Florida 4-3-25

Today was supposed to mainly be a driving day to get back to the west coast of the state. However, we decided to find a place to stop and check out along the way. I chose Sumica in Polk County. Let me start by saying that if you don’t take the major highways across the state, you get to go on backroads that are lined with farms and just about nothing for cars. It is actually quite nice, although it takes a bit longer. Sumica is in the middle of nowhere on rt 60.

Initially, this place looked good for butterflying as the main trail before it splits had a few thistle plants along it with one of them having a Palmetto Skipper on it. That is pretty much where the trail butterflying ends though. The trails are wide and clean, but there is absolutely nothing for butterflies to nectar on. No flowers at all. So after a little bit of walking, we decided to just head to the car and find another place. On the way back to the car, there was a Twin-spot Skipper on one of the thistles, a Dainty Sulphur on a low flower, and I managed to find a mating pair of whirlabouts and a Checkered White in the parking lot area.

Lauren found a nice place along the way that would have some nice flowers available called Bok Tower Gardens. It was only about 20 minutes west of Sumica, so it was in the direction we were going anyways. At $20 per person entry fee, I figured it had better be good! It ended up being somewhat of a downer for butterflies, but the place is really neat! The central attraction is a huge tower that has 60 bells that play songs for 1/2 hour at 1pm and 3pm each day. It was really pretty cool and we took a few minutes to listen to it.

As for butterflies here, we found quite a few species, but nothing in big numbers except the Atala. There is one holly tree in there that has several dozen of them in it, on it and all around it! These small butterflies are always fun to see. We had only seen them once a few years back at the Holiday Inn Vacation Club in Cocoa Beach. Since we know the host plant of Atala, the Coontie plant, we found those and were able to find the caterpillars and chrysalids of them as well.

Other species we saw there were:

Cloudless Sulphur (always flying, never landing)
Giant Swallowtail (always flying, never landing)
Zebra Longwing (always flying, never landing)
Monarchs
Long-tailed Skipper
Black Swallowtail
Gulf Fritillary

When we got to the hotel (La Quinta Inn in Brandon, FL) we soon saw that we got what we paid for (we paid for the hotel in points, not money) as the place is a bit of a dump, but we had plans with Rebekka, my neice to go out to dinner. She suggested a restaurant called Circles in Apollo Beach. It was great to see her and catch up on things and the dinner was great! The restaurant is right on the water and is really nice.

Tomorrow, we go to a special row of hedges that we know produced some amazing hairstreaks last year and then off to the Fred & Idah Schultz Nature Preserve for the rest of the day.