October 20th Class - Calusa Nature Center

Today our class took a field trip to the Calusa Nature Center, which is a 105 acre sanctuary with nature trails, a museum, and planetarium exhibits. We started off our trip with a presentation on different kinds of snakes as well as a snapping turtle. We were shown two types of pythons (Ball and Burmese) and they were both relatively young. A lot of the snakes that they have at the Nature Center are rescues that they take in either in the wild or from people who do not want them anymore. A lot of people let their snakes go because they cannot keep up with feeding them as they continue to grow, which is where the Center steps in. We noticed they have chickens on site and we could only assume they were for the snakes. After the snakes they brought out a full grown Snapping Turtle, and we were all surprised by how small it was considering it was full size. Snapping turtles are much smaller than gopher tortoises but the snapper turtle has an incredible bite. It has the ability to bite your finger clean off if it catches it with the right amount of force. They also could not emphasize enough how important it is to be able to tell the difference between turtles and tortoises because so many tortoises die because people put them in water thinking they are helping them but they are actually killing them!


Unfortunately the gentleman who was supposed to take us on our tour of the Calusa Nature Center never showed up, so we were sort of left on our own to tour the location. There was a nice woman who had just moved to Florida a few years ago who also helped us with the tour. We first walked through a butterfly garden but sadly we only saw one butterfly in there. Then we walked over to the atrium which housed many different kinds of birds. There were hawks, vultures (which we learned clean themselves with their own vomit), a Bald Eagle who will reside there permanently, and a few other birds.









Then we started making our way through the forest where we saw a lot of familiar trees and plants that we had seen on our other field trips (slash pines, beauty berries, air potatoes, etc.). It was pointed out that there are at least seven layers in that forest including the emergent layer, the canopy, the understory the shrubs, the forest floor, the shells, the dirt, and possibly even more. As we continued down the nature trails we came across the biggest cluster of Alligator Flags I have ever seen. These flags signal deep water and is usually where alligators go during dry season because it has the most water left.

Despite the Nature Center being so close to the road, it was so quiet in the trees. There was a real sense of being in touch with nature there, and everything was so calm and peaceful. It felt so nice to get away from a busy schedule and just walk through the woods.