The Trailblazer

It's rainy season in Hillsborough County. That means slogging wet roads and  lots of mosquitoes on many of our Hillsborough County Nature Preserves.  However, don’t put away your boots and binoculars yet – check out this list of  dry and shady county hikes, and you won’t miss the spectacular wildflowers and wildlife! Top 7 Shady Hikes Alafia River Corridor Nature Preserve - North  9256 South County Rd. 39,  Plant City, 33567 Map The Alafia River Corridor Nature Preserve is a 4,070 acre preserve encompassing lands along the Alafia River east of the Bell Shoals Bridge, extending upstream along the North Prong into Polk County, and along the South Prong to Jameson Road.  The preserve contains many different habitat types and also includes areas that were formerly mined for phosphate. The site is home to some listed species including gopher tortoises, eastern indigo snake, American alligator as well as many others. Hike the red trail to take advantage of the sh...

Are you stuck at home with kids who need some entertainment? Try one of these fun, natural crafts that you can make with items you have at home- no shopping trip required! Each craft can be made with only items that you probably have at home and in your backyard or neighborhood park. We've included work-around options in case you don't have some of these supplies and don't want to make a special trip to the store! If you do gather natural materials from a public area, remember to practice social distancing, even outdoors, with those who don't live in your household. Be mindful of nature and don't take too much of anything- and remember, if you're on a Hillsborough County Nature Preserve or at a county or state park, all plants and animals are protected and shouldn't be disturbed.  Pine Cone Bird Feeder Peanutbutter pine cone bird feeder, Bradley West, CC BY 2.0 Over 500 species of birds can be found in Florida. Some migrate here from the tropics or the north...

Enjoy these wildlife scavenger hunts that you can do on your own or with friends and family! Almost all of our Hillsborough County Nature Preserves are open again (except for Apollo Beach Nature Preserve, which remains closed to the public). It's time to get back outside and explore! These scavenger hunts are a great addition to your routine while hiking, bird watching, or simply enjoying the outdoors. Just remember to continue social distancing with those outside of your household and give other hikers plenty of space. Each of these printable wildlife scavenger hunt pages features species that you can find in nature preserves, but you may have to visit multiple preserves to complete each one, and some species are much harder to find than others. Just click on the link under each section to open that particular scavenger hunt, then either print the file out or download it and follow along on your phone as you hike. Find a preserve near you here - each preserve web page has a link ...

As you hike, you'll come to 6 numbered trail markers (shown on the map)- the first two in Stephen J. Wortham Park and the next four in Rhodine Scrub Preserve. At each trail marker,  stop and listen to (or read)  the short informational clip provided. You can download each file separately using the links provided OR download the entire audio file and pause it between trail markers. You can also download the text to read along instead of listening. Remember to  bring a trail map, water, bug spray, and a snack  with you and tell someone where you're going.  Happy hiking!  Trail Map and Text Links The parking lot for Rhodine Scrub is located in Stephen J. Wortham park; download the trail map to see where the park and preserve connect.  >>Rhodine Scrub Trail Map this is a geo-referenced trail map, meaning that if you download a mapping app like  Avenza  on your smartphone and open this PDF in the app, it will let you see your location on the...

Frogs are hard to find and catch, so we're surveying them by listening to their nocturnal calls! If you think of the night as a quiet, peaceful time, you probably haven’t done much night hiking. Hillsborough County’s Nature Preserves are absolutely chock full of exciting sounds after dark (you can find out yourself by signing up for one of our guided night hikes, which are advertised in the Trailblazer newsletter each month and on our Community Calendar. Guided hikes will resume after the Safer-at-Home Order is lifted, when the county administrator allows events to resume). Some of the sounds, like bat calls, are harder to hear, but crickets, cicadas, owls, and frogs are all easily detectable by the human ear, and can even be deafeningly loud in some places. It’s a good thing for the Environmental Lands Research Analysts Team (EL-RAT) that frog calls are so audible. EL-RAT is currently surveying frogs in nature preserves, and these small creatures are extremely difficult to find an...

Palmetto re-growing after a prescribed fire As we hike through the woods or walk through our neighborhoods, most of us don’t pay too much attention to the plants around us- they’re a nice part of the scenery, but we’re more likely to be looking for birds or deer than rare plants. If you’re hiking in a Hillsborough County ELAPP Nature Preserve , though, you may get the opportunity to spot some rare and beautiful native plants- all you have to do is look down! One of these beautiful but rarely seen plants is the native orchid Calopogon multiflorus , also known as the many-flowered grass pink. It’s one of 26 orchid species documented in Hillsborough County Nature Preserves. When it’s not flowering, this plant might be mistaken by a casual observer as a little clump of grass, but that all changes when it begins to bloom. The flower spikes can grow to be over a foot tall and are covered in bright pink, complex flowers with orange centers - a beautiful surprise for any hiker. Due to the loss...

