Part IV - Processes structuring food webs
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 August 2009
Summary
Sitting quietly in the bird blind overlooking Gannet Pond remains one of my lasting images of northern Florida. Fox squirrels – slightly portly, bigger versions of the more familiar grey squirrels – were perched on a huge tupelo stump sharing seed with brilliantly coloured indigo buntings and purple finches against the backdrop of the lagoon, itself a riot of water lilies and water hyacinth. But this was no pastoral idyll and the opaque surfaces of the lake were frequently disturbed by the slow and confident passage of large alligators. Indeed I sat staring at the water for over an hour once before a minute movement caught my eye – the mess of ‘twigs’ snagged on the end of a fallen branch on the water's edge was actually a pile of basking baby alligators. Tall Timbers Research Station contains a mix of hardwood hammocks and pine plantations gradually descending to a network of causeways, tiny islets and shallow lagoons. Initially a hunting preserve for the raising of turkey and quail, it is now an idyllic field station for wildlife and ecological research. As I walked the causeways between islands looking for water-filled tree holes, the rest of the fauna seemed to make a point of presenting itself to me.
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- Food Webs and Container HabitatsThe Natural History and Ecology of Phytotelmata, pp. 253 - 254Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2000