Washington Oaks State Gardens
Washington Oaks Gardens State Park is a Florida State Park located near Palm Coast, Florida, along A1A. The park is most famous for its formal gardens, but it also preserves the original habitat of a northeast Florida barrier island. Ecology Habitats preserved by the park include beach, coastal scrub, coastal hammock, and tidal marshes. Flora Vegetation includes southern live oaks (''Quercus virginiana''), magnolias, hickories (''Carya'' spp.), cabbage palmettos (''Sabal palmetto''), and saw palmettos (''Serenoa repens''). Plants that can be found in the gardens are roses, camellias, and azaleas, among others. Fauna Wildlife include sea turtles, Florida gopher tortoises, West Indian manatees, white-tailed deer, raccoons, bobcats, foxes, Virginia opossums, eastern gray squirrels, pileated woodpeckers, northern cardinals, bald eagles, peregrine falcons, and Florida scrub jays. History The park's land has a rich history. Native Americans found the area a productive hunting and ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Flagler County, Florida
Flagler County is a county located in the northeastern portion of the U.S. state of Florida. As of the 2020 census, the population was 115,378. Its county seat is Bunnell. Created in 1917 from portions of Saint Johns and Volusia Counties, it was named for Henry Flagler, who built the Florida East Coast Railway. Flagler County is included in the Deltona–Daytona Beach–Ormond Beach, FL metropolitan statistical area, and is also included in the Orlando-Deltona-Daytona Beach, FL Combined Statistical Area. History In 1974, Marco Polo Park, a theme park off Interstate 95 opened. It was never profitable and closed soon after. In 1998, when two brush fires threatened to become one huge brush fire in Flagler County, a mandatory evacuation was ordered for the entire county. This was the first and so far the only time a whole county was evacuated in Florida for a wildfire. Geography According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of , of which is land and ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Rose
A rose is either a woody perennial flowering plant of the genus ''Rosa'' (), in the family Rosaceae (), or the flower it bears. There are over three hundred species and tens of thousands of cultivars. They form a group of plants that can be erect shrubs, climbing, or trailing, with stems that are often armed with sharp prickles. Their flowers vary in size and shape and are usually large and showy, in colours ranging from white through yellows and reds. Most species are native to Asia, with smaller numbers native to Europe, North America, and northwestern Africa. Species, cultivars and hybrids are all widely grown for their beauty and often are fragrant. Roses have acquired cultural significance in many societies. Rose plants range in size from compact, miniature roses, to climbers that can reach seven meters in height. Different species hybridize easily, and this has been used in the development of the wide range of garden roses. Etymology The name ''rose'' comes from L ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Northern Cardinal
The northern cardinal (''Cardinalis cardinalis'') is a bird in the genus ''Cardinalis''; it is also known colloquially as the redbird, common cardinal, red cardinal, or just cardinal (which was its name prior to 1985). It can be found in southeastern Canada, through the eastern United States from Maine to Minnesota to Texas, New Mexico, southern Arizona, southern California, and south through Mexico, Belize, and Guatemala. It is also an introduced species in a few locations such as Bermuda and Hawaii. Its habitat includes woodlands, gardens, shrublands, and wetlands. The northern cardinal is a mid-sized songbird with a body length of . It has a distinctive crest on the head and a mask on the face which is black in the male and gray in the female. The male is a vibrant red, while the female is a reddish olive color. The northern cardinal is mainly granivorous, but also feeds on insects and fruit. The male behaves territorially, marking out his territory with song. During courtshi ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Pileated Woodpecker
The pileated woodpecker (''Dryocopus pileatus'') is a large, mostly black woodpecker native to North America. An insectivore, it inhabits deciduous forests in eastern North America, the Great Lakes, the boreal forests of Canada, and parts of the Pacific Coast. It is the largest confirmed extant woodpecker species in North America, with the possible exception of the ivory-billed woodpecker, which the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has proposed be reclassified as extinct. It is also the third largest species of woodpecker in the world, after the great slaty woodpecker and the black woodpecker. "Pileated" refers to the bird's prominent red crest, from the Latin meaning "capped". Taxonomy The English naturalist Mark Catesby described and illustrated the pileated woodpecker in his book ''The Natural History of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands'' which was published between 1729 and 1732. Catesby used the English name "The larger red-crested Wood-pecker" and the Latin ''Picus n ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Eastern Gray Squirrel
The eastern gray squirrel (''Sciurus carolinensis''), also known, particularly outside of North America, as simply the grey squirrel, is a tree squirrel in the genus ''Sciurus''. It is native to eastern North America, where it is the most prodigious and ecologically essential natural forest regenerator. Widely introduced to certain places around the world, the eastern gray squirrel in Europe, in particular, is regarded as an invasive species. In Europe, ''Sciurus carolinensis'' is included since 2016 in the list of Invasive Alien Species of Union concern (the Union list). This implies that this species cannot be imported, bred, transported, commercialized, or intentionally released into the environment in the whole of the European Union. Distribution ''Sciurus carolinensis'' is native to the eastern and midwestern United States, and to the southerly portions of the central provinces of Canada. The native range of the eastern gray squirrel overlaps with that of the fox squirre ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Virginia Opossum
