Anhinga Trail, Part II

Click here for Part I.

If I'd only taken the pictures from my last blog post during our time on the Anhinga Trail, I would have considered it an enjoyable and successful time.  To have gotten twice as many is almost more than I can comprehend.

And the end of one boardwalk was an observation deck that looked out over an area that had at least a dozen alligators, who captured the attention of most of the visitors.  What did I focus on?  The Little Blue Heron looking for lunch.

This pose was much more common among the handful of Green Herons we saw than the upright stance of the one earlier.

The Great Blue Herons I've seen at South Platte Park will fly off if they think you're too close ... from the opposite side of the river.  This one in Florida was much more laid back, letting me get thisclose.

This picture breaks a cardinal rule of nature photography -- the picture that's really not that good, but you can't resist showcasing because you know how hard it was to get.  This Purple Gallinule never stayed still, moving skittishly in and out of the undergrowth.  I tried to stay with him for a while, but couldn't manage a shot sharper than this one.  This round's to you, Gallinule.

I saw two Pied-billed Grebes on our trip, each floating alone in a small body of water.  Do they do anything else?

An endangered Wood Stork was foraging when we arrived, and as much as I wanted to get a shot of him he was just too far off.  On our return trip I noticed he had moved closer, and he then did me the ultimate favor of taking off, flying in my direction and gliding in for a landing not too far in front of me.  Serendipity.

The alligators didn't seem that dangerous mainly because most of them weren't moving.  They just lay in the sun, soaking up rays.  This one, however, seemed much more sinister as he glided silently towards us.  Danelle got this shot of him before he disappeared under the bridge we were on.  I was busy getting off the bridge.

Nearly lost in all the alligators and wading birds was this Northern Mockingbird, sitting in a tree quite close to the trail and apparently unperturbed at all the foot traffic.  He did glare at me a bit, but wasn't bothered enough to give up his perch.

I don't think we spent even two hours on the trail, but saw an absolutely staggering abundance and diversity of wildlife.  I was so overwhelmed by it all, I didn't even try to convince my family to also do the Gumbo Limbo Trail.  We'd already seen more than I could process.

And now I have an excuse to come back someday. :)

Anhinga Trail, Part I

After two nights we bade farewell to Homestead and headed for the Keys, with a short detour planned along the way to take in TripAdvisor's top-rated attraction in Everglades National Park -- the Anhinga Trail.

Hiking's not my family's favorite thing.  They agree to do it on occasion because they love me.  I figured at just 8/10 of a mile this would be a nice compromise and a good stretch of the legs for everyone, and if we were lucky we might see some animals.  Boy, did I underestimate this trail!

Disney themselves couldn't have placed the wildlife any more abundantly or conveniently.  Double-crested Cormorants were sitting right on the fence along the start of the trail, as if protesting its name.

"Ask not for whom the Cormorant squawks.  It squawks for thee, not me."

Birds drying their wings always look majestic and impressive to me.  This female Anhinga was no exception.

Right below the sun-worshipping Anhinga, a Tricolored Heron stood casually in the shallow water of the slough.  It wasn't enough just to have wildlife everywhere you looked.  You often got multiple species in a single view.  Truly an embarrassment of riches.

Yes, there were also alligators.  Lots of alligators.  Big alligators and little alligators.  From one observation deck we counted a dozen.  It got to the point where you couldn't even appreciate them any more.

I believe this guy is a Green Heron, but all the others we saw were perched much more parallel to the ground and not as upright as this one.

Plenty of Great Egrets, too.

The Yellow Pond Lilies had the thickest petals I'd ever seen.

A Great Blue Heron stood at attention, alert for what I wasn't really sure.  It was amazing to see a bird that seems so at home here in Colorado appear equally so in a completely different environment.

Click here for Part II.

Shark Valley

After getting our first taste of South Florida's natural beauty at the Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary, we headed east across the northern part of the Everglades on the Tamiami Trail.  Our ultimate destination was Homestead, which would be our base of operations for the first two nights of our vacation.  But rather than drive straight through we took the opportunity to stop at the Shark Valley Visitor Center along the way.

We knew we'd be pretty fatigued from our overnight flight.  So rather than hike or bike the trails we took advantage of the tram service for the 15-mile loop ride to a very unique spiral ramp and observation tower.

The view from the observation tower had two things you don't see much here in Colorado -- the curvature of the horizon and an alligator.  One's pretty obvious; can you spot the other?

The alligator should be a little easier to pick out in this shot.  Look closely ...

The tram driver had a schedule to keep so she didn't actually stop when we came upon interesting wildlife, but instead just slowed down for people to take pictures.  Coupled with the vibrations from the engine getting a really crisp photo was almost impossible.  The best I could manage was this female Anhinga.  Still, the tram ride overall was interesting and informative.

Less than 10 hours in the state, and we'd already been to two amazing places!