require us to make radical changes, but it does require us to landscape with a purpose; to choose plants that have value to wildlife and to create landscape designs that provide habitat.  Dr. Craig Huegel, author of Native Plant Landscaping for Florida Wildlife, will explore a new landscape paradigm that incorporates the needs of wildlife in home landscape designs without sacrificing beauty. 

 

Dr. Huegel’s background includes a  BA, U of WI,  in Zoology; a MS, U of WI, in Wildlife Ecology; a  PhD, Iowa State U, in Animal Ecology.  He has held positions at the U of KY, '85-'87, Department of Forestry, Extension Wildlife Specialist; U of FL, '87-'92, Department of Wildlife Ecology and Conservation, Urban Wildlife Extension Scientist; '92-'04, Pinellas County, Environmental Lands Division Administrator; '04 to present, ecological consultant.  He is the owner/principal of Ecological Services Associates,  and owner of Hawthorn Hill Native Wildflowers and Rare Plants.  Dr. Huegel has also written 3 books on wildlife in urban areas - 2 for FNPS; Butterfly Gardening with Florida's Native Plants & Florida Native Plants for Wildlife.  Current book, Native Plant Landscaping for Florida Wildlife is published by University Press of Florida. He is the author/co-author of numerous other wildlife and native plant publications.  He has produced 10 video tapes on Florida wildlife topics. 

Dr. Hugle is a well known speaker, and author, on this topic and will bring copies of his recent book to sell.  He is a member of the FNPS, Pinellas Chapter, in Tampa.