The main entrance to the Everglades National Park is on its Eastern border towards the South end on Highway 9336. It is an easy drive from Homestead. The Ernest F. Coe Visitor Center provides maps and other information. There are ranger-led activities every day. We were in good time for that day's ranger-guided walk on the Anhinga Trail.
Anhinga Trail
The trail is freely accessible, but the ranger made it much more interesting than strolling around on our own. She was a retired university scientist so her knowledge was excellent and she was an experienced teacher. One of the younger members of the group was given the task of keeping count of the individual wild animals we saw along the way. The mechanical counter was kept very busy. As was Bill's camera.
Damned undisciplined wildlife. ;-)
This Palm Warbler did not attempt to vandalise any vehicles.
Yet another big alligator.
Baby alligators are guarded by their mother for a while, because they are preyed upon by so many birds and other creatures. Including adult alligators.
The first Green Heron of the day.
An Anhinga drying its wings. Unlike ducks, their feathers are not water-repellent and get soggy while they are fishing.
A water plant's flower.
Turtles under the surface.
Alligators were so common they became uninteresting.
A Purple Gallinule.
The same bird flapping its wings.
Green Herons have a combination of shape, colour, pattern and gleaming eye that really grabs the attention.
And when they look directly at you …
One of the very rare occasions when we stood in front of the camera.
Eve photographing an Anhinga. They generally don't let humans approach nearly so closely.
Her photograph.
Bill's portrait of the same bird through a telephoto lens.
Pineland Trail
This is a short loop walk – only 400 yards – by the road. It's advertised attractions are the remnant of Slash Pine forest and some special snails, but we got lucky.
The only deer we saw in the Everglades.
A millipede crossed the path.
We picked it up on a twig.
A lizard in the shade at the edge of the boardwalk.
These attractive tree snails were collected almost to extinction for their pretty shells.
This toadstool caught the eye.
Other Locations
There are plenty of places to stop and enjoy nature. We appreciated the numerous information boards.
Gumbo-Limbo trees Bursera Simaruba. What a splendid common name.
A “Solution Hole”. Mild organic acid from decaying plants and rainwater very slowly dissolve limestone to form these holes. The level of water represents the ground water table over the whole area. So there's not much dry land under our feet.
Bald Cypress trees shed their needles in winter.
We mentioned in a previous post how flat Florida is. Here's some more evidence. In a sense, this is a river because water flows very slowly through the grass to the sea.
In mountainous regions it is common to find a sign where the road goes over a pass to tell you how high you are. We noticed two such signs along the road to Flamingo. In both cases the “pass” was less than 10 feet above sea level!
Some Everglades flowers:
We had to leave some of the places of interest for another day. There are so many. The road ends at Flamingo, where there is a very large campground. It was almost empty, but was expected to be full in a couple of weeks. We selected a site near an ablution block. There was just one problem; no hot water. Only one block had hot showers, and that was by the tent sites. We were welcome to use them if we were happy to march all that way with our towels.
The block near us was a meeting place for Black Vultures. They inspected us appraisingly.
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