We never know how many gators we will see when we walk the trails around the Taylor Creek Storm Water Management facility just north of Okeechobee. The path we choose to walk today I call the south trail, and is about 1 1/2 miles long. I call it the south trail because it is on the south end of the facility. There is another trail I call the north trail and it's about 1 3/4 miles long. Yep! It's located on the north end of the facility and we have not yet walked it. So, if you really like walking alongside wild gators with no protective barriers, you could walk a total of 3 1/4 miles. Wear comfortable shoes and don't bring your pet or they could end up as gator food!
Kristi & Kitty walking
A short distance into our walk, we were greeted by these Black Vultures! This would not be a good place to lay down and take a nap. These vultures might think you're dead.
One of these vultures followed Kristi for a while. They have a funny little hop when they walk. But, there's nothing funny about being followed by a Black Vulture. You don't want one of these guys to start pecking on you for sure! Maybe Kristi didn't have her make up on correctly!
The Black Vulture let us get pretty close. He's checking us very carefully to see if one of us looks like a future meal!
We always see some Egrets on this trail.
The next three pictures are Anhingas.
He's drying his feathers after diving into the water for a fish.
This little guy has one eye on us!
This Blue Heron is also keeping one eye on us.
Comorants are plentiful here as well.
Now he has his other eye trained on us!
Easy big boy! We're just passing through!
This guy looks pretty relaxed.
Something startled this Blue Heron!
This beautiful Tri-Colored Heron made friends with an algae covered turtle.
Whichever way this guy wants to go, I'm going the opposite way!
This gator is about 50 yards from us and it looks like he just killed an Anhinga. He was too far away to get a great picture. Sorry, I am not wadding into the water to get a better picture! But, you can see what appears to be an Anhinga wing next to the gators head.
Well this happy trail just came to an end. We all agreed it was exciting seeing these animals in their natural habitat. It's a successful walk when we head for the car with all of our limbs still attached!
No comments:
Post a Comment