The Great Blue Heron is one of my favourite birds found in North America.
To be a fish, crab, turtle or other small creature near where these guys hunt must be terrifying. I’ve seen these birds hunt in parks near home in Ontario, Canada and as far away as the Galapagos Islands, but this one in the Florida Everglades put on the best show. I’ve heard they also hunt reptiles, mammals and rodents so even chipmunks and gophers and voles aren’t safe from these guys!
The heron must’ve been very hungry as it easily speared a few victims during the time I watched it, just before sunset. Impressive bird, that must’ve been more than 1m tall.
Great Blue Heron, Anhinga Trail in Everglades National Park
A Turtle - Probably the Florida Cooter - in Everglades National Park
It is May 23rd, so Happy World Turtle Day!
I saw a good number of turtles when I was in the Everglades, but didn’t realize until afterwards that there are apparently 16 turtle species found in Everglades National Park.
One of the more common ones seemed to be this type of turtle, which as far as I can tell, is the Florida Cooter.
While this turtle was safe in a National Park, this species is one considered so plentiful in the USA that it can be caught in the wild and exported for a life as someone’s pet or someone’s dinner in places like China and Taiwan. Did you know that millions of turtles are raised on farms in the US and caught in the wild for human consumption?
This is the third, and final, post in my Everglades National Park series. The first post was about Shark Valley and the second post was on the Anhinga Trail.
I always knew that the Everglades was huge, but never really had a full understanding of what it ‘was’ or how unique it was. So here are some surprises I uncovered and learned from park authorities, while visiting this World Heritage Site.
1 – The Everglades is dry for part of the year
Dry Everglades - River of Grass
Most people have visions of a swampy, wet mosquito-filled landscape when they think of the Everglades. While the Everglades is not a swamp, that wet, mosquito-laced vision is true
for part of the year. The Everglades are actually a cracked earth, dry grassland for a few months of the year. Visiting from about December to April gives you the best chance to experience the Everglades in a drier state. The benefits of this are that the Alligators congregate in smaller water holes and can be seen easier, plus there will be NO mosquitoes!
2 – Borrow Pits
Virtually everything in Everglades National Park is nautral. They don’t interfere with the course of nature. One of the biggest threats to the Everglades ecosystem is introduced species. Not just animals such as burmese pythons, but plants as well. Introduced plant species choke out the natural vegetation and are a constant battle for park officials. Which brings me to borrow pits.
When building the roadways and paved paths in the park, officials were weary of bringing materials from outside of the park because of the likely introduction of seeds and spores from foreign plants. To avoid that risk, they excavated a number of deep pits from within the park and used the rocks and materials from these ‘borrow pits’ to create the pathways. This is most evident at Shark Valley. Here, the borrow pits are about 20 feet deep and are the only feature of the area that does not dry up in the dry season. These few sources of year-round water are a haven for wildlife.
Smiling Alligator Closeup
3 – Only place in the world to see Alligators and American Crocodiles
The endangered american crocodile can be found here in small numbers. It prefers areas with sandy beaches for laying eggs, so the over development of coastal areas in south Florida have caused it’s numbers to steadily decline. If you’re really lucky you may catch a glimpse of a crocodile while venturing into the Everglades by boat, kayak or canoe. The crocodiles are salt-water animals so they stick along the coast, whereas the alligators are freshwater animals and are more common inland.
4 – Oil is here
The Shark Valley area of the Everglades was originally land surveyed for drilling oil by the Humble Oil Company. Back in 1946 they did find oil here, but thankfully the quality of the oil and technological capabilities at the time didn’t make extraction a viable option. Giving up on the rough landscape and low quality oil, Humble Oil Company (now called Exxon) gave the land to the government, and this area became part of Everglades National Park.
Who knows what could have happened here if the oil was found today?
5 – The Everglades is a River
Huh? What? At more than 1.5 million acres in size, this is a huge river – 50 miles wide!
It may not look like it, but the Everglades is in constant motion. Water from further north in Florida at Lake Okeechobee trickles south at a very gradual rate as it goes through the Everglades. Nicknamed a ‘river of grass’ Everglades National Park only represents about 25% of what the entire Everglades once was. Water diversion and urban development have altered the natural course of flow to the Everglades, destroying parts of it in recent decades. Thankfully construction efforts are underway along parts of the Tamiani Highway and other areas of south Florida to ensure water flow to the park, and it’s plants and animals, will continue in the future.
Do you have any other interesting Everglades facts? Were you surprised that there are virtually no mosquitoes here for parts of the year? Share your Everglades tips by posting a comment below.
This is the second post in a three-part Everglades series during National Parks Week in the US. The first post was on Shark Valley.
Wildlife galore! The Anhinga Trail in the Everglades National Park was so nice I went there twice – in the same day.
Male Anhinga feeding youngsters
Only 4 miles form the park entrance at Homestead, the Anhinga Trail is a short, flat trail that is partly along a paved route and partly along an over-water boardwalk. At less than 1 mile in length it had a surprisingly large number of creatures to keep me busy. I knew this trail would be a treat right away as pesky vultures and other big birds were hovering around the parking lot when I arrived.
The trail namesake – the Anhinga – is a bird that can be seen fishing and sunning itself in the trees beside the trail. Now, usually I am nto a bird-person, and I don’t quite get ‘birders’, but I’m open to any wildlife experience. With that said – I think I was extra lucky to find an Anhinga family perched in a nest near the trail, posing perfectly for photos. Not only did I get to see fluffy baby Anhinga birds, but I saw their parents fishing in the nearby waters and actually feeding the youngsters. Man those birds were hungry!
Walking Alligator near the Anhinga Trail
I also saw my first ‘mobile’ Alligator here. Over at Shark Valley I had only seen them swimming or lounging around on land. So I couldn’t really appreciate the size and shape of these prehistoric creatures. But, lucky again, I saw one walking along the sandy beach between two waterways. I had expected it to more or less slide along and drag it’s tail around, like a snake, but it actually picked up it’s entire body as it walked along, before vanishing back into the water. Pretty cool.
After these right place at the right time moments I ventured along the entire trail boardwalk for about half an hour, watching Alligators swim all around. It was a perfectly sunny day, so after the Anhinga Trail I drove on through the Everglades to hike a couple of smaller trails in the hot afternoon. But on the way home, at sunset, I had to stop by the Anhinga Trail again and get more photos during the golden hour of light.
Wildlife watching in the Everglades at Anhinga Trail
With the hot sun fading, the Alligators weren’t as plentiful – they seemed to retreat back away from the trail boardwalk at this time of day.
The Anhinga birds were no longer feeding their young either, but there were all sorts of herons, including the Great Blue Heron, and other birds flying around or stealthily stalking their dinner. Overall, the Anhinga trail provided a very impressive wildlife show for such an accessible destination, and I’d have to give it a very slight edge over Shark Valley for my favourite trail and wildlife experience in the Everglades.
More bird photos from the Anhinga Trail in Everglades National Park:
