September 8, 2026
Lake June-in-Winter, Lake Placid: The Bird That Lives Only on the Sand
On the sand of the Lake Wales Ridge above Lake June-in-Winter lives a bird found nowhere else on Earth — and the scrub it depends on only survives because fire keeps clearing it
On the west shore of Lake June-in-Winter, above a lake that runs deep and clear over a white-sand bottom, Lake June-in-Winter Scrub Preserve State Park protects the habitat of the Florida scrub-jay — a blue-and-gray bird that exists nowhere on the planet except the dry sand ridges of peninsular Florida. The park's boundary takes in the ground, not the water. The lake is 3,700-some acres, spring-fed, kidney-shaped with coves on the northeast and northwest, one of the better bass waters in Highlands County.
Lake June-in-Winter is up on the Lake Wales Ridge, the ridge of sand that runs down the center of the peninsula. When sea levels were higher, this ridge stood as a chain of islands while the rest of Florida was underwater. The plants and animals stranded on those islands evolved in isolation, and a lot of them turned into species found in this narrow band of sand and nowhere else. The scrub-jay is about the size of a blue jay, curious enough to land on an outstretched hand, and it lives in extended family groups where older siblings help raise the next brood.
What the scrub-jay needs is scrub — low, open oak thicket over bare white sand, the kind of dry, nutrient-poor ground that grows sand pine and rosemary and little else. The bird needs that scrub kept short and patchy. Left alone, the oaks grow tall and close in, and the jays leave. What historically kept the scrub open was fire. Lightning strikes on the ridge would burn through, knock the growth back down and expose the sand again.
The bulk of the park is dry scrub, and keeping it in the condition a jay can use means bringing fire back to ground that would otherwise grow over. The wetlands there include baygall, seepage slope, and seepage stream, and the shallow shoreline sits below the picnic area on the far eastern edge. Red-shouldered hawks and osprey work the same park.
The lake was called Lake Stearns before it was renamed Lake June-in-Winter; the sources don't give a date for the change.
Boat ramps sit at several points on the shoreline outside the park. H.L. Bishop Park and Lake June Park both have ramps, swimming areas, and picnic tables, and in May 2026 Highlands County opened Lake June Lagoon at H.L. Bishop Park — a floating inflatable obstacle course anchored off the shore, with obstacle runs and climbing elements out over the water. A few hundred yards west, inside the preserve, the oaks are burned back on a schedule.
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