Everglades Zen Archives - Friends of the Everglades

Your Moment of Everglades Zen: The Wonder of the Night Sky

The Milky Way stretches over Everglades National Park in May 2022. Photo by Anthony Sleiman. Discover the Milky Way Believe it or not, you can see comets, shooting stars and even the Milky Way in South Florida. This is one of many natural benefits Everglades National Park provides us. With 1.5 million acres of undeveloped land, the park is a haven for darkness and a chance to escape from all-consuming light pollution. We just celebrated International Dark Sky Week (April 15-22), and this week's cooler weather provides an enticing excuse to visit Everglades National Park to experience the wonders of the night. (Note: The Shark Valley park entrance is closed May 6-23 for maintenance.) Here are some [...]

Allie Preston2023-05-01T19:38:57-04:00May 2nd, 2023|Everglades National Park, Everglades Zen|

Your Everglades moment of Zen: Just Hatched!

Spring is in full bloom, signaling something we look forward to every year: It’s baby bird season! Everywhere you look in the Greater Everglades ecosystem, hatchlings are cracking open their multi-colored shells to peek out into the world for the first time. And they’re hungry! Their mouths are often wide open and pointed skyward, marking bullseyes for their parents to drop food inside. These birds will mature relatively quickly and will soon take flight to join the flocks that are indicative of thriving Florida ecosystems. Friends of the Everglades Multimedia Producer Leah Voss has spent the last few weeks capturing these Easter-egg-come-early moments. Barred owls, eagles, osprey, and [...]

Allie Preston2023-04-04T14:25:23-04:00April 4th, 2023|All Posts, Everglades Zen, Wildlife Habitat|

Your moment of Everglades zen: Golden Hour at Anhinga Trail

As spring approaches, now is an ideal chance to take a trip to Everglades National Park before the oppressive heat of summer descends. Our multimedia producer, Leah Voss, took a recent walk along the Anhinga Trail, where she encountered scenes alive with activity as she soaked in the warm glow of a late afternoon. She captured those moments in words and images: “Far south of the bustle of Miami, tucked inside the protective boundaries of Everglades National Park, the sun sank lower toward the horizon, blanketing the freshwater marsh of Taylor Slough with a golden light. Purple gallinules hopped across lily pads. Cormorants squawked and jostled for positions [...]

Allie Preston2023-03-06T11:56:28-05:00March 6th, 2023|All Posts, Everglades National Park, Everglades Zen, Wildlife Habitat|

Your moment of Everglades Zen: One morning on Stuart’s Sailfish Flats

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qs-Ih6G7cE Watch the video above. Manatees drift lazily through shallow, jewel-toned waters, not far from paddle boarders out on a clear, sunny morning typical of the Florida winters that draw so many new faces (and license plates). Stuart’s Sailfish Flats generally encompass are a beloved area where the Indian River Lagoon meets the St. Lucie River. For years, this confluence of waterways has been recognized as both a recreational playground and an angler’s paradise — its aquamarine water and sandbars as famous as the once-lush seagrass meadows that historically served as a foundational ecosystem for a spectacular and renowned fishery. The water in this video is beautiful, but even as we appreciate these moments of zen, we are reminded [...]

Allie Preston2023-02-06T11:57:08-05:00February 7th, 2023|Everglades Zen, St. Lucie Estuary|

Your moment of Everglades zen: Rare moments of all play and no work in Chokoloskee Bay

Once a year, our Friends of the Everglades staff takes a group trip to explore part of the greater Everglades ecosystem. It’s a stark contrast to our daily grind — when we can be found most often behind our computer screens, studying the details of environmental challenges, projects and policies. It’s in these moments, when we are immersed in the places we’re working so hard to protect, that we find inspiration to carry on fighting. Our recent trip to Everglades City and Chokoloskee was illuminating. We found a taste of authentic Old Florida during our stay at The Rod and Gun Club in Everglades City, a sleepy town that boasts [...]

