Chacala Trail
Virtual Guide to Paynes Prairie
Part Two: The Chacala Trail
You drive on a winding road, shadows leapfrogging in your way, now through a dense stand of forest, now curving around a corner of waving grass.
The only traffic noise is the grunt of gators negotiating unseen waters far off. The only signals, the flash of white flags of the bounding deer. The only pedestrian, an anxious turtle.
On a drive like this, why breathe the stale metallic offerings of the air conditioner? Roll down your windows, and depending on where the road meanders through, rich pine or sweet maple scents accent the air, energizing and cool.
Welcome to the main park of the Paynes Prairie Preserve.
There are many places to explore, and the Visitor Center’s the place to leaf through nature books, enjoy wildlife photographs, peer at stuffed specimens and plan out your adventure.
The observation tower, only a few steps beyond the center, gives you a tempting taste of what could be seen much closer on the trails. You can feel the tower sway ever so slightly under your weight as you climb. The top of the tower is level with the tree line, offering a bird’s eye view of the prairie; and without great mountains spiking the landscape, the sky seems to hover so low, so close, as if you reach up, you can grasp the blue fabric and pluck the cotton clouds sewn on.
To take in everything in sight, you have to swivel your head all around like an owl. Bison roam in the distance, and occasionally wild horses kick their hooves. A sudden hoot perhaps sounds besides you. A real owl is in a nearby tree, obviously enjoying the vantage point view as well.
Within walking distance from the tower is the trailhead for the Jackson’s Gap Trail, which also leads onto the Chacala Trail on its southern end. Jackson’s Gap Trail is a scenic, green tunnel formed by trees bending overhead; a whimsical framework of an ancient, teetering house can be seen along one side, and you can gaze through the gaps of paneling to see the prairie waving on the other side. As for the Chacala Trail, parts of it are carpeted with a short, bouncy grass that are a treat to walk upon—and pleasing to the eye, too, for the grass is fine like moss, and a newly yellow-green, shining in the distance among darker green of pines, more alluring than any yellow brick road.
The further on you go, to where fewer people venture, the more active the prairie becomes to promote your physical well-being. Branches reach out to style your hair. A metallic beetle strives to be your earring. And twigs spanning the path stretch spiderweb facials for you to walk into.
But the branches that try to comb your hair also snag a smile on your face. The wilderness can be forgiven for being what it is.
There are some special moments on this trail combination. For me, I remember seeing myself reflected in the liquid eyes of a fawn. I was at the fork of two paths, unable to decide which path to choose, much like in Frost’s poem; except the fawn stood wobbly-legged on one. I looked over its shoulder as far as I could, but I saw no doe. Something about it being so frail and new, without fear and with a lot of curiosity made me pause. Perhaps, I thought, I should take the trail less fawn-trodden by. Yet at that moment, the fawn ambled over to the side, to chew on the leaves growing deeper in the woods. As I followed its movement with my eyes, I saw it look back at me. Meaningfully.
I took the trail that it had guarded, curious.
It leads to higher land, through a forest of pines grown close together. The light that streamed through the trees and onto the path was sliced into thin, parallel lines. All tall, all slim, all straight, those trees. All except one. Its branches were unleashed in all directions, exuberant, crooked and curled, defying conformity. Ah, a rebel tree.
Was that what the fawn wanted me to see?
I sat on a log and studied the scene. I suddenly remembered something I’d heard: If a tree falls in a forest and nobody is there to hear it, is there a sound?
Those words always made me think of desolate, desperate silence. How lonely it is, that a sound has to be verified by a bystander to exist.
But I was thinking: If a tree decides to roar in rebellion but has no voice, is there a sound?
I do not know how the pine tree became this way. Perhaps it was struck by lightning, but I like to think that it was trying to roar, and I have heard it in my mind.
La Chua Trail
Virtual Guide to Paynes Prairie—
Part One: La Chua Trail and the Alachua Sink
The extensive Alachua savanna is a level, green plain…encircled with high, sloping hills covered with waving forests…—William Bartram, Travels (Harper, 1958, p.119)
Paynes Prairie, glimmering with the scales and teeth and eyes of alligators, echoing with the cries of cranes, shaking with the stamps of bison, lies just outside a city—in the evening, a beautiful and untamed darkness juxtaposed with lights and the cheer of football games.
