Florida Everglades

I love the Florida Everglades!  Today was our last day in the park, but we had a great visit and saw a lot of awesome stuff.  I expected to see a swamp, with mossy trees here and there, but it was more like a giant grassy field that was in a foot of water.  I was struck by the expanse of it.

On our first afternoon we did a short walk called Anhinga Trail, named after the indigenous Anhinga bird.  Anyway, we saw this guy - not a bird - about 20 yards into the walk.

That was our first introduction to wild alligators (we've since over a hundred of em)... we also saw a bunch of Anhingas, a couple of green herons, some Florida gar before it started to get dark.  On the way out we saw a big black snake on the path.  Here's a green heron we saw.

The next morning we heading deeper into the park and drove down a washed out unmarked road and ended up at Sisal Pond.  Right away we saw this wood stork (endangered) in a tree... he didn't seem to mind the jeep driving by.

After a short walk we saw a small flock of Roseate Spoonbills fly in - they're pinkish and have spoon shaped beaks.  Anna's been yappin about seeing Spoonbills for a couple of years now so we were pretty excited when they flew in.

Next came the coolest thing we saw all day... we showed up at Mahogany Hammock and there was a sign showing a Barred Owl, describing how they live in the Mahogany trees and if you're really lucky you'll see one.  Well, Anna spotted this one... we watched it for 20 minutes or more, I lost track.  It was very sleepy... yawned a couple of times, looked all around, stretched, and made 4 calls that were promptly answered by it's buddy.  It was very cool.

We stopped at Shark Alley and did a 15 mile loop on some rented bikes... it was fantastic.  Here's Anna on the ride.  Look at her go.

The ride started off cloudy, but once the sun came out these guys came out too.  He was pretty darn big.  Dozens of em came out to catch some rays.

They didn't seem to mind us walking around and riding by them.

I don't know what this guy is but I liked his yellow feet and his intense focus.

Check out this yellow bellied water snake... I've seen plenty of snakes laid out on something warm catching some sun, but never have I seen one suspended about 8 inches up in the grass.  We saw two of them and they both took off before we got too close.

On the drive out of the everglades we saw dozens and dozens of gators, blue herons, white herons, and anhingas just hanging out alongside the road.  If you get the opportunity to check out the everglades, definitely do it!