Allie Preston2023-01-03T13:32:31-05:00January 3rd, 2023|All Posts, Everglades Zen|

75 Years of Everglades National Park

The river of grass stretches out over Miccosukee lands north of Tamiami Trail on Oct. 25, 2022. 75 Years of Everglades National Park "There are no other Everglades in the world. They are, they have always been, one of the unique regions of the earth, remote, never wholly known. Nothing anywhere else is like them: their vast glittering openness, wider than the enormous visible round of the horizon, the racing free saltness and sweetness of their massive winds, under the dazzling blue heights of space. They are unique also in the simplicity, the diversity, the related harmony of the forms of life they enclose. The miracle of the light pours over the green and brown expanse of [...]

Allie Preston2022-11-30T14:30:48-05:00December 6th, 2022|Everglades National Park, Everglades Zen, Marjory Stoneman Douglas|

Your moment of Everglades Zen: One day in Everglades National Park

The problems plaguing the Everglades are varied and plenty, and often we find ourselves hard at work behind our computer screens as we fight for the places we love. So when a couple of our staffers had a chance to spend a day on assignment in Everglades National Park, we were enchanted and inspired. A midday walk on the Anhinga Trail, accessed from the Ernest Coe Visitor Center in Homestead, brought us face-to-face (from a safe distance) with a mama alligator and her recently hatched brood. The tell-tale yellow stripes of the hatchlings provide temporary camouflage for blending in among the marsh grasses. From a perch above, the sharp eyes of a [...]

Allie Preston2022-11-01T12:01:26-04:00November 1st, 2022|Everglades National Park, Everglades Zen|

Your moment of Everglades zen: After the Storm

Many of us are still struggling to wrap our minds around the immense toll of Hurricane Ian. The powerful storm that ripped across Florida last week, bringing record winds and flooding, has left areas from southwest Florida to north Florida devastated and tens of thousands of people displaced or without power or water. The economic damage has been estimated over $100 billion, and we haven’t realized the full extent of the storm’s lasting environmental damage. Of course, the human toll will be the most catastrophic cost, with deaths attributed to the storm surpassing 100 as of Tuesday morning. Nature can be brutally destructive. But it is also resilient. The calm after a storm always clears a path for new [...]

Allie Preston2022-10-04T09:07:28-04:00October 4th, 2022|Everglades Zen|

Your moment of Everglades Zen: Florida Bay Dreamin’

If Lake Okeechobee is the Everglades’ liquid heart, Florida Bay is its glittering jewel. Seen here from the air, through the eyes of our multimedia producer Leah Voss, light plays across the many vibrant hues of the Everglades’ southernmost watery reaches. It is a final destination. Water that drains south slowly through the Everglades eventually empties into Florida Bay, nearly all of which lies within the footprint of Everglades National Park. Florida Bay is an immensely important ecosystem, boasting up to 10% of the world’s seagrass and home to one of the greatest recreational fisheries in the world — an economic driver that equates to $439 million annually to the local economy [...]

Allie Preston2022-09-06T11:20:37-04:00September 6th, 2022|Everglades Zen, Florida Bay|

Your moment of Everglades Zen: An Ode to Mangroves

Few images feel more iconic to coastal Florida shorelines than the twisted, tumbling limbs of the mangrove. Beneath their clumping root systems, life thrives, providing physical protection for marine species that gather under, seek refuge and sustenance within, and cling to mangroves’ protruding appendages. Above the water, dense canopies provide shelter and important nesting habitat for coastal birds and mammals. The aerial root structures of mangroves have been credited with helping to reduce waves and absorb storm surge. A common sight along much of Florida’s coast, mangroves can be likened to anchors that help to stabilize coastline ecosystems and serve as a first line of defense against coastal flooding and erosion — [...]

Allie Preston2022-08-01T16:45:47-04:00August 2nd, 2022|Everglades Zen, Wildlife Habitat|