Oleta River State Park, Florida

I decided to skip the beach today and visit Oleta River State Park, which is just down the street from my aunt's place. Much of Miami Beach is in fact a thin strip of land, and there is a body of water called the intracoastal which separates it from the greater land mass. My aunt lives on the thin strip of land, and Oleta Park is on the other side. You can actually see it across the water from my aunt's place. From there it looks ominous with thick mangroves and turkey vultures circling above.

The Florida State Parks website sells this place as a nature refuge in the middle of urban South Florida. But everywhere I turned there were people BBQ-ing, playing soccer, kayaking, riding bikes, etc. In a way this is nice, but this is more a haven for humans than it is for those uncivilized organisms which don't even have digital cable or cell phones. It was only my first time here, but I did not see much.

This is supposed to be a nature journal, and I really don't want to turn this into a negative social commentary - but I have one more anecdote to record because it reminds me a lot of what life has become in this fast-paced world.

During my foray into the park I was hunting a tricolored heron with my binoculars, sneaking quietly through the insect-ridden mangrove, when I saw a woman near the trail. She looked at me with surprise and asked, "you weren't watching me urinating and taking pictures were you?" At first I was shocked to see her because I thought I was alone, and then much more dumbfounded when I actually understood what she had said. Of course I said "no" immediately, and that she should not worry. But as I walked away I was thinking that for many people life is about money and acquiring both possessions and status for themselves and their family unit; and hand-in-hand with this comes the paranoiac fear that others are out to get them, take away what's theirs, embarrass them, and just generally act like deviants. Well, maybe there is no connection between these things, but i guess I just mean to say that life to many people these days is like war. I don't mean everyone of course - but to the majority. The motto is "plunder what you can, and mistrust any stranger, lest they get in your way or harm you". In my case, the stranger is a pervert who just spends his days sitting in mangrove hoping some attractive woman might urinate. If that were my gig then statisticians might tell me that I am choosing the wrong place to carry out this fine art. In any case, I walked away thinking (1) why would I do such a thing? and (2) why would her first reaction be to think that I would do such a thing? I guess it could be possible, but if this is someone's first assumption about what unfolded then they probably have a overly negative view of the world and of other people.

When I spoke about this with my family on the way to dinner they seemed to think the world is indeed very scary. All those murders - people getting shot in broad daylight, at the mall, in front of a busy restaurant, etc. So perhaps people have good reason to mistrust strangers. Watching the news makes you think these things happen all the time, but what is the probability of them happening to you, especially compared to let's say a car accident? Probably pretty small. So now we have all this paranoia about perverts taking urination photos, getting shot in the strip mall parking lot, etc. and become very cautious about watching what's going on around us. Yet we continue to drive with impatience and at high speeds (what % of the population doesn't speed?). But how many people are driving less, driving very carefully or patiently, or working toward making people obey traffic rules? There is an obsession with deviant behavior and mistrust of strangers. This is the majority of our society today.

Anyway, as I stepped onto a trail I saw a sign about recognizing and preventing the spread of invasive plants but I did not stop to look. But one of the first things I noticed as I paraded down the cement-lined trail was a strange looking pine-like tree with very long segmented needles and fruits resembling pine cones. Only after I came home did I realize that its name is the Australian pine, although it is actually deciduous and not a pine at all.

Australian Pine (Casuarina equisetifolia)
Family: Casuarinaceae (Beefwoods)


This species is invasive, and was introduced to Florida in the late 1800's and was used to stabilize ditches and canals and for shade and lumber. In the contiguous US, it is only found along coast of Florida. Apparently it is a great threat to coastal ecosystems. Here is a blurb from the US National Parks website:

Australian pine is fast-growing (5-10 feet per year), produces dense shade and a thick blanket of leaves and hard, pointed fruits, that completely covers the ground beneath it. Dense thickets of Australian pine displace native dune and beach vegetation, including mangroves and many other resident, beach-adapted species. Because its roots are capable of producing nitrogen through microbial associations, Australian pine can colonize nutrient-poor soils. Once established, it radically alters the light, temperature, and soil chemistry regimes of beach habitats, as it outcompetes and displaces native plant species and destroys habitat for native insects and other wildlife. Chemicals in the leaves of Australian pine may inhibit the growth of other plants underneath it. The ground below Australian pine trees becomes ecologically sterile and lacking in food value for native wildlife. Unlike native shrubbery, the thick, shallow roots of Australian pine make it much more susceptible to blow-over during high wind events, leading to increased beach and dune erosion and interference with the nesting activities of sea turtles.

Australian pine fruits


Apparently, each part of the fruit is actually a separate carpal that contains a winged seed. A closer look at the tree revealed a liquid substance resembling saliva; no idea what it is?



There was a butterfly garden but people were playing soccer around it, so I did not get a chance to check out the different species I could expect to find in this habitat. And since I don't know anything about butterflies I could not identify the two species that I saw in the park. But below are their pictures. Hopefully I will find a butterfly guide and get back to this.

Butterfly #1


Butterfly #2


After my encounter with the urinator, I saw what appears to be algae attached to a rock on the shore. It was fairly firm and had long branches with small bumps or sub-branches. The color appeared green near the base and maroon toward the tips. I didn't see any close matches in the Florida or Atlantic Seashore guidebooks.

Unidentified Algae

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Just an aside: I was listening to some opera tonight with my family and it brought back fond memories of my aunt's dog Consuela (a Toy Fox Terrier), who passed away some years ago. She used to sit in front of the television whenever there was opera on and sing along with a beautiful voice of her own. She was a very special spirit.
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While negotiating my way through the mangrove I noticed plenty of nerites (Family Neritidae) attached to the vegetation. Apparently Lamarck described this group in 1809. This species looks like checkered nerite (Nerita tessellata). The Florida guidebook says that these snails have a thick, calcified operculum that, when kept closed, protects the animal from dessication during exposure at low tide. The operculum is a feature of gastropods (largest class of mollusks; second largest class of animals next to insects) and is attached to the foot of the snail.

Checkered Nerite (Nerita tessellata)
Family: Neritidae (Nerites)


I saw an interesting plant with some dark purple fruits and nice white flowers. But I cannot identify it.

Unidentified Plant (Flowers)



Unidentified Plant (Fruit)


The following plant can be found all over south Florida, but I never really thought much about it. It has wide, stiff leaves, many of which have red colored veins. Apparently it is called a seagrape because it produces purple fruit in clusters (grape-like in appearance) during the late summer. As the leaves age they eventually turn red. It can be found in many places in the new world tropics. It is usually found near the beach, is tolerant to salt, and can be used to stabilize the edges of the beach. The fruit is edible.

Seagrape (Coccoloba uvifera)
Family: Polygonaceae (Knotweeds/Smartweeds)


My camera ran out of batteries at this point so I could not take an up close photo of the tree, so here is a picture from Wikipedia.

Seagrape (with Fruits)


-Scott