Here's
support for my Deer Lichen and Friends display
and guided hike at the Choctawhatchee Estuary
Family Festival at Rocky
Bayou State Park on May 1, 2010. Link
to what's
new, kinds
of lichen video,
which
species video, festival
handout (FAQ), graphic,
map
of hike, and info about photos in the calendar:
Deer Lake Inoutfall - Water
Sand Collage Edge and Deer
Lichen Enmeshed. Photos by P. S. Williams
who graciously was a big help with everything.
Report
Allison
Beauregard* presents
prize awards for the Mattie Kelly Environmental
Photo Contest in photo to right. The twelve
winning entries are on display. They are
featured in the 2011 Mattie Kelly calendar.
On the hike on Red Cedar Trail,
while looking for two local species of deer
lichen, someone spotted plants that looked
similar, but distinctly different. I took a
GPS waypoint and plan to return to photograph
it north of the path.
Coordinates: 30°29'51.2" N, 86°26'01.7"
W.
Robin
and Tom Stiles watched
the display during lunchtime while we led the
hike. At the end they considered eating the
tasty-looking deer lichen, which seemed quite
funny at the time. It was a joke. They decided
to leave it to the deer. However, I told many
people about the link to directions for cooking
Cladonia evansii, deer moss on EatTheWeeds.com.
Be sure to add a grain of salt, that is, don't
believe everything you read there (or here).
For one caution, the page has the incorrect spelling
of
evansii. All deer lichen facts need to
be double-checked and triple-verified since incorrect
info is slow to be corrected.
Visitors
described their favorite deer lichen sites.
A Florida Trail friend sent wonderful ground-level
pictures of deer lichen on the Florida
Trail just north of Range Road 213, west
of State Road 87 and the power lines. On the
Weaver Creek Trail map look for the Loop
Trail (Blue Blaze .9 mi.). The overview
photo on the left shows the large extent of
the field. The detail on the right is a very
big photo (almost 1 megabyte download) giving
the feel of the moist soft airy plants up close.
Another visitor described vast tracts of deer
lichen on an
island nature preserve, St.
Vincent National Wildlife Refuge.
There is a visitor center in Apalachicola.
If you don't bring your own boat, there is
a shuttle
service to the island (call 850.229.1065
for information).
I'm eager to go.
A
disadvantage of hosting a display is that I
don't have time/energy to see other displays
in depth. Aside from the many educational craft
events for children there are extensive resources
for the environment. To the right is a giant
poster comparing wingspans. Who knows what
my fellow members of the Florida Trail Association
or Choctawhatchee Basin Alliance had to offer?
At the end of the day I returned the deer
lichens from the display to three sites off
the Nature Trail to the lake in Deer Lake State
Park.
I had rescued the lichens from the path, which has
been newly built
through large established areas of lichens (see
more on What's
New 2010).
Here are the coordinates: (1.) 30°18'25.8"N,
86°04'29.0"W, (2.) 30°18'25.9"N,
86°04'30.0"W, (3.) 30°18'26.2"N,
86°04'30.4"W. I'll monitor them to
see how disturbed,
displayed, and relocated lichens
survive.
See Lookout
2010.
{Wholeo
Online} ~ {Lookout}
~ {Deer Lichen}
~ {MindField}
~ {2010}
