Walking O'Leno in Early Summer

My wife and I visited O'Leno State Park on Fathers' Day. The week's weather was mostly rainy but on this day there were only patchy clouds. Although the temperature was below the 90's of the week or two before, the humidity was way up on account of all the rain on days previous.

We walked sections of the River and Parener's Branch trails for a distance of about 3 miles. Highlights of the walk: We saw two 4-foot long alligator garfish holding in deeper pools south of the suspension footbridge and the two rock shoals marking old milldams of the former village of Keno. We also saw an alligator there too, intently watching members of a picnicking family that were watching it. We heard and saw many yellow-bellied vireos, eastern towhees, ruby-crowned kinglets, Carolina chickadees, and a first for me, the barking tree frog (Quicktime required). Botanist/Urban Forester-Planner by profession, I was un-nerved to find a broad-leafed tree in fruit that completely stumped me. Largish leaves like a Styrax but fruits resembling those of Sweetleaf (Symplocaceae) [I ruled out upland tupelo based on the smooth bark and large leaf size]. I'm still stumped. Me - who thought he could identify every tree that grows in this part of the state!

We'd have traversed the entire trail system in the park had my dancer wife not been suffering from a bout of plantar fasciitis that appeared after years of percussive dance performing. As it was, we limited our ramble to 3 miles - enough for a good stretch and a walk among most of the habitat types in the park.

O'Leno is notorious for its ticks so if you go there, be on the lookout constantly. We found just one on this trip and none in the days following, but I managed to pick up a few chiggers around the ankles and backsides of knees on this hike. We don't use any sort of repellent - so there you go.

Florida, O'Leno, State Park, tick, chigger, tree frog, Towhee, Florida trails, hiking, summer rambles