Bill had wanted to go to Okefenokee ever since he saw it featured on a nature documentary long ago. Apart from the wildlife it has such a memorable name.
An unexpected avenue along the way. Somewhere between Charleston SC and Waycross Ga.
A specimen tree beside the road.
The first close up of Spanish Moss. In Okefenokee this plant was so abundant it ceased to be exciting.
Of the various access points to the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge, we went to the Suwannee Canal. We did the boat tour and then drove around to some of the other points of interest. If you have your own boat or canoe there are miles of waterway to explore.
The boat tour was a reasonable price, very informative and most enjoyable. Our guide was a genuine swamper, with an accent so broad we sometimes had difficulty understanding him. He certainly knew about the natural history of the area. Interestingly, he called vultures “buzzards”.
The Suwanee Canal was dug as part of an attempt to drain the swamp and create arable land. The attempt failed, so North America's largest swamp survived, but it was ruthlessly logged. Not many years ago there were major fires in the swamp, caused by lightning strikes. Fire is apparently as much a part of the natural cycles in Okefenokee as it is in the Canada's boreal forests, despite the boggy terrain.
The trees are Cypresses.
Oh look. Spanish Moss!
A close-up of the canal bank.
One of the first alligators we saw.
A close up.
A turtle. We think it is a Yellow-bellied Slider.
The are lots of birds in the swamp, but few of them offered themselves as good photographic subjects that day.
A Pileated Woodpecker in flight.
A Barred Owl dozing through the day.
A Great Egret flaps away.
Beyond the canal:
A shallow lagoon.
It is seldom too deep for water lilies to grow.
Yellow flowers on one of the “islands”.
A close up.
Another eye-pleasing view.
And yet another.
The biggest alligator we saw from the boat. There was no navigable channel and we had to get our pictures as best we could.
More turtles.
There's a boardwalk beside the canal, and various roads and trails. There's even an old homestead. We only explored a small portion of them.
A nice view.
A very active (ichneumon?) wasp snapped during a brief pause.
White flowers
A reed mace (cattail) seed head.
A lizard.
Another big 'gator.
There are acres and acres of Saw Palmetto undergrowth, artistically captured here by Eve under rays of the afternoon sun.
We stayed the night at a nearby private campground. We would have returned the next morning since our National Parks Pass includes admission to the wildlife refuges, but the weather turned against us. So we headed off to Florida in the rain.
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