A Natural Place For Therapy
(Today’s post describes our visit to Colt Creek State Park in central Florida on September 26, 2025. Gini had knee replacement surgery 30 days prior. I will have four more sessions to complete 36 visits to the clinic for cardiac rehabilitation. Our last outing in Nature was August 15. Kudos to those who waded through all three blog parts!)
(Click on images to enlarge, click again to zoom.)
Friday. Late afternoon. No other visitors to the park were visible. Just past the entrance we were greeted by a lovely group of Seven Sisters all dressed in white. The Red-shouldered Hawk was on his pine branch perch at the first bend in the road. A patch of Clustered Bushmint was attracting all sorts of nectar-lovers. We parked at the first trailhead with a specific purpose in mind.
Gini was not quite ready to test her brand new knee on the uneven trail so she volunteered to guard the vehicle while she caught up on her latest novel. I went. I saw. I photographed. Two types of flowers, both bearing the common name of “lily”, but one from the Iris family and the other actually from the Lily family. Mission accomplished. Now what?
Oh, there is a whole park we haven’t yet wandered around in and there are still a couple of hours of daylight left. Lake, creek, forest, fields, bugs, blooms, birds. We took it all in with each breath. Who knew when we would be able to return?
Red-shouldered Hawks are quite common throughout Florida. This handsome adult launched from a small pine tree with its eye on early supper.
One of our more abundant, and colorful, butterflies is the bright orange Gulf Fritillary (Dione incarnata).
Nearly endemic to Florida, Four-petal St. Johnswort (Hypericum tetrapetalum) blooms profusely in spring and summer but, as we discovered, doesn’t mind showing off even in late September.
A New Bug! From all our research and queries, we are pretty sure this big specimen is in the Spider Wasp Family (poss. Anoplius semicinctus). Here, it’s on Clustered Bushmint (Hyptis alata).
Stop! Wild Turkey crossing. (We watched as these two joined a group of 18 nearby.)
A New Bloom! We have searched for this one for a long time and finally found them today. Rayless Sunflower (Helianthus radula) is quite unique and very different from its cousins with all those yellow petals.
Another species nearly endemic to Florida, Chapman’s Goldenrod (Solidago chapmanii) typically is one of the earliest blooming goldenrods in Florida. This one hung around just for us.
One of our first fall migrants made an appearance. This Eastern Phoebe is quite polite as she constantly yells her name for us: “Pheeee-Beeee“!
On my short walk when we first arrived at the park, I found the two lilies I had hoped to see. The first, Pine lily (Lilium catesbaei), is also known as Catesby’s lily, Leopard lily, Tiger lily or Southern-red lily. It is the largest lily found in North America.
The other “lily”, in the Iris family, is a small delicate flower called Celestial Lily (Nemastylis floridana). It is found only in Florida and it only blooms in the late afternoon.
We had a wonderful therapy session in one of our favorite Natural Places today. Unsure of what the coming months would have in store for us, we were grateful for the opportunity to see so much in such a short span of time.
Enjoy your search for a natural place and come back for a visit!
Our Natural Places 
That was very brave of Gini to stay back and protect the vehicle! While our weather has been mild for this time of year, we are looking forward to the warmer weather we will be seeing in a few weeks!
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It’s quite dangerous for her in the car as there are roving gangs of vicious squirrels who attack without warning. She is especially vulnerable as she has been known to act as their favorite food.
(She’s looking over my shoulder, isn’t she……)
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Beautiful post. I not only come here for the photography, but also to soak in some of your vast knowledge about nature. Well done!
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You are too kind, Peter.
But I sure appreciate it!
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This post was full of surprises (not the least of which was “Wally is back on the air!”). The rayless sunflower was a total surprise, and that giant orange lily is a wonder. When we were kids, we used to look at wildflowers in terms of their suitability for uses as fairy furniture – these orange lilies seem perfectly suited as chairs around a conference table. I could have tollerated a great number of meetings if I’d had such chairs!
Hope you both continue healing, bouyed by your favorite Natural Places!
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Thanks, Sam.
It was really nice to finally find those sunflowers. They have evaded me for a long time. Gini’s childhood was filled with mud pies decorated by colorful wildflowers. Even now, she would collect great bouquets if I let her and have me make huge vats of mud for her to form sunflower/lily/goldenrod pies for the holidays.
A Better Year is almost here!
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I got out today for the first time in weeks and was amazed by how radically my camera skills had degraded without practice. Despite your inability to be out and about on a regular basis, your images are as good as ever: which is to say ‘glorious’!
I laughed at the photo of the turkey with its feathers going this way and that, and was completely taken by the rayless sunflower. The blues and purples are as intriguing as its shape. While that flower was unfamiliar, I did remember radula from another species, and it turned out to be our Silphium radula: the roughstem rosinweed.
I smiled to see the goldenrod species named for Mr. Chapman; the fellow seems to be everywhere now that I’ve learned about him. I recognized the clustered bushmint from east Texas, even though I’ve never photographed it. I just double checked its range, and sure enough; it’s all over the Big Thicket.
The little Phoebe is so cute. I saw sandhill cranes flying today for the first time this year, and found a few snow geese and Northern Shovelers at the Brazoria refuge. I suspect the strong north winds that are on tap will finally bring more of our migrants down. I still haven’t seen a single American coot this fall.
Despite forgoing a hike along the trails, I suspect Gini was happy to be outdoors again. Here’s to a healthier new year, and increasing mobility!
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That turkey was trying to do a wing flap while still walking. Sort of like me trying to read a book while crossing a street. Not a good idea.
It was fascinating to see how different each of those rayless sunflower “blooms” were. Now I’m going to have to pay more attention to the big yellow-petaled ones to see if they might be different from one another, too.
We’re now in full migration mode as we have plenty of actual snowbirds to go along with our human varieties from northern states. Gini and I participated in the annual Audubon Christmas Count this year and had a blast. Lots of birds.
The New Year will start off just as we hoped with Gini receiving a new knee for that other leg. Dance floor – you have been warned!
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You really notice all of the pretty flowers! Looks like a great walk. I would have been nervous as well to walk on an uneven trail so soon. I didn’t pick up my camera for a month longer than the doctor said after my shoulder surgery.
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She is not a patient patient, but understands the need to wait for healing to be complete.
Fortunately, we have a few places she can enjoy just fine from the car.
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That’s an excellent action picture of the hawk flying.
I like how you refer to your outing in nature as a therapy session. As the word session means literally ‘a sitting,’ Gini had a therapy session too, and a novel one at that. Or, as Milton didn’t quite say: They also serve who only sit and wait.
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Similar to my behavior, once the hawk spotted a meal, it wasn’t about to let a decrepit old guy with a camera get in its way.
My ultimate reward when returning from any solo excursion is the sight of Gini right where I hoped she would be.
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