Back to one of our top places to camp. We love seeing the alligators, traveling the trails, and identifying birds.
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As we've found in other places this winter, the winter bird migration is late and the northern birds haven't made it here. But we were able to add two new birds to our Life List. The pink-legged black-bellied whistling-duck and the red shouldered hawk. We also saw pink roseate spoonbills, ibis, egrets, and herons. As well as, the synchronized duck butt swimmers.
We found about a dozen of the 55 geocaches in the park. Dean is getting better and better with his "geosense" and finds the caches right off.
But the most fun is hiking the 2 mile path around Elm Lake (dubbed by us: Alligator Pond). Our first day out we counted 49 gators sunning themselves.
The next couple times around it seemed like just as many. There are probably 100's of gators in the pond.
Since our last visit, feral pigs have come to live in the park. They have dug up the banks all around the lake and they have waded onto the offshore islands and eaten all the bushes. We imagine that has affected the birds in this pond but expect they have moved to one of the other lakes.
The next couple times around it seemed like just as many. There are probably 100's of gators in the pond.
Since our last visit, feral pigs have come to live in the park. They have dug up the banks all around the lake and they have waded onto the offshore islands and eaten all the bushes. We imagine that has affected the birds in this pond but expect they have moved to one of the other lakes.
