5 Things You Can Do to Help Sea Turtles During Nesting Season
It is May and this is the official beginning of the sea turtle nesting season. These ancient creatures have followed this nesting cycle for centuries traveling the open ocean, feeding and resting on reefs, then returning to shore in the spring and summer to breed and...
Identify Cogongrass Now – Look for the Seedheads
We are well into spring and a wide variety of plants are showing off their colorful blooms. As lovely as most of the blooms are, some springtime colors are an unwelcome sight. Such is the case with the showy, white seedhead that is produced by Cogongrass (Imperata...
Insectary Meadows Provide Food for Pollinators and Homes for Good Bugs
Bees have been disappearing at an alarming rate and continue to vanish without a trace. Why should anyone care? Well, they matter a lot more than most people think. Bees are the overwhelmingly dominant pollinator for most food crops. Native bees in the United States...
Does your pond need fertilization?
These days many ponds are just backyard recreational ponds. Management goals vary from owner to another. Some pond owners want very little productivity (very little fish removed). They want little vegetation with just a few fish. This pond is just meant for...
April Showers Bring May… Snakes
This rhyme has been around for decades suggesting that rain increases during the month of April. In recent years the amount we have received has caused local flooding, and most in Escambia County will remember receiving 26” of rain in 24 hours! These heavy localized...
Springtime is “Just Right” for Using Aquatic Herbicides
Similar to Goldilocks’ porridge, water temperature doesn’t need to be too hot or too cold, it needs to be just right for using aquatic herbicides (70o - 80o F). Here in Florida, these optimum water temperatures occur in the spring. Water temperature largely regulates...
“And then it began to rain”… the April edition of Discovering the Panhandle
As we left the winter months and headed into spring I was expecting a lot of new blooms, new animal tracks, and more live encounters with wildlife... and then the rain began. I do not know if the entire panhandle has been getting what Pensacola has but the rain has...
Alligators Become More Active in the Spring
The American Alligator is an icon in the state of Florida. Viewed on the program “Swamp People” and as the mascot of the University of Florida, most visitors to our state view this animal more on television than in the wild; but they are certainly there. In need of...
“Wanted” Sighting of Horseshoe Crabs!
These curious ancient animals have been roaming the waters of the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico for over 450 million years. Though they appear dangerous they are quite harmless and are actually more closely related to spiders and scorpions than crabs. Horseshoe crabs...
What can you do about a colony of bats in a building?
Bats typically sleep during the day in natural structures such as trees and caves. In areas with few natural roost structures, bats may instead choose to spend their days in buildings. Bats are beneficial because each bat consumes hundreds of insects per night....