Prescribed Burning

   On the Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary field trip, our tour guide/FGCU naturalist was telling us about prescribed burning. It is also known as controlled  burning or swailing. Apparently, forest fires are a healthy and important part of forest development. The fires help germination of some of the important trees and plants that help keep the ecosystem balanced. It also helps keep the soil nutrient rich and encourages new growth. These fires usually char a lot of the taller pines and oaks, but doesn't necessarily kill them.Usually these fires happen naturally after a certain number of years in flat woods areas of Florida, when leaf-litter and undergrowth is thick. The fires can be caused by lightning, or a number of other reasons.

    The state of Florida does controlled burning in many of the state and national parks. They do this so that they can control the time, area, and amount of acreage being burned. This way the wildfires don't get out of control and harm the surrounding human occupied areas. I never knew how important these controlled burns were until our trip to Corkscrew Swamp.

Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary

     On the bus ride down to Corkscrew Swamp, I couldn't help being a little frustrated that I was wasting valuable study time for this university required course. It was impossible to get a wireless signal on my Kindle (try as I might), and as we pulled into the swamp, I noticed I only had one bar on my cell phone. I wasn't really expecting anything really exciting, so I prepared myself to go through the motions and get it over with. I had been on plenty of trips like this for my Environmental Science of Southwest Florida course, and I thought I knew exactly what I was walking into, again.

Then, on the boardwalk, we turned onto a straight-away and I saw this...

     A no-mans land between the place where the pine flat woods ended and the cypress swamp began. This prairie looked like it stretched for a few miles on either side of the boardwalk. The stark difference between the tall tree-ed areas on either side of it was something I don't think I've ever seen before. It was dead and alive at the same time. Hawks flew over the brown brush and a family of raccoons scampered under the boardwalk, creating paths in the wind-blown vegetation.
     I guess at that point I forgot about studying, my Kindle, and the lack of cell phone service I had. I took a picture, but mostly I just looked around. It was unexpected, maybe even made the trip worth the time I lost - maybe. Slowly, we continued into the cypress swamp. The open air was replaced by tangled bare branches, and we were consumed by the trees.