The Virginia opossum (''Didelphis virginiana''), also known as the North American opossum, is the only opossum living north of Mexico, its range extending south into Central America. It is the northernmost marsupial in the world. In the United States and Canada, it is typically called a possum, 'possum or opossum. It is a solitary nocturnal animal about the size of a domestic cat, and a successful opportunist. Opossums are familiar to many North Americans as they frequently inhabit settled areas near food sources like trash cans, pet food, compost piles, gardens or housemice. Their slow and nocturnal nature, and their attraction to roadside carrion, makes many roadkill. Name The Virginia opossum is the original animal named "opossum", a word which comes from Algonquian ''wapathemwa'', meaning "white animal". Colloquially, the Virginia opossum is frequently just called a "possum". The name ''opossum'' is applied more generally to any of the other marsupials of the families Dide ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Bobcat
The bobcat (''Lynx rufus''), also known as the red lynx, is a medium-sized cat native to North America. It ranges from southern Canada through most of the contiguous United States to Oaxaca in Mexico. It is listed as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List since 2002, due to its wide distribution and large population. Although it has been hunted extensively both for sport and fur, populations have proven stable, though declining in some areas. It has distinctive black bars on its forelegs and a black-tipped, stubby (or "bobbed") tail, from which it derives its name. It reaches a total length (including the tail) of up to . It is an adaptable predator inhabiting wooded areas, semidesert, urban edge, forest edge, and swampland environments. It remains in some of its original range, but populations are vulnerable to extirpation by coyotes and domestic animals. Though the bobcat prefers rabbits and hares, it hunts insects, chickens, geese and other birds, small rodents, and deer. Pre ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Raccoon
The raccoon ( or , ''Procyon lotor''), sometimes called the common raccoon to distinguish it from other species, is a mammal native to North America. It is the largest of the procyonid family, having a body length of , and a body weight of . Its grayish coat mostly consists of dense underfur, which insulates it against cold weather. Three of the raccoon's most distinctive features are its extremely dexterous front paws, its facial mask, and its ringed tail, which are themes in the mythologies of the indigenous peoples of the Americas relating to the animal. The raccoon is noted for its intelligence, as studies show that it is able to remember the solution to tasks for at least three years. It is usually nocturnal and omnivorous, eating about 40% invertebrates, 33% plants, and 27% vertebrates. The original habitats of the raccoon are deciduous and mixed forests, but due to their adaptability, they have extended their range to mountainous areas, coastal marshes, and urban ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
White-tailed Deer
The white-tailed deer (''Odocoileus virginianus''), also known as the whitetail or Virginia deer, is a medium-sized deer native to North America, Central America, and South America as far south as Peru and Bolivia. It has also been introduced to New Zealand, all the Greater Antilles in the Caribbean (Cuba, Jamaica Jamaica (; ) is an island country situated in the Caribbean Sea. Spanning in area, it is the third-largest island of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean (after Cuba and Hispaniola). Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, and west of His ..., Hispaniola, and Puerto Rico), and some countries in Europe, such as the Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Romania and Serbia. In the Americas, it is the most widely distributed wild ungulate. In North America, the species is widely distributed east of the Rocky Mountains as well as in southwestern Arizona and most of Mexico, except Baja California peninsula, Lower California. It is mostly displaced by the black ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
West Indian Manatee
The West Indian manatee (''Trichechus manatus''), also known as the North American manatee, is a large, aquatic mammal native to warm coastal areas of the Caribbean, from the eastern US to northern Brazil. Living alone or in herds, it feeds on underwater plants and uses its whiskers to navigate. It is divided into two endangered subspecies, the Florida manatee (''T. m. latirostris'') in the US and the Antillean manatee (''T. m. manatus'') in the Caribbean, both of which face pressure from habitat loss, pollution, and other human activity. The West Indian manatee is the largest of the sirenians (order Sirenia), a group of large aquatic mammals that includes the dugong, other manatees, and the extinct Steller's sea cow. Manatees are herbivores, have developed vocal communication abilities, and are covered in highly sensitive whiskers (called vibrissae) that are used for feeding and navigation. In breeding season, several males form mating herds around an individual female; on aver ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Gopherus Polyphemus
The gopher tortoise (''Gopherus polyphemus'') is a species of tortoise in the family Testudinidae. The species is native to the southeastern United States. The gopher tortoise is seen as a keystone species because it digs burrows that provide shelter for at least 360 other animal species. ''G. polyphemus'' is threatened by predation and habitat destruction. The gopher tortoise is a representative of the genus ''Gopherus'', which contains the only tortoises native to North America. The gopher tortoise is the state reptile of Georgia and the state tortoise of Florida. Etymology The specific name, ''polyphemus'', refers to the cave-dwelling giant, Polyphemus, of Greek mythology. Gopher tortoises are so named because of some species' habit of digging large, deep burrows like the gopher. Description The gopher tortoise is a fairly large terrestrial reptile which possesses forefeet well adapted for burrowing, and elephantine hind feet. These features are common to most tortoises ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Sea Turtle
Sea turtles (superfamily Chelonioidea), sometimes called marine turtles, are reptiles of the order Testudines and of the suborder Cryptodira. The seven existing species of sea turtles are the flatback, green, hawksbill, leatherback, loggerhead, Kemp's ridley, and olive ridley sea turtles. All six of the sea turtle species present in US waters (all of those listed above except the flatback) are listed as endangered and/or threatened under the Endangered Species Act. The seventh sea turtle species is the flatback, which exists in the waters of Australia, Papua New Guinea and Indonesia. Sea turtles can be separated into the categories of hard-shelled (cheloniid) and leathery-shelled ( dermochelyid).Wyneken, J. 2001. The Anatomy of Sea Turtles. U.S Department of Commerce NOAA Technical Memorandum NMFS-SEFSC-470, 1-172 pp. There is only one dermochelyid species which is the leatherback sea turtle. Description For each of the seven types of sea turtles, females and males are the sa ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |