Our Second Week in Florida

 All of our family returned to their homes after Christmas, but John and I drove south to Fort Myers, were we took up residence for a week.  We had spent one winter there about 10 years ago, and now had plans to revisit some of the natural areas we had seen before.  There was one exception to that plan, and that was Myakka River State Park.  It has a mailing address of Sarasota, which places it about northwest of Fort Myers.  This park is one of Florida's "oldest and most diverse natural areas", according to the park's brochure.  The Myakka River flows through the park with miles of wetlands, prairies, hammocks and pine lands.  Besides the river, there are two shallow lakes here which attract many wetland creatures.  We saw quite a few of them, and spent a very enjoyable day at this park.

At one of the lakes we saw a large number of pelicans and maybe wood storks hanging out.  Unfortunately we were a good distance away from them, any good identification of them was consequently quite difficult.

Shortly after we were in the park we stopped near a bridge to check out what a few people were staring at.  An alligator was lying in the warm sun, near him were a few water birds.

Mayakka State Park has a canopy walkway and tower, part of which is pictured above.  It is necessary to climb 70 feet to reach the walkway. I just had to take a picture of John once we arrived at the top. I could not help but appreciate the fact that John seemed to climb that distance upwards effortlessly, not bad for a man who just turned eighty!

The next day we revisited a favorite park of ours, which is Corkscrew Swamp.  Unfortunately there was a dearth of animals and birds.  We did see what looked like a hawk up in the trees, however it was all white.  A park volunteer explained to us that it was a red shoulder hawk and that some birds in Florida loose their coloration during the winter months.  

One wonderful feature of Corkscrew Swamp is the old growth forests stretching back 5,000 years.  Pictured above is the Calusa tree, host to the endangered Ghost Orchid.  John and I were fortunate to see it blooming on our first visit to this swamp.

We left this park disappointed that we had not seen the birds and alligators here which we had seen in previous years.  But wait!  What was that sound rustling above us as we walked to our car?  Can you make out what that is in the picture above?  As best we could figure out it was a racoon.   Corkscrew swamp had not totally disappointed us!