Saturday, January 26, 2008

Everglades National Park



Sawgrass and Pine Forest
Anhinga Nest with Chicks
Green Heron
Gator
While this picture doesn't do it justice if you click it to enlarge it you should be able to find six species of birds as well as several gators.

Great Blue Heron
Cormorant


After leaving the Keys we went to Homestead to have a continuing slideout problem worked on. The tech was able to find and correct a short so, hopefully, this will take care of the problem. We then spent two days in the Everglades. We went to several ranger talks including one that was a seven mile bike ride on back country trails. The area is very flat and very small changes in elevation affect the type of plants that grow. The lowest areas are sawgrass that are dry at this time of year and turn into a "river of grass" during the wet season. With an elevation increase of less than a foot pine trees grow, with another foot cypress trees begin and just a bit higher hard woods like mahogany appear. Anywhere we saw the least bit of water the wildlife was unbelievable with many gators and a large variety of birds. On one walk we saw three different birds using different strategies to capture and eat small fish.

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