Gopher tortoise peering out of its shell If you’ve ever been hiking on a Hillsborough County Nature Preserve, there’s a good chance you’ve seen a gopher tortoise munching some grass, sunning near the trail, or peering out of a burrow. The only tortoise native to the southeastern U.S., these slow-growing and long-lived reptiles are found in many dry upland areas of Hillsborough County. Gopher tortoises are a keystone species, meaning they have a disproportionately large effect on the ecosystem because hundreds of mammal, bird, reptile, and insect species find shelter in their burrows. Without these burrows to use as hiding spots, shade, and protection from fire, many sensitive and important species would not be able to survive. Sadly, development and suburban sprawl have fractured and degraded their upland habitat so much that gopher tortoises are now listed as a threatened species in Florida.  To keep our gopher tortoise populations healthy and thriving, it’s important for the Cons...

      Bats flying into the sunset (Anne Froschauer, CC BY 2.0 )  Most of us don’t get the opportunity to spend much time around bats, but these flying mammals are a common and crucial part of Hillsborough County’s nocturnal scene. They do us a huge service by eating thousands of insects every night, including mosquitoes and other pest insects.  Their appetite for bugs makes our outdoor recreation much more enjoyable, reduces the number of mosquitoes present to spread disease, and even helps to protect crops from insects that may damage them. Bats are a vital part of Florida’s ecosystems, and assessing the diversity of bat species can give us a great idea of an area’s overall biodiversity. Eastern red bat with three babies (Josh Henderson, CC BY-SA 2.0 ) Tricolored bat (Pete Pattavina, public domain) In last month’s newsletter we introduced you to the Environmental Lands Research Analysts Team (EL-RAT), Bernie Kaiser and Gillian Seymour. EL-RAT has been working o...

Take a walk through any Hillsborough County ELAPP Nature Preserve and you’ll probably find evidence of recent land management activities like prescribed fire. We burn these nature preserves to improve and maintain wildlife habitats, reduce wildfire risk, and return nutrients to the soil. When a preserve doesn’t have a good source of native seed nearby, we plant vegetation and seeds to help the site's plant and animal communities thrive. In preserves where a lack of fire has caused the original scrub or sandhill communities to become overgrown, we perform hardwood reduction to remove the trees that have grown up through decades of fire exclusion. We work hard to manage and restore our natural areas, but how do we know that our land management efforts are working?  Can we identify how these projects have benefited the plant and animal communities in our preserves? Savannah milkweed, Asclepias pedicellata That’s where the Environmental Lands Research Analysts Team (EL-RAT) comes in. ...

How many insects do you see in a day?  Probably far more than you actually notice!  The next time you’re out hiking or taking a walk in your neighborhood, challenge yourself to pay attention to every insect that flutters by. You may be amazed by what you see- we certainly were. Zebra swallowtail butterfly feeding on blazing star flower Recently, members of the Hillsborough County Conservation and Environmental Lands Management team had the opportunity to take part in a butterfly count with the North American Butterfly Association (NABA) . Working in conjunction with other groups in the region, we hiked through meadows, woods, and salt flats, identifying and counting every butterfly we saw and taking some pictures to identify mystery butterflies later. We were easily able to stick to social distancing guidelines on the wide hiking trails. At the beginning of the count, our team headed out to the coastal salt flats in the hopes of seeing a salt marsh skipper, a small and fast-f...

Fire Flora Anyone who has ever gardened or worked on their landscaping at home knows the mantra “right plant, right place”. We’d like to add “right time”. If you’ve ever tried to plant lettuce in the summertime, you know it’s an exercise in futility! Natural areas operate exactly the same way. There’s a reason that you won’t find a cypress tree in upland scrub habitat or a longleaf pine on the beach. Root structures, soil acidity, and water flow are all factors that contribute to an individual plant’s survival and a population’s ability to thrive in any given ecosystem. One fascinating factor that promotes healthy populations of some flora refers to plants that thrive with the presence of fire, or pyrophytes. There are several subcategories of this term: Passive pyrophytes : resist fire with structures such as thick bark or deep root systems, making them extremely adaptable to areas that see frequent fire from lighting strikes. Active pyrophytes : are dependent on fire to eliminate com...