2003 SCBWF Articles

Great Florida Birding Trail | Hike Florida-For the Birds! | Going with the Florida Flow | Florida State Forests

The Great Florida Birding Trail
by Julie Brashears, GFBR Coordinator
Today's typical Florida tourist prefers kayaks to golf carts; enjoys sweat and wind in her hair; and favors live animals over animated ones. The face of Florida tourism is changing ... and it has feathers.
According to the National Survey on Recreation and the Environment in 2001, nearly 1 in 4 Americans are birdwatchers to some degree. Birding is the fastest growing outdoor pastime in the United States, and is growing fastest in the south.
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Hike Florida—For the Birds!
by Sandra Friend
"Look! They're pink!"
Several hours into a hike through one of the more remote sections of the Florida Trail in the Northern Everglades, enjoying the vast marshes of the Rottenberger Wildlife Management Area from the safety of a high dike, my friends and I encountered what we thought were a pair of ibises working their way down the L-3 canal—until we got close enough to see the light pink plumage and distinctive spoonbills. Moments later, a flock of scarlet ibises swooped overhead. We watched in wonderment as they disappeared over the sea of grass and willow islands.
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Going with the Florida Flow
by Herb Hiller
Water defines Florida with 8,500 miles of tidal shore, 7,800 lakes, 320 springs and 35 rivers. Visitors can cheerfully regard Florida as the world's largest water park.
The Ichetucknee and Rainbow Rivers are natural waterslides. For thrills, surf the Atlantic off Cocoa Beach or paddle Big Shoals on the Suwannee River.
From sea kayaks along the Big Bend Saltwater Paddling Trail to yachts on parade on Fort. Lauderdale's waterfront, Floridians revel on the water.
Florida's water is bridged, tunneled under, ferried across, hiked beside, houseboated on, skimmed by airboat and, at beaches, toe-tested by tots. Fishing piers extend into the brine; great sea turtles haul themselves up from it to lay eggs in beach nests. Castles get built and treasure gets hunted for.
But mostly, folks relax.
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Florida State Forests
by John Waldron, FL Division of Forestry
When European explorers first arrived in Florida over 400 years ago, they experienced a vast wilderness made up of long stem grasses, flowering plants, towering pines and majestic oaks. As they pushed through the interior of the state they discovered meandering blackwater rivers, clear springs and streams. They found the forests rich with a variety of wildlife, particularly birds. But most of all, in this vast unchartered territory they found themselves fairly much alone, except for isolated pockets of native Indians, who knew the value of space, solitude and self-reliance.
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