COASTAL FLAGLER COUNTY
AN AUDUBON FLORIDA SPECIAL PLACE
By Allan Milledge
Until the 1970s eastern Flagler County, with the exception of the town of Flagler Beach, was virtually nothing but a tangle of forests and wetlands between St Augustine and Daytona Beach. Even the Florida East Coast Railroad and Highway US 1 had to be sited way west of the coast and arch out to Bunnell to get north/south passage through this county. In 1970 the entire county had only 5,000 residents.
In 2000 my wife and I bought our land in Flagler County on the west side of the Intracoastal Waterway about a mile from the ocean. Our land has several acres of “uplands” and even more acres of marsh. We bought the land because we loved the woods and the marsh and because we were told that we could take our dogs into the bars in Flagler Beach and we could camp and have bonfires on the beach.
The Timucuan Indians (occupants of the area before European exploration) had one of their principal fortified towns, Nocoroco, nearby and, at the edge of our marsh, there are very old cedar trees on small shell mounds every twenty or thirty feet apart. The Timucuan diet was heavily oysters and other shell fish and, in 1492, their raised huts lined the marsh for miles and miles. Hence the shell mounds and hence the calcium loving cedars and, hence the row of trees across the marsh edge of our property. The Nocoroco site is now in Tomoka State Park at the mouth of the Tomoka River about four miles south of us. Most, but not all, of the archeological sites in the park are open to the public. The park has fairly good signage, but some reading in advance about the Timucuans will enhance the experience.
Flagler County and this part of northeastern Florida sit on a geologic plate that extends sixty miles to the east of the shoreline. Today the ocean is only 150 feet deep at that distance from shore. It was only 8,000 years ago that that the Atlantic rose onto the eastern edge of this plate and only 2,000 years ago when the Atlantic reached our current coastline and stopped rising. During much of the past 20,000 years, the plate was covered with jungles and mega fauna—mammoths, mastodons, giant sloths, saber-toothed tigers and other animals—living happily on the shelf. Prehistoric man arrived about 10,000 to 15,000 years ago, when the shelf was in full flourish. His hunting capacity, applied over several thousand years, wiped out the megafauna.
The ocean, as it begins to rise again, is banging on the door at the northern end of Flagler County. Near Marineland and just south of Matanzas Inlet, the ocean recently has leveled nearly one half mile of coastal dune (that once accommodated original Highway A1A). Then the ocean created a new inlet through the beach and to the Intracoastal Waterway. Next, it used the new inlet to transport untold tons of sand into the adjacent bays and marshes, leaving them dry ground. These changes have occurred in the past two years.
This new “beach” area has been quickly discovered by the Least Terns, the smallest of the migratory sea birds, whose nesting grounds need to be on sand or gravel with some vegetative cover and where the tiny adults can get something to eat. These birds also need protection from predators, including humans, and Audubon and its many volunteers now provide this protection.
So, go to Tomoka State Park (on the Intracoastal Waterway just north of Ormond Beach and at the mouth of the Tomoka River) and see the remains of Nocoroco and learn some things about the Timucuans. Then go north to Marineland via A1A and then a little farther into St Johns County to see the powerful reconfigurations being done by the rising Atlantic and the nesting sites of the endangered Least Terns.
This column is one in a series from AUDUBON FLORIDA. Allan Milledge is an Audubon Florida Board member. For information about Tomoka State Park see www.floridastateparks.org/tomoka/ For information about AUDUBON FLORIDA and its “Special Places” program visit www.FloridaSpecialPlaces.org. All rights reserved by Florida Audubon Society, Inc.
New Beach Tern Nesting Site
Least Tern with Chick by David Marci
Timucuan Tree Mound