Wall Springs

Paid a visit to Wall Springs.

The park has opened up after a very long preparation period. I saw evidence that the people trails were laid on top of causeways built up with concrete scraps (old sidewalks and whatnot).


This is a pair of fish (imported Nile perch, I think, typically used in Florida to control algae growth), feeding in the mouth of one of the springs.

Note, June 13, 2007: I think I was way off with the Nile perch guess. A variety of triploid carp is actually the variety used for plant control, and tilapia may also occur in an environment like this--but without a much better look at the Wall Springs specimens I won't hazard another guess.


This is an older photo of the main spring. Water spills from the main spring into a freshwater lagoon, and then through a spillway into a mangrove estuary. The fish in the previous photo are in the hole represented by the dark spot to the right (the one that looks a bit like a woman's head in profile).


This is a cormorant resting on the wall between the main spring and the freshwater lagoon.


This is a view of the lagoon from the south. In the lagoon I spotted mullet, needlefish, and a juvenile snook in addition to what I presume are Nile perch.



This is the lagoon from the western end, above the spillway (which runs under a sidewalk). The lagoon is very shallow, averaging maybe 2-3 feet deep. In the foreground a deeper hole is visible just in front of the spillway. The hole may itself be another spring; the outflow is clearly greater from the lagoon than from the main spring. I couldn't detect any rippling of water over this hole that would indicate a strong outflow, however.



This is the outflow from the lagoon. The pic came out better than I hoped. The turbulence is readily apparent from the outrushing fresh water.


A cormorant fishing in the lagoon (might be the same one in the other pic).


This is a red mangrove. This specimen is in the midst of an estuary south of the lagoon at Wall Springs.



Here's a little blue heron, if I'm not mistaken, foraging along the north bank of the lagoon.



Cropped & enlarged.



This is a wood stork. I took this photo from an elevated observation deck. The stork was soaring at about 200-300 feet. There was also an osprey in the area, but the batteries in my camera had gone critically low by this time.



Cropped & enlarged.

Here's the park homepage.
I note with some satisfaction that I used the same angle for my photo of the observation tower as did the photographer who supplied the photos for the official page.

Nice aerial photo at the homepage. The freshwater area is near the top at the center. The spring is flanked, in other words, by saltwater shallows lined with mangroves.