Visiting Sarasota's Celery Fields

A hill! In Florida!

I should have known there’d be more to my outing with Deb to Celery Fields than a walk up a hill. After all, she usually has an ulterior motive involving nature. Left to my own devices, I would have trekked up and down the hill a couple of times (although not pulling a tire behind me as some pumped up guys were doing), walked around a bit and come home. But with Deb as my companion, the morning turned into a bird watching expedition. It was great fun.

It started when we came upon the most fabulous condos for purple martins. The multi-sided structure was packed with the birds perched on their entryways. A worker noticed us watching and shared lots of great info as I gaped. Each of the little homes is marked with a direction and a number. I jokingly wondered if that was for the birds to know which one was theirs. But of course it’s so the people who maintain the structure and study the birds can keep track of what’s happening. Twice a week the bird house is taken down, the nests are spruced up, and a count is taken of the eggs and baby chicks. At last count, there had been more than 200 this season!  And as it turns out, the birds do in fact know which nest is theirs, so it’s important that the structure be put back in the same position.

Purple martins at home

And here’s something interesting. The condos are usually put back in place at the end of January, which is when the purple martins typically return from their summer migration to Brazil. But the birds arrived in late December this year to find their home gone. They circled the area day after day in hopes of finding it. It wasn’t long before final prep of the nests was done and the structure was put back in place. The snowbirds could happily roost for the season.

Purple Gallinule in midst of pond lily lettuce

From there we were off to the nearby boardwalk where there was a naturalist on duty. (Naturalists are there most days until 10 a.m.)  We would have done fine without her since Deb worked as a guide at Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge on Sanibel in her earlier life.  But it was great to have the guide there to tell us what she’d seen that morning (and if I’d been on my own, she would have been indispensable).

She pointed out grackles and gallinules and a little blue heron enjoying their marshy environs. We spied some adult male boat-tailed grackles taking in some sun. FYI, you can identify them by the iridescent purple sheen on their heads. (We also saw a lot of "common" grackles, a name that seems a bit offensive to me.) We admired the water hyacinths and watched a white gallinule munch on one for breakfast. I learned that pond lily lettuce looks similar to a nice head of Bibb lettuce, and I can now identify an alligator flag. It was a good morning. 

Boat-tailed grackles enjoying the morning

And now a bit of history about Celery Fields. The area was originally covered with sawgrass. As the Sarasota History Alive! website explains, "Sawgrass does not invite close inspection. A sedge rather than a grass, it has razor-sharp 'teeth.' Anyone walking through it risks damage to skin and clothing." To say it was not inviting seems an understatement. Enter Bertha Palmer.  

In 1870, a 21-year-old Bertha Honore married the 44-year-old Chicago millionaire Potter Palmer. Bertha's story is too fascinating to try and summarize here. Suffice it to say that she was a businesswoman, philanthropist and, yes, a socialite. But her relevance to this story comes in 1910 when she purchased 140,000 acres of swampland in what is now Sarasota County. (Potter had passed away in 1902, so this portion of Bertha's life was shared with her sons Honore and Potter, Jr.) 

Boardwalk at Celery Fields

In the eight years before her death, Bertha spearheaded both agricultural advances and land development. It wasn't until after her death that her sons turned to the cultivation of what is now Celery Fields. Canals were built, and the drained areas were turned into an agricultural enterprise. The thick muck was a friendly environment for celery, and at one time Sarasota provided most of the celery eaten in our country. 

Hopefully I've gotten that history more or less correct. What I do know for sure is that an early morning outing to Celery Fields is a great way to start the day. 

Happy exploring!