Cedar Key Scrub, Florida (#107)

Last night, I was the final customer at The Tipsy Cow.  They’d already flipped chairs atop the inside tables, but last-minute diners could sit outside and enjoy expansive views over the newly renamed Gulf of America.  Sand-rimmed tiny islands of mangrove and pine framed the south-facing view.  Cormorants, terns, and ibis flitted about; their reflections glistening on the gulf tainted slightly with the remnants of sunset.  It was a beautiful place to enjoy my well-earned, late dinner.  When I turned around though, the view was a stark contrast. 

 

The Tipsy Cow and the entire town of Cedar Key, Florida are trying to recover from Hurricane Helene eight months ago.  It’s a mix of rebuilt properties and others in varying states of repair or abandonment… and a lot of for sale signs.  After three hurricanes in thirteen months, residents are tapping out.

 

But I didn’t come here to check Cedar Key’s recovery (although as a career insurance guy, it’s certainly fascinating to see it and hear the stories).  Rather, I came to experience a rare ecosystem – the Florida Scrub - a habitat of sand ridges formed long ago when the gulf shoreline was further inland.  As the ocean receded, the dunes became covered in low shrub, stunted oaks, sand pine, and palmettos.  This rarity occurs in just a few spots in Florida and one species that adapted well to this ecosystem is the aptly named Florida Scrub-jay.  The scrub habitat though, along with the jay, is under threat of extinction due to development and fragmentation. 

 

A mere nine-minute drive north of that Tipsy Cow table is a state-protected, 5,000-acre swath of Florida Scrub.  Some of those acres come from property seized when a drug smuggling operation was busted in the ‘90s.  The Nature Conservancy (TNC) helped with the bureaucracy of transferring that property to the state reserve - laundering the land from drug smuggling to conservation, in a sense.

 

The preserve is laced with trails, fourteen miles in all.  Before my waterfront meal, I trekked four of those miles in a fruitless search for jays.  I’m heading back tomorrow at sunrise to try again.  Still though, a first visit to a Florida scrub habitat was a lovely place for a pre-dinner, pristine stroll in utter solitude. 

 

Next morning, I hit the Second Street Café for breakfast before setting out.  The elderly waitress tells a story of the café’s destruction and rebuild, proudly noting it only took 27 days to get back up and cooking.  To help retro-fund their recovery, I bought a coffee mug as a keepsake.

 

For my second visit, I chose the eastern trails where a large section is recovering from a recent prescribed burn.  It opens the landscape allowing easier off-trail explorations.  Small ponds speckle the property and draw me in; their photographic and wildlife attracting qualities are irresistible.  This is Florida where if the pond is wet, there’s gators, you can bet. 

But no gators are spotted, and unfortunately, no jays are spotted either despite efforts to lure them in using recorded calls.  Seven miles of trail walking over two days and no jays. 

 

In 2016, when visiting Florida’s Lake Wales Ridge – another hot spot for the scrub-jays – I spotted several during that visit.  Nine years later, did I just have bad luck?  How much worse has their endangerment become? 

 

Though searching fruitlessly for a specific species, plenty of others were spotted in the Florida Scrub - like Sandhill cranes, Oak toads, and Coyote.  This area of Florida in the big bend is known as the Nature Coast.  The vast open spaces, endangered ecosystems, and sparse population are a critical reprieve from Mickey Mouse, gated communities, and crowded beaches.  And a fascinating place to search for jays, whether found or not.