The coexistence of such opposite forces creates a unique dynamic. Driving south from Gainesville, you find that traces of urban, fast-paced life meld into a wilderness which still embodies the feel that the traveler and botanist, William Bartram, first observed over 200 years ago: “Near the great savanna…the mind is…wholly engaged in the contemplation of the unlimited, varied, and truly astonishing native wild scenes of landscape and perspective…how is the mind agitated and bewildered, as being thus, as it were, placed on the borders of a new world!”(Harper, 1958, p.120)
For despite its name, Paynes Prairie is a world away from homogeneous grasslands that the word “prairie” might conjure up. From spiky palmettos to cacti, from funky passion-flowers to orchids, the prairie’s variegated flora is supported, quite simply, by the wet nature of this system. Fed by rainfall and streams in all directions, sheets of water seep through grass stems, advancing toward the north of the prairie, and toward the Alachua Sink. True time can be felt here; in this water is nature’s pulse. The Seminole Indians in Bartram’s time, and later the settlers who sought fortunes in cattle industry here, felt it near the sink.
They also knew that the unassuming sink had a mystery and a magic of its own.
In 1871, the sinkhole “clogged up,” as the popular legend goes. Incessant storms—in a way almost biblical—flooded the prairie, and logs were washed into sink. According to geologist George Edwards, the extraordinary El Niño Cycle was the key factor in sustaining the phenomenon, for its intensity and duration brought way too much water than the sinkhole could handle, partly obstructed or not. In any case, lo came a day when the inhabitants realized that that the sea of grass had become a true sea of waves which wasn’t going to change anytime soon. Indeed, the Alachua Lake remained so for 20 years thereafter. New trade routes, train stops, ferries, and steamboats appeared about the lake; the lake possessed all the charm of Mark Twain’s Mississippi River, but more. However, the sink planned other things. In 1891, after a series of drier seasons, it drained away what remained of the lake, leaving boats stranded and fish in the thousands leaping on the lakebed. From many accounts, the feasting of fish at the time was epic—but the stench of rotting fish was more epic still. Eventually, the prairie sprung up once more. The cycle of flood and drought, lake and prairie still goes on today, creating ever-changing scenes and surprises, like the explosion of lilies and the profusion of waterbirds after the recent flooding in 2007.
Today, you can behold the sinkhole itself, from a boardwalk erected high above its perimeter, accessible from the La Chua Trail. A thin film of duckweed floating serenely on its surface belies its depth and its true potential: 100 million gallons of water hurl through each day. But now and then, a flash of sparkling black water fills you with questions: Where does all the water go? Do the fish get sucked into it as well? How deep is it?
Unable to plunge into the sink to find out, you eventually decide to instead trace where the water is traveling from. The boardwalk follows a swift stream that I like to think of as the Conference of the Carnivores: all the big birds of prey can be found here: bald eagles, ospreys, and even a whole rookery of buzzards, who often perch hunched in a semicircle on the surrounding trees. But all the members are mindful of the chair of the Conference: the giant gators patrolling in the water, blowing bubbles as they swim. On the days when the tide is low, the gators arrange themselves side by side on the banks, and the humans observing the Conference in session never dare to shout, but whisper, and grip the rails tightly. As park biologist Jim Weimer puts it, “At a place where the top predator is still dominant, coming here means you could be entering the food chain.”
A canal, a remnant from cattle farming long ago, connects a small lake in the interior of the prairie to this stream. Where the boardwalk ends, a grassy trail begins that meanders parallel to this canal. Traveling along it is a pure 8 to 10 minutes of sunshine, birdsong, blue, green, and gold…and crossing your path now and then is the nose-twitching marsh rabbit or fleet-footed deer. That groups of university students can be seen striding along the trail after exam week more than testifies to the stress-relieving qualities of this experience. The trail culminates in a wooden observation deck overlooking a lake that is a haven for Whooping Cranes and Sandhill Cranes in the winter. During the summer, though, there is a rivaling beauty: large yellow lotuses, their round leaves on stalks creating a riveting geometry across the quilt of the water. Once, on the deck, I observed a herd of bison moving through the shallows. It was a sight to remember: such bulky, furry creatures were treading delicately among the lotus.
Harper, F. (1958). The travels of William Bartram. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Filed under Birds | Comment (0)Alligator Gladiator
Alligator Gladiator
Inspired by a true story told by Mr. George Edwards, geologist.
