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FLORIDA

Birdwatchers are in store for a rare treat

Every winter Paynes Prairie Preserve near Gainesville draws a host of migratory birds.

Going to Paynes Prairie Preserve

• Getting there: Paynes Prairie Preserve State Park is in north-central Florida about 325 miles from Miami. There are no nonstop flights from South Florida to Gainesville, but several airlines will get you there in about four hours with a change of planes in Atlanta or Charlotte; roundtrip airfare starts around $500. A cheaper option is to fly to Jacksonville (about 90 minutes, roundtrip airfare from $245), then drive 70 miles to Gainesville. American Airlines flies nonstop from Miami to Jacksonville, Southwest flies nonstop from Fort Lauderdale.

• Gainesville information: 866-778-5002, www.visitgainesville.com.

• Park information and directions: www.floridastateparks.org/paynesprairie and www.prairiefriends.org.

EXPLORING PAYNES PRAIRIE

Start at the Visitors Center at the preserve's south end, a complex that includes a 50-foot-high observation tower, Lake Wauberg, a campground and five trails.

From Interstate 75, take Exit 374 and go east on County Road 234 to U.S. 441. Go north on U.S. 441 for 0.6 miles to the entrance road. Admission is $6 a vehicle with 2-8 people; $4 a vehicle with a single occupant.

• La Chua Trail: The La Chua Trail begins next to a Gainesville residential area. From U.S. 441 in Gainesville, go east on county roads 329 and 331 to state road 26 (University Avenue), then turn south on Southeast 15th Street. Go 2.5 miles to Southeast 41st Avenue and continue straight into the parking area.

• Bolen Bluff Trail: North of the entrance to the Visitors Center, on northbound U.S. 441, is the Bolen Bluff Trail and parking area.

• Cones Dike Trail: The 4-mile-long Cones Dike Trail begins at the prairie's southern rim.

WHERE TO STAY

• Laurel Oak Inn: An 1885 Victorian house in Gainesville's historic district. 221 SE Seventh St., Gainesville; 877-373-4535; www.laureloakinn.com. Rooms $129 to $165, includes breakfast.

• Magnolia Plantation Bed and Breakfast Inn and Cottages: A Victorian house with double parlors, five bedrooms and a dining room. 309 SE Seventh St., Gainesville; 800-201-2379; www.magnoliabnb.com. Rooms $135 to $175; cottages $190 to $380.

• Sweetwater Branch Inn Bed & Breakfast: The Victorian house, dating to 1895, is listed on the National Registry of Historic Places. 625 E. University Ave., Gainesville; 352-373-6760; www.sweetwaterinn.com. Rooms $90 to $245; cottages $125 to $245.

WHERE TO EAT

• Yearling Restaurant: Taste Old Florida cuisine, including frog legs and alligator. 14531 E. County Road 325, Hawthorne; 352-466-3999; www.yearlingrestaurant.net. Open Thursday-Sunday. Entrees $14-$20.

• Blue Water Bay restaurant: Seafood's the specialty; top it off with a slice of sour orange pie. 319 State Road 26, Melrose; 352-475-1928; www.thebluewaterbay.com. Entrees from $15.

• Cedar River Seafood: A moderately priced regional chain. 5847 SW 75th St., Gainesville; 352-376-0351. Entrees from $10.

WHAT TO DO

• Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings State Historic Park: Home and citrus grove of author Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, who wrote ``The Yearling.'' 18700 South County Road 325, Cross Creek; 352-466-3672. www.floridastateparks.org/marjoriekinnanrawlings. Open daily from 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Admission $3 per vehicle.

• Kanapaha Botanical Gardens: Lush, 62-acre gardens with native and exotic plants and trees. Southwest Archer Drive, Gainesville; 352-372-4981; www.kanapaha.org. Open Monday-Wednesday 9 a.m.-5 p.m.; Friday 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday-Sunday 9 a.m.-dusk. Admission $6.

