Temp: 24°c

Today we journeyed to the Loxahatchee reserve where an experiment is in constant effect, this is LILA: Loxahatchee Impoundment Landscape Assessment.

LILA is a system of four identical scaled down pools that emulate the Everglades ecosystem, these pools can have their water levels altered to any required level.

The natural hydrology of Florida is unknown as no records exist before human colonisation.

The hydrology of the Everglades is always uncertain.

The role of LILA is to attempt to correct the hydrologic condition of the Everglades. LILA can independently manage the water level and timing of higher or lower water levels to test the restoration of the area. The key parts this manages is the quantity of water, the time that water is in drought or flood and the sections of the bodies of water these occur.

Before the destruction of the Everglades the area was home to approximately 100’s of thousands of nests this number has dropped to at least 20-30 thousand.

A tree is a biodiversity hotspot. The Everglades has lost 90% of its tree islands since the effect of man altering the flow of water.

The LILA reserve has a record of 7000 trees they can find out the life data for. Half of these have been killed as a result of the tests although this is good as it can show the effects of changing water conditions.

Additional observations: on route to the Loxahatchee Sam Whittaker and I went exploring and stumbled along a deceased White Pelican its head had been picked clean of skin and flesh whereas its body was still covered in white feathers our initial theory that it was attacked by an American Alligator shortly after catching its lunch; there was a fish found less than a metre away.

The absence of the body being eaten might suggest otherwise unless the alligator just fancied a nice flabby bill snack.

My other theory is that the White Pelican just died of an unknown cause and since then the corpse has been scavenged by raptors such as Black and Turkey Vultures, there was an American Kestrel perched nearby although the size of the kestrel makes scavenging the pelican unlikely.

Animals:

We saw various species of animals on the Loxahatchee reserve many of which were birds highlights were the baby Screech Owls in the nests above the swamp the super-fast Black Racer, a huge terrapin or (turtle) as they say over here, a Purple Gallinule and a tiny green tree frog I’ve yet to identify. We also observed several Bald Eagles which are astoundingly more common than expected.