2023

Birch State Park, Fort Lauderdale, Florida

After getting out of college for the year, I visited my dad's new place down in Florida for a week. Fort Lauderdale's an impressive and growing town, the perfect place for old gaymen like him. While we had always planned to visit the Everglades, it made sense to visit the more local state park first. Not much in terms of birds, but the bugs we saw were extraordinary.

Gonna drop a quick arachnophobia warning before getting started here. I have tropical spiders to show, some of them very large. But if you're up for it I'm sure they'd love to see you!

Normally I don't really know arthropod species - I'm mainly focusing on getting the orders down - but this peculiarly-shaped guy is G. cancriformis. They're the only spiny orb-weavers in North America, so you can tell even with the awful lighting.

Now for another of my favorite photos! Somehow, I managed to spot this butterfly right above us, camoflagued by a dead leaf, and they fluttered over to a more visible green one. The light shone through its wings in such a perfect way that I could capture every detail.

We had decided to enter one of the park's forest trails, and as we ventured deeper into it, it got more and more laden with spider webs. Eventually we were roadblocked by a huge web, spanning from the left side of the trail to the right. In the middle was an emormous spider with warning colors.

After hesitating together with my dad on what to do next, I decided to duck down and move very carefully under the web in the last picture. I am extremely grateful that I thought to look up before rising back up, because right above me was another web I hadn't seen, with an even bigger spider in it! Judging by the little guys around, this one's probably a mama spider.

This park was also populated by many northern mockingbirds. They can actually be found in great number throughout all of Fort Lauderdale, where they outnumber even typical common birds like the house sparrow. After identifying them to him and showing him Merlin Bird ID, my dad has since taken a liking to spotting them on his own time!