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Post by htmb on Aug 24, 2012 0:35:11 GMT
I live in north Florida and my home is built next to a very old sinkhole which is a part of the watershed and drainage for my area. The water drains into the aquifer and also runs off into a creek system. This particular sinkhole appears to be fairly shallow to the eye, but is currently filled with a lot of water due to the torrential rains we have been having for the past week. Much of it is also filled with lush vegetation (more than shown in the photos), and is home to many small animals, birds, and occasional deer and coyote. My part of Florida is also home to numerous springs since the aquifer is relatively close to the surface. Until the 1970s, many people dumped their garbage into sinkholes, thus contributing to the pollution of the aquifer. I know of agricultural areas where oil and pesticides were dumped, and I once bought a piece of rural land that had a sink hole with at least one old truck down it (had it removed). I suppose the attitude of the past was based on ignorance and "out of sight, out of mind." Since the '70s there have been major penalties levied against those who misused land in this way, and often former owners have been forced to clean up damage done in the past. However, we humans have certainly seemed to try to do our best to destroy our earth. The pictures below show only a couple of small, open areas of the sinkhole. I would estimate the total area is at least two acres wide and most of it is currently covered with thick vegetation reaching approximately twenty feet high. Much of that will die back once we have a frost.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 24, 2012 4:59:53 GMT
I love the pictures. No 'gators in the area?
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Post by bixaorellana on Aug 24, 2012 5:48:53 GMT
Lovely views of a naturally wild area that must be alive with sound and tiny movements in real life.
I remember back in the 70s there were a couple of incidences of sinkholes opening in urban areas in Florida. They'd simply been paved over with no thought of the consequences.
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Post by mossie on Aug 24, 2012 6:55:34 GMT
And here is me thinking that Florida was all luscious fruit and blondes Thanks very much for showing us there is real nature there.
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Post by htmb on Aug 24, 2012 10:18:21 GMT
The terrain and vegetation in north Florida is very different from the south. We are very green with lots of deciduous trees and even an occasional rolling hill.
While I've never seen a gator in this particular sinkhole, there are gators in other bodies of water nearby. Since they are known to change locations, especially during mating season, I wouldn't be surprised to find one floating in the grasses someday. There are also thousands of human "gators" in the area.
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Post by htmb on Aug 24, 2012 11:06:52 GMT
View from above, taken just at dawn:
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Post by onlymark on Aug 24, 2012 13:43:17 GMT
And here is me thinking that Florida was all luscious fruit and blondes And I thought it was all luscious blondes and fruit.
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Post by htmb on Aug 24, 2012 14:19:55 GMT
And here is me thinking that Florida was all luscious fruit and blondes And I thought it was all luscious blondes and fruit. I'm surprised you didn't say "Mickey." That is what most Americans think of when you mention Florida.
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Post by mossie on Aug 24, 2012 14:28:03 GMT
Mickey was so far down the list as to be totally off the radar ;D
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Post by Deleted on Aug 24, 2012 16:26:07 GMT
Well, at least I know about the human gators of Gainesville.
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Post by htmb on Aug 24, 2012 16:37:51 GMT
Probably much more than I know about "rebels."
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Post by htmb on Aug 25, 2012 2:29:03 GMT
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Post by lugg on Aug 25, 2012 19:02:01 GMT
Really enjoyed reading this htmb
The last photo of the door to the centre is really lovely.
Crocs / alligators really fill me with dread . I have seen them of course in zoos or in controlled environments and dont have the screaming heebie jeebies; it is more an almost avatistic response when I think about meeting one in the wild.
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Post by htmb on Aug 25, 2012 19:49:36 GMT
Thank you, lugg. I'm glad you are enjoying this thread and hope to add more photos soon. I treat alligators with a very healthy dose of respect. They are very prehistoric creatures and, with a brain the size of a Lima bean, they act purely on instinct. They can climb fences when necessary and can rise up on their four legs and run very fast for short distances. They are particularly dangerous during May/June mating season. I am very careful when walking around alligator populated areas such as Lake Alice, but I have often seen students who get too close and who don't seem to understand the potential threat. Alligators are particularly dangerous for small animals and young children, as they will lunge after anything they perceive as easy food. They often become less wary of humans if they've been regularly fed. Many visitors to Lake Alice use to toss the gators marshmallows, but I think that practice has been mostly curtailed. Up until I was a college freshman there was an alligator kept in a concrete pen right in the middle of campus. It was a very sad, seemingly lethargic animal. magazine.ufl.edu/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Albert-in-his-pen.jpgFortunately, she was released to Lake Alice after student protests (we were protesting a lot of things back then). I am always very wary of alligators when I kayak and do my best to avoid them. I don't kayak much in water where there are numerous gators, but if I happen to come across one (or more!) I give it lots of space.
