We are staying at one of the many parks along Alligator Creek. We took a walk down to the creek but didn't see any alligators....thankfully. The park does have quite a stretch of waterfront. They have an activity center there as well as many outdoor activities, a dock, and benches along the water. It is a very pretty place to sit on a nice day. It is so quiet here compared to the last park we were at. What a nice change - although the dogs really miss the two acre dog park.
Like at all Encore parks the place is packed. I'd say probably 80% of the people here are permanent residents. And many of them have really fixed up their "yards" very nicely. Keep in mind their yards are all of 60' long and 6' wide!
This morning Mike and the dogs went off to explore some nearby trails. No one was around so Mike let the girls off leash like usual. As they were hiking they came across a bunch of bee boxes (I don't know the real name). But there were bees swarming all around the boxes of course. Mike tried to call Sparkie but she just kept romping around....until she got stung. Then she ran quickly back to Mike crying the whole way. Things seemed to calm down for a while until Mike caught something out of his eye and looked down to see the tail of a 10' alligator. Needless to say, Mike rounded everyone up pretty quickly. He said he saw six or seven alligators within close range that were all 8' -12' long. I suggest they hike someplace different tomorrow.
As soon as they got home, Mike and I went exploring. We found a touristy area called Fisherman's Village. It was an extremely colorful place with many shops and a few restaraunts. We ended up eating outside at one that was right on the water. In fact just below where we were sitting people would drive up in their fancy boats and tie up and come to eat. We figured we had found the place to eat as it was totally packed. While eating we commented that we've probably seen all the different kinds of wildlife that we're going to see in Florida.
After lunch we drove a short ways to Ponce de Leon park. It was so crowded and we really couldn't figure out why...at first. Along the shoreline we saw purple seaweed - this was a first for me.
From there we went out onto the dock. The water was extremely deep so you couldn't begin to see anything in the water. However, this was obviously a very popular spot for very fancy boats to be put into the water. And there were a lot of them. It was almost like a freeway. We enjoyed looking at all the various types of fancy boats as they went by.
As we started to walk back to the car we noticed a small trail kind of hidden off in the bushes. We're really glad we saw that as by going there we added quite a few new animals to the list of wildlife that we've seen on our U.S. tour.
Only about 10' into the trail we came to a small bridge that took us over a small canal.
It may not look like much but if you look more closely it is quite the spot! We saw so much wildlife that was new to us. The first thing we spotted were four Yellow Crowned Night Heron.
We saw both a male and a female - but I don't know which is which. The only difference is the color on the top of their head. Notice the one in the above picture has white on top whereas this one has brown on top.
Here's a nice close up of this very interesting heron that sat just a few feet away from me for quite some time without moving.
When I saw him looking down into the water I thought he must be about ready to dive down to get a fish.
But instead of diving he just opened his mouth.
I was so glad I snapped this picture the second he opened his mouth as if i'd have waited another 1/8 of a second I'd have gotten him doing a huge throw up. It was really gross. Guess he'd eaten a bad fish.
Hiding back in the trees we spotted a Black Crowned Night Heron. He was very shy as he never came out where we could get a better look at him.
And the last bird we saw was the Immature Yellow Crowned Heron.
The water level was really low here so we could see some things that would normally would be covered by water. We saw some mussels....or maybe clams of some sort.
It was interesting to see how the oyster shells were attached to the tree roots.
Just as we were leaving that area I spotted a crab under the water.
As we walked along the boardwalk we saw a sign telling about the Fiddler Crab. We looked and looked but all we could see were holes in the ground. We had just about given up thinking there was nothing there when we noticed that when we would put our arms out over the railing there was a bunch of movement on the ground. It turned out to be the Fiddler Crab. In this picture you can see why it is called the Fiddler Crab.
In this picture you can see one large crab and three smaller ones.
As we were leaving we saw a few pretty flowers. I don't know anything about names of flowers - I just think they are pretty.
The above and below flowers are both red but the ones above where much larger than the ones in this picture.
Of course what would a visit to Ponce de Leon Park be without a picture of me together with my buddy Ponce.
Debbie
2/10-11/07
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