The Nature of Fort Myers

[urbpan]

We spent some time trying to "find" Fort Myers. Gertrude Stein may have lamented that "there's no there there" about her home town of Oakland, but I've heard it more accurately applied to other places. We tried in vain to find a town center, walkable village, or cohesive sense of Fort Myers that we could understand as New Englanders. One time I set the GPS for Centennial Park, in "downtown" Fort Myers. There were tall buildings and a park, but we didn't stay long. This laughing gull gave us a funny look as we looked across to the hotels of North Fort Myers where spent the night.



Speaking of North Fort Myers, just rewind about an hour in the narrative and this was the sight that greeted us as we left the iHop where we ate breakfast. 20 or so vultures circling in a great wheel over our hotel. Fortunately I'm a big fan of vultures, and took it as an omen of badassery, not anything gloomy.


So we set off for a point on the map called "Six Mile Slough," but before we got there I saw a sign for "Calusa Nature Center and Planetarium," and pulled us into there. This Virginia creeper in fall colors wrapped around a palmetto leaf struck me as incongruous, but that's just because I'm from the northern part of the creeper's range well away from anything in the palm family.


Inside the Calusa Nature Center there were caged animals, including this adorable juvenile American alligator!


These are Cuban anoles, the largest anole species.


Didn't get this guy's name! Anyone?


Outside the Nature Center building there were unreleasable native wildlife. Here's a very casual looking gray fox.


Another great sign warning you not to be an idiot.


A small mushroom rises confidently above the leaf litter.


Pines and palmettos, and Dad.


A small polypore mushroom with a delicate banded edge.


These seem to be Bisporella citrina.


Some pixie cup lichens.


A dead palm log bristling with Cladonia lichens.


A nice winter blooming wood aster.


More Virginia creeper, throwing fall color into the ever green Florida landscape.


A zebra longwing, the Florida state butterfly.


This is the ventral (bottom) side of Gasteracantha cancriformis, the spiny orb-weaver. This web was at the edge of a trail that sloped drastically down to a creek. In order to get around the other side of it without breaking the web or sliding down into the creek I very carefully crept and crawled, only to fill my sandals with sweethearts.


Sweethearts are the fruit of the sandspur, a tropical grass that encloses its seed in a viciously sharp bur that hurts like a bastard when you step on them. I'd previously developed a deep dislike for this plant in Antigua. They are useful, I must admit, for keeping people on the path.


Back at the Nature Center I chatted up the guy cleaning the cages about zookeeping. Like me he's got a lot of practical experience and relatively little formal schooling; he aspires to work in a proper zoo some day. He let me get a nice close shot of these red-shouldered hawks. Good luck Jose, I hope to see you at the Naples Zoo some day!