North Palm Beach

This weekend I was busy dogsitting 4 lovely pups up near Jupiter, Florida. While I was in the area I thought I would do some exploring at all my old haunts. I started the morning off at MacArthur Beach State Park where I went to check out the potential migrants. They have a lovely hammock trail that albeit short, proves to attract the warblers. On this trip though the trees were quiet except for one busy female American Redstart.

The Wild Coffee is in bloom now.
Instead of the birds I did practice my butterfly ID skills. There were many Julia Heliconians and Zebra Heliconians fluttering about. Both of these butterflies are in the brushfoot family. I'm new to studying Lepidoptera and it's been a slow approach at incorporating them into my walks. I am sure this will improve with time and practice.


In this Strangler Fig I found the only other birds of the morning: Gray Catbird and Northern Cardinal. They were both flitting about in the shadows. With a slow start I decided to switch up habitats and hike some of the scrub. There are a handful of really great parks on the scrub dune ridges in Jupiter. I figured the Jupiter Ridge hike would be short enough before the morning sun blasted me.


It's taken me awhile to really appreciate the scrub communities. They are hot, brutal to hike in during the summer, and unforgiving you forget to bring enough water. But they also are home to a variety of imperiled wildlife such as Gopher Tortoises and Florida Scrub-Jays. One of the reasons I really like hiking these parks is that they give you a sense of Florida before the development and you always run into something expected. The last time I hiked this particular park I was attacked by Black Flies at sunset but I also saw a long-tailed Bobcat.


Here I saw a whole murder of Fish Crows and one solitary Eastern Towhee singing its heart out. They really are a beautiful bird and the rufous and black colors complemented the scrubby background. One thing to note is that the Florida and southern Georgia Towhee have a yellowish eye, while the northernly cousins sport a red eye. After a short while I met a strange man on the path and he was so weird acting that I decided to abandon my plan to hike the loop and head home.

On the way out I stood in this low depression marsh area and listened to the frogs call. There wasn't any water in the area but you could tell the ground was damp. And with the cloudy sky it proved to be a great spot to just stand and feel the breeze off the ocean run over my body.

In the parking lot I noticed that the Sea Grapes were fruiting. I read somewhere that they were edible. I plucked off the ripest one I could find and gave it a try. The texture was nice, much softer than I expected, the skin was very thin. But then the bitter taste hit me and I gave up my taste testing. Some fruits are better left for the birds.