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Post by bixaorellana on Aug 26, 2012 6:09:08 GMT
My gosh, this is a beautiful thread! Thanks for expanding it in order to show us more. The pictures are absolutely wonderful. Love that entryway to the Baughman Center -- a perfect contemporary rendering of a classic style & it fits so well in that environment.
I was peacefully fishing in one of the lagoons in New Orleans' City Park once, when a 7' (at least) alligator suddenly surfaced and rolled. We skedaddled out of there!
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Post by Deleted on Aug 26, 2012 19:04:28 GMT
I hooked a very small alligator fishing in the bayous once. It was only about a foot and a half long, but my father preferred to cut the line immediately, once I dragged the creature into viewing distance. I fully agreed.
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Post by htmb on Aug 26, 2012 19:23:43 GMT
Somewhere I have a photo of me holding a four foot long alligator while attending an event at Silver Springs. That's not something I would typically do, but there were two handlers with it and the mouth was secured so it couldn't bite. No one else was willing, so I gave it a shot. It was heavier than I thought it would be and the skin hide was rough and dry.
It is illegal to possess or kill an alligator in the state of Florida without a special license, but somehow my little brother managed to have two very small (15 - 20 cm?) "pets" he kept in the bathtub for a while "back in the day," and of course they didn't live long. However, i do remember those little things being pretty feisty. If there is a nuisance alligator reported in Florida licensed hunters are sent to capture them. Rarely are the gators ever relocated. Instead, the hunters sell the meat and the hide.
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Post by htmb on Aug 30, 2012 20:12:53 GMT
I ordered a new camera with a zoom lens this week (thanks for your help, bixa!) and I have been dying to try it out. I have loved my old point and shoot camera very much. It has served me well, but just doesn't have a zoom and has some other limited capabilities, too. However, I've really had a bit of a time justifying purchasing a new camera just to have a zoom lens. We have continued to have lots of rain and severe weather since Isaac, but it was fairly dry for awhile this afternoon when I was out running errands in the middle of the city. Since I had my new camera with me I decided to stop at a tiny park on my return trip. The park is just off a very well-traveled four lane city street and not far from two even more heavily traveled boulevards. However, there are many preserved water-ways in town and natural corridors through which there is a lot of animal travel. This little park is a place that's typically deserted, particularly since the mosquitoes are brutal right now thanks to Isaac. The first thing I saw as I pulled into the limited parking area was a family of Cardinals. This picture was shot through the front windshield of my car. The park has a little clearing where there is some playground equipment, a small pavilion for picnics, and a trail that leads through the woods. Since the path was very muddy, and I was wearing sandals, I decided to take some photos at the beginning of the path where a natural creek runs under a culvert. In the area there are many hardwoods, palmettos, and an occasional flowering vine. During the ten minutes I had been in the park I had started to get a bit of a feel for the settings on my new camera, had switched off automatic because the photos were coming out too dark, and had even given the zoom a try. Streams such as this are called "seepage streams" because water come from rainfall seeping through forest floor. The water is very clean because the sand acts as a natural filter. The water flows into a bigger creek which later empties into the Floridan aquifer through a big sinkhole several miles away. Standing next to the railing above, the mosquitoes were really starting to bite and I decided I needed to leave soon. Bites on my arms were starting to itch as I turned around and realized I was being watched. Had I not just purchased a new camera with a zoom lens, this would be the best picture I could possibly have taken. But as I froze and they froze, I carefully adjusted the zoom until I was able to get several shots of before they scampered off into the woods. My little camera performed well, and I certainly am now finished trying to justify my purchase!
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Post by bixaorellana on Aug 30, 2012 20:35:50 GMT
The results of your new camera are beyond impressive, Htmb, but I think you'd be able to get impressive results from a Brownie box camera as well! You have much more control over the zoom than I do.
