Freshwater Area

                                                 CORKSCREW SWAMP



Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary

  Corkscrew swamp was the first field trip my colloquium class took this semester. I was nervous about going on this field trip because I did not know what to expect and I had heard that in colloquium we would take swamp walks and I was not looking forward to walking through a swamp. As we began our field trip down the boardwalk I would have never imagined that their was so much history behind the land that corkscrew is preserving.  


Back in the 1900's corkscrew was a very popular location where hunters would come to shot plume birds that were very popular here in south Florida. This became such a problem that Audborn began a campaign and this campaign ended this horrid  hunting disaster for these birds.


Plume Bird

 The Cypress Logging is another important tree that is preserved in Corkscrew  Swamp Sanctuary. Back in the 1950's a man named Joe Brown wrote an article to the Miami Herald informing them about the limitation of the old-growth cypress. This article brought alot of attention to this issue about saving the old-growth cypress forest and now Corkscrew protects about 700 acres of cypress forest. Today Corkscrew is the largest preserve in the nation. They have recorded that some cypress tress are up to 700 years old.

Cypress Forest

This is just some history background that I learned about while on the field trip at Corkscrew Swamp. Their was also the extensive drainage and diversion of water in the 1960's which is still a problem today. How our world is over populating so fast and we are damaging animals natural habitats and causing them to become endangered. Another issue that caught my attention was the wet and dry season in South Florida. The wet season in South Florida is normally May through October and a good percentage of our rain falls during those months. The average rain that Corkscrew gets during those months is 46". The rain is always good for the swamp because this is when the insect population explodes and the swamp over flows. On the other hand the dry season is very dangerous for the swamp. The swamp level becomes very low and animals begin to die because they get stuck in the ponds with no water flow so then they are not able to get out. This is a continues cycle that happens all year around.


The boardwalk is home to many habitats for example; pine flatwoods, wet prairie, pond cypress, bald cypress, and lettuce lake. During the field trip we had time to just stop and take in everything we were seeing and the sounds we could hear. The night before our field trip it had rained so the swamp was very wet and the water level was high as well. During this time of reflexion I hear a noise of a pig snorting. At least I could have sworn it was a pig in the swamp. Then I learned that it was not a pig but it is called a pig frog.I found this so interesting because the noise it makes is exactly like a pig. I wish I would have been able to see the frog but we could not find it.

Pig Frog

The living machine to me was the most interesting thing at the Corkscrew Swamp. The living machine is a form of sustainability that the swamp uses. When we first arrived to the boardwalk several students used the bathroom and when we came out Adam our leader told us that we just invested into the living machine. I did not understand at first what he meant by that but then he explained it to us. The living machine uses water, sunlight, bacteria, plants and animals to treat and clean the water to make it sustainable to recycle into the toilets. I did not know something like that could happen but I found it very interesting. The process is much more complex that how I explained it but that is the way I understand it.

The process of the living machine

Overall I enjoyed this field trip and I think it was a great start to this semester and I am excited to see the other field trips we will be taking this semester!

all photes were taken from www.google.com/images