More Critters

Carole and I are relatively adventurous when we go to visit parks. Most people who go to Florida are there for the beaches, perhaps, or the amusement parks. But most folk don't seem to venture out much farther than the edge of the shore.

We tend to go hiking into the forests a lot and to hit the waterways either in a canoe or kayaks or sometimes via water taxis to get out to isolated islands where we can go hiking. That is what we did one day on this trip. We took a boat out to Egmont Key where we spent most of the day walking the trails on the island and seeing what it had to offer.

And, of course, in addition to the historical ruins out there, we also viewed a fair amount of wildlife. Here are some of them:

This dark shape was approaching the boat. The captain took us to see it up close.

Mr. Manatee! This was the first ocean-going manatee we had seen. Most we encounter are in the freshwater springs.

The endangered Gopher tortoise. Egmont Key has a good breeding population of this rare reptile.

Beachside crow.

This baby osprey was way up on an enormous concrete tower that was part of the fort.

The ungainly anhinga in flight.

A bottlenose dolphin on our way back to shore.

And back at camp, this little lizard was sitting on one of our wastewater hoses.