Love the shots of that wooded area, especially the way you captured the water, and of course the bambi are just outstanding.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 30, 2012 20:59:56 GMT
Beautiful photos, but what struck me was the brown water. There was a river -- the Wolf River -- where we went to swim a few times when I was little and it had the same brown but clear water. I imagine there is an iron deposit somewhere along the river that causes the hue.
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Post by htmb on Aug 30, 2012 21:01:22 GMT
Aw shucks, bixa, you are too kind. BTW....extra battery is supposed to be in the mail.
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Post by htmb on Aug 30, 2012 21:06:58 GMT
Kerouac, I'm glad you mentioned the color of the water. It's actually stained a reddish-brown by the tannic acid released by decaying leaves and other vegetation. It's the same thing that colors tea.
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Post by mossie on Aug 31, 2012 6:59:16 GMT
Thanks for that Htmb, I sit here drinking my breakfast mug of tea and you tell me I'm tannin' my guts.
Well done with the new camera, it's always a drag to justify the expense, but heck, you just know you must have it.
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Post by htmb on Aug 31, 2012 15:28:59 GMT
Mossie, one of the things that helped me make the decision to buy the camera was the comment you made to bixa about there being "lots of good cameras out there. Just make a choice and go with it." I'm paraphrasing, but hope you know what I mean. I love my little camera and only wish I had even more opportunities to use it.
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Post by htmb on Sept 1, 2012 23:37:02 GMT
This afternoon, two days after our last heavy rain from Isaac, I made a visit to the sinkhole originally reported about at the beginning of this thread. I wanted to see how the area had been affected by a week and a half of heavy rainshowers. I found the foliage to be even greener in most places, but in others I discovered washouts where water overflowed the downhill side, and wider paths where water rushed into the hole from uphill. I can also report that the mosquitoes are thriving, as are vines and sticky, prickly plants. This tree is on the high side of the hole on very dry ground. I didn't see any wildlife (I was on the alert for snakes), but the water is teeming with very noisy bullfrogs. While there didn't seem to be as many birds in the bushes as before, I did get a glimpse of a red tailed hawk flying overhead. The area shown in the next photo is on the high side of the sinkhole. It was more recently a very narrow, overgrown animal trail leading down into the center of the vegetation. However, it's been widened by the wash of water flooding down the path. Though it is hard to see the difference in the depth of the next two photos, They were taken on the lowest end where water emptied out of the hole, spilling over a path on the south side. The trail is almost washed out and I suspect that if I had tried to get down there a couple of days ago I would have found the pathway impassible.
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Post by htmb on Sept 2, 2012 21:18:16 GMT
Today I headed back to Lake Alice on the University of Florida campus to try out some more shots with my new camera and to see if I could find more wildlife. A married student housing complex is located across from the lake, as well as the university child are center. Situated in an area adjacent to the housing complex and a city neighborhood is a space set aside for student vegetable gardening. And beyond the student gardens are two bat houses which are home to an estimated 300,000 bats. Video of bats leaving the bat houses can be found by clicking here.Across the street in the lake I found this three-legged guy who was hanging about, probably hoping for some bread crusts. But I wasn't there to see turtles. Today I was looking for alligators that I could capture with my new zoom. This little fella was resting up near the shore, but took off when his older brother decided to head my way. I was happy to be standing up on an elevated walkway, rather than down at the water's edge. A beautiful morning on a gorgeous lake, particularly if you're a gator.
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Post by lugg on Sept 3, 2012 5:04:16 GMT
More beautiful photos htmb. Your camera zoom is impressive, and what gorgeous photos of the deer.
I was wondering if the feather upright plant that you have a close up of is tamarisk ? It looks similar to a tree I have in my garden, I remember Kimby saying that it can be invasive in US in riparian settings.
And last not least .....what splendidly hideously awful alligators
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Post by htmb on Sept 3, 2012 13:09:18 GMT
Thank you, lugg. I'm glad you like my photos.
I am not sure about that plant, but it would make sense that it was an invasive type. Perhaps Kimby will let us know.
Alligators are just so "prehistoric" looking.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 3, 2012 14:08:16 GMT
I really love the photos of the vegetation in #27 -- such a variety of shades of green and different leaf shapes in such a spall space.
Alligators are always delightfully photogenic.
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Post by htmb on Sept 3, 2012 15:07:46 GMT
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