Osprey Trail, Honeymoon Island State Park

Our first field trip, to the Osprey Trail on Honeymoon Island, began with the welcome news that we would not be removing invasive Rosary Pea.  At 94 degrees or so, with little wind and 20% cloud cover, it was deemed too darn hot by Dan Larremore, the environmental special of the Island who met our group there.    

Instead, Mr. Larremore gave us a tour of the Osprey Trail, pointing out plants and animals, with a particular emphasis on invasive exotic plants. 

While waiting for our group to arrive, gathered under the shade of a large tree with a female osprey (females have a spotted “necklace”) he gave a brief history of the island. Honeymoon Island and neighboring Caladesi Island used to be a single barrier island named Hog Island, but the No Name hurricane of 1921 blew a hole through the middle of the island, now known as Hurricane Pass.  Two families lived on the island at the time; one family lost to children during the storm, and moved off the island afterwards. 

In the 1940s, thatched huts were built on the island, and marketed as free honeymoon trips, which succeeded in changing the name of the island to Honeymoon.  Vacationers from up north were likely awed by the palm trees and gorgeous coastline, and likely less enthused by the thatched huts, which probably had a cockroach problem, given the insects fondness for palm fronds. 

In the 1960s, the area was slated for development, but that project collapsed, and instead, it became a state park.

The Osprey Trail is a slash pine flatland with mangrove ecotones.  Soil is sandy. 

The first invasive exotic plant we discussed was Lantana camara.  Originally from the West Indies, Lantana creates a dense understory difficult for native plants to penetrate.  Invasive nonnative lantana has a skunky smell, whereas native lantana smells more like Juicy Fruit. 

Lantana camara

Dodder vine (brownish-orange above) is a parasitic native. It steals water from its host tree,
as well as exchanging DNA with it.

West Coast sunflowers are native plants with yellow blooms.  

Ospreys built a nest in a tree burned by a lightning-strike fire 18 years ago.

While slash pines can survive losing the understory in a fire, once the canopy is burned, they die.  Other creatures, like the ospreys, are happy to move in to the remains of the trees. 

Fire at Honeymoon is managed in 5-year cycles.  Prescribed fires are only lit during specific conditions, such as

•  High humidity
•  E/SE winds (blowing away from the mainland)
•  At 10/10:30 am or so, when the dew point drops and before the sea breeze comes in

Trails double as fire breaks. Fire is a necessary part of the ecosystem.  For instance, red cedar needs fire for their cones to open and release their seeds so they can propagate. 

Hercules' Club is a native plant with aromatic leaves when crushed. 

Hercules' Club (Zanthoxylum clava-herculis)

Blurry pic: leaves of 3, let it be (poison ivy).

Gopher tortoises create burrows 30 feet deep. They can also move surprisingly fast when a crowd of people arrive on the trail. 

Brazilian Pepper, also known as Florida Holly, is a nonnative invasive.  It is controlled by pulling it up by the root, or strangling it with an herbicide around the base.  Cutting it just means it will sprout more stems (like the Hydra of Greek myth). 

Brazilian Pepper (Schinus herebinthifolius)

Rosary Pea, an invasive exotic, has red, decorative berries that are sometimes used in jewelry and are also extremely toxic if eaten, particularly if they are crushed, at that allows more of the poison into the system. 

Rosary pea 

Cribbed from the helpful sign on the trail: "An invasive-exotic plant species is an introduced species that has been shown to displace the native vegetation by out-competing native species. Without the limiting factors that normally keep invasive plants under control in their native homes, they overwhelm and displace existing native vegetation to form dense, single species stand that dominate and alter the original natural community." 

On Honeymoon Island, non-native is described as anything that arrived before 1500 AD or so.  Human and animal activity help disperse seeds far from their native homes.  Cogan grass, for instance, another invasive in the area, likely arrived as packaging material on shipping crates from Asia.  Birds also do their part transporting seed in their digestive tracts.