Only a short fifteen minute drive from where we spent the night and we were at the Ernest Coe Visitor Center in Everglades National Park.
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| makes you think, doesn't it... |
Junior Ranger books, maps, and some insider tips from the Rangers about where to spot certain critters and we were all set to explore the park.
The first trail that we wanted to explore was the Anhinga Trail. As we were parking the car, we noticed warning signs posted around the lot. They said that buzzards could (and had before) decide to make a snack of the rubber around the windows on the cars! Seriously! There were bins of complimentary blue tarps to drape and tie around your car to keep the buzzards off. Hmm... We pondered it, but decided take our chances. There were only a handful of cars with tarps on them and lots without, we figured our odds of being the chosen snack were pretty slim (and my chances of somehow breaking something trying to tarp my car were pretty high, hehehe).
Ok, on to the trail...
Right away we saw an Anhinga bird, the trail's namesake. Tristan was really excited, today's mission was to find an Anhinga. I am so glad he found one (unlike the wild turkey chase in Myakka).
We followed the trail down to some boardwalks that went over the water. What did we see when we looked over the edge?
A large gator, right in our shadows! The first of MANY.
There were so many things to see, including more of those cute little air plants...
...and more Anhingas. Even one with his wings spread--this was really cool because Tristan had just bought a lapel pin in the gift shop with an Anhinga in the same pose. He was happy :).
As we were driving to the next "must see" on our list, we noticed the terrain was drastically changing. It went from pine trees, to saw grass prairie, to mangroves. It was so cool to see not only the surprisingly defined borders of each different zone, but also the spots where those borders were a bit blurred. Where one creeped into the other...
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| the marching mangroves... |
Our next stop was at Paurotis Pond. Betcha can't guess what for...actually, you probably can. More birds. This time we were hoping to see some Roseate Spoonbills. One of the Rangers had tipped us that there may be some nesting in the area.
We waited...and waited...and waited. I am beginning to see that bird watchers do A LOT of waiting. Just when we were ready to move on, we saw one! A bright flash of pink lifted from the mangroves and flew right over us!
There were at least two of them, tending their nest(s) across the pond. We could only catch a glimpse here and there of the gorgeous bright pink...
Enough of the birds. Our next stop was at West Lake Trail, which is basically a tunnel through the mangroves...
I have to admit, I really didn't want to go on this trail. Why? Spiders. All I could think about were spiders, spiders, spiders. {{{shudder}}} It just looked spidery to me.
I swallowed my fear and did it anyway because the kids wanted to. And you know what? There were no spiders. Not the first one (thankfully!!!!!). It turned out to be my favorite trail of the day. I'm sure there's a lesson there ;).
It was very beautiful inside the mangroves...
Such an alien landscape with all the little roots sticking up everywhere...
One part of the trail goes out over the water...
...and then it ducks back into the thick forest...
Up next was the Flamingo Visitor Center, along the shores of the Florida Bay. Beauty even in the parking lot :)...
Even though the name is Flamingo, the only thing pink you are likely to see is the building itself. Flamingo birds are very rare.
After checking out the VC and the bay, we walked over to the marina. One of the Rangers at the first VC had told us to look for the crocodile that lived down at the FVC marina. We looked and looked and walked all the way around the water, but no crocodile. There were some guys helping a couple out of a canoe and back up on dock, when they were done we asked them about the croc. They said that the croc did live there, but he was usually only around first thing in the morning (it was afternoon). They told us where they had seen him that very morning and we looked, but no croc :(. Maybe it was a good thing we didn't find him, now that I think about it. Mighta been even scarier than those spiders, huh ;)? The view was worth the drive and walk, anyway...
***this is long enough, check back later and I'll tell ya'll what we did next :)
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