The sight of a baby gator
Succulent, fattening in the sun
Does make the neck of a heron all aquiver
A great blue heron—top of the food chain? Never
Until now.
He attacks his prey with his spear of a beak,
But the gator’s armored hide deflects the hit.
“I may be small, but I am a warrior’s child!”
It squeaks. “My forefathers prowled along
The dinosaurs of old, and survived them;
One-on-one we fight, but think you, O bird,
Think you that you can best me today—”
Determination flares from the heron’s eyes
Strength travels from the tips of his toes
Up his long legs up his long neck
He prays to the heron god of good fishing for victory,
And tosses the gator headlong down his throat.
Suddenly
The arena of the prairie is silent and watching
The locked foes writhe:
The heron jerks his head and neck
The gator peddles its back feet
And finally, gave one last kick in farewell,
And the heron, with effort, nearly squats.
“I have won!” proclaims the heron, after a gulp.
A lump, still writhing,
Sinks slowly down his neck
And the heron wobbles somewhat
Awkwardly, then becoming very still,
Eyes full of puzzlement as if wondering whether to say
“What? Indigestion?
I thought it was just one-on-one.”
Christmas Bird Count at Hickory Ranch, one of Paynes Prairie State Park Preserve’s properties
The Saturday before Christmas, at 7:00 in the morning, while many a resourceful high school student was industriously snoring, I was standing in the edge of prairie with a foot splat in a cow pie, a grin on my upturned face, and my breath fogging up my glasses.
And I did have a sane reason.
The annual Christmas Bird Count, sponsored by the Audubon Society, had begun, and I was volunteering with one of the teams privileged to venture into the uplands fringing Paynes Prairie in the early hours. Birding manual and binocular in hand, I was smiling eagerly when I first got out of the car, but found my lips almost freezing into place. Even the owls complained of the cold, their last murmurings mournful and wavering in the foggy air.
The morning flooded my senses at first. The forest and prairie beyond, reduced to silhouettes by the indigo sky, was becoming alive with indistinct whirling and chirping. All over the meadow, dew-laden spiderwebs trembled, ready to snare the first sparkling of daylight. Have you seen how sunlight shifts shape in such wilderness? It’s nothing like the sheets of glare from window glass in a city. Imagine light striped with shadows on the luster of palmettos, and glowing gold on the undersides of cranes’ wings!
It was while watching those Sandhill cranes flying breathtakingly low that I squelched my foot into a heap of Cracker Cattle dung. A mockingbird chose that moment to titter. However, I was in such a happy mood that I only marveled at the silvery green shoots that peppered the surface of the dung like a green fur collar.
I ran to catch up with my group, and we made our way across a wet field. Fog hung in the trees, over a pond, parting itself around the glum face of an anhinga who croaked to see such early guests. “Time for our Great Annual Christmas Human Count,” I suddenly imagined it thinking. A few steps further, we discovered a little blue heron on the pond’s other shore. It stopped its slow wade and stiffened its neck—“Oh my. Homo sapiens, variety with long removable eye stalks—such a flock; we’re in luck!”
We continued on. Robins, billowing swarms of them, defied counting, flying formations of laughter. A red-bellied woodpecker was a sudden exclamation point upon a dead snag. Above, red-shouldered hawk dipped into sight; below, meadowlarks sank in and out of the grass. Vultures were graced with their own sort of beauty—they were a kaleidoscope of black flecks spiraling against the azure sky. I felt buoyed by the almost wooly chorus of warblers, and the plaintive cries of the cranes from deeper in the prairie.
What we saw was only a small sampling of the great diversity of birds found here; there are over 270 species in Paynes Prairie. And of those few we spotted, many flew back and forth, befuddling us, making us lose track or wonder if we’d already counted them before. Of course, I’m convinced that some birds will, for the sheer mischief, make the effort to fly to other groups of bird counters just to be counted again. Then why do we count? Robert Frost says it best: “Beauty is its own excuse for being.” The experience itself is feeling that fragile natural beauty so close to a city, and knowing it exists, and may yet continue to exist. It is partaking of and participating in that beauty.
What’s a foot stepped in dung?
Each a bird was a gift. Each a winged pulse of this prairie morning.
A hawk salutes us.
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