• Greathouse Butterfly Farm: A farm that raises butterflies native to Florida. Junction of State Road 26 and County Road 1469, Earleton; 866-475-2088; www.greathousebutterflyfarm.com. Tours Wednesday-Saturday 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. in fall and winter. Admission $10.

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BY JACK HORAN

Special to The Miami Herald

GAINESVILLE -- The rattling karr-roo-oo sounds came from every direction. From the sky. From clumps of grasses and bushes. The calls of sandhill cranes filled the air above the expansive wetlands of Paynes Prairie Preserve State Park.

Some 8,000 red-crowned, pewter-gray sandhills had commandeered the marshes. Mixed with the sandhills were a dozen similarly red-crowned whooping cranes, but taller and marked with black and white feathers. Whoopers, an endangered species, are one of the rarest birds in the United States.

On New Year's Day, 2009, I watched the cranes busily forage along with herons, ibises and egrets, creating a feathered extravaganza for a steady stream of visitors. They walked the La Chua Trail, an elevated grassy dike that follows a drainage canal, safely above the reach of a dozen visible alligators. Bird-watchers aimed spotting scopes, photographers tweaked telephoto lenses, moms pushed strollers and dads carried tots on their shoulders on this balmy holiday.

George Edwards of Gainesville, president of Friends of Paynes Prairie, was among those who beheld the crane convocation last winter. ``It looked like every one of them was shoulder to shoulder,'' he said. ``It was probably a perfect mix of wet and dry conditions [that drew the cranes].''

Paynes Prairie, 10 miles south of Gainesville in Micanopy, revels in its eclectic wild menagerie. The cranes, seasonal migrants, and gators share the preserve with a herd of 39 free-roaming bison (once native to the state), about 40 Cracker horses (small saddle horses descended from stock brought from Spain in the 1500s) and wood storks, white pelicans and bald eagles, among 263 bird species.

Where else can one stroll among gators and bison, cranes and storks in a wilderness setting next to an urban area? That's one of the characteristics that makes Paynes Prairie unique.

GEOLOGIC WONDER

Paynes Prairie is one of Florida's most remarkable geologic features. It was formed eons ago when the underlying limestone rock dissolved, forming sinkhole after sinkhole. The ground eventually collapsed into a 16,055-acre basin. A partial sheet flow of water makes the wetland a kind of little Everglades in north Florida. The prairie doesn't morph into a permanent lake because its water drains out through a sinkhole, the Alachua Sink.

For the last 400 years, wildlife and cattle, dry times and wet times, have dominated Paynes Prairie. It is believed to be named for King Payne, a Seminole Indian chief. In the late 1600s, the prairie's La Chua ranch was the largest cattle operation in Spanish Florida.

Naturalist William Bartram visited the prairie in 1774, then called Alachua Savanna. ``The extensive Alachua savanna is a level green plain, above fifteen miles in circumference, and scarcely a tree or bush of any kind to be seen on it,'' he wrote.

From 1873 to 1891, Paynes Prairie became Paynes Lake. The sinkhole stopped up and steamboats plied the waters until it reopened. Cattle ranching resumed and cows roamed the prairie until 1971, when the state acquired the land. The prairie flooded for two years after 2004's hurricanes, allowing canoe trips.

The preserve covers nearly 22,000 acres, rimmed by oak-palm-pine uplands. From the rim, the elevation drops 100 feet to as little as 56 feet above sea level at Alachua Sink.

Prime time for wildlife viewing begins in fall when migratory cranes, pelicans and waterfowl arrive. The sandhills fly in from the Great Lakes area about Thanksgiving. They glide from prairie to farm field, foraging for seeds and insects until they wing back north around St. Valentine's Day. Park manager David Jowers said normally 3,000-5,000 sandhills winter in the preserve with 1,000 year-round Florida sandhills.

The Miami Herald
The Miami Herald

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