In winter when the sea water cools, manatees swim up rivers to springs that have consistent temperatures. The springs have cooler temperatures than manatees prefer, but generally it’s warm enough to make it through the cold snaps of Florida winters. Blue Spring State Park has a link to a site that posts updates about how many manatees have been spotted recently. A few days after a count in mid January reported of a couple dozen manatees, we visited the park, which is a bit north of Orlando. Mike’s picture:

Unlike the Ichetucknee, there is very little vegetation in the spring run, so there is nothing for the manatees to eat. There are viewing platforms periodically along the spring run, but the manatees that we saw seemed to prefer hanging out at the far side, as far away from the people as possible, and at the end of the run near where it empties into the St Johns River. During manatee season, the spring run is off limits to swimming, diving and boating. What were much easier to see were the large and numerous alligator gar.

At the head of the springs, “a first magnitude spring that discharges 104 million gallons of water daily” (State Park website), we watched a green anole drink from palmetto fronds. This and the rest are Mike’s pictures, and he did the processing as well.

Black Vultures were perched on the far side of the run.

There is a nature trail in the south of the park. It has a long exposed stretch that would be without shade until mid or late afternoon. As we were there late morning, we turned around a bit after the ruins of a small house.

On a foggy morning in early January we went to Sawgrass Lake Park.

There was dew on everything. This and the rest are Mike’s. He also did photo processing.

The two story western overlook had several birds nearby.

We headed south to Jelks preserve a few days before Christmas with new camera bags to try out. Mike was just getting over a bad cold, so we took a shorter loop than we normally would. There are several shortcut trails crossing the main loop around the 614 acres. One edge of the park borders the Myakka River. The parking lot is in a more arid, open area, but as you get closer to the river and the trees get thicker, the blankets of epiphytes on the trees tint the entire canopy pink.

sori on underside of resurrection fern

Quill-leaf and air plants, Mike’s, as are the rest in this post

Deadly poisonous rosary pea

It had been cold recently, and the armadillos were out. One of them squeeked at us and scampered off.

Across the river a spunky kingfisher landed on a dead palm, although still quite far away

We took a weekend trip back to North Florida in early December, intending to go to Big Shoals State Park. Big Shoals is northeast of White Springs, a small community that Mike said looks about the same as he remembered from over two decades ago, hidden from the march of modernization by a cloak of poverty. We passed by worn buildings and rotting railroad tracks. Near the single blinking amber/red lighted intersection, a church’s food pantry had a line of people collecting items. On the highway to Lake City there was an inspection station manned with a police car that said that all trucks, pickups and vans had to pull over. The pickups on the road with us weren’t stopping though. We drove the GTO, which is a much more comfy ride than my pickup, but it’s not made for rough or unpaved roads. It turns out that both entrances to the park are long stretches of dirt. So, we headed to Alligator Lake Park instead, which is all paved.

It was one of the foggiest mornings I’ve seen in Florida. The slight chill and crunching leaves under foot made it feel like fall, which really doesn’t reach further south.

Lantern plants don’t seem to be native.

spiderwort

It wasn’t until around noon that the fog burned off and it warmed up enough for the insects to start flittering about. There were gulf frittilaries, as there usually are, but the other butterflies were cliquish, with several members of a species near each other but not seen in other areas of the park, seemingly more tightly grouped than changes in habitats would make likely.

red waisted florella moth, by Mike

We also managed to get more flitty bird pictures than our usual collection of blurry bird butts.

yellow throated warbler

cardinal. This and the rest of the birds are Mike’s.

bluegray gnatcatcher

palm warbler

black and white warbler

coot

And some reptiles:

alligator by Mike

green anole

First, mine, of sky dwelling creatures at Sawgrass Lake Park in early December.

Pileated woodpeckers are noisy and fairly common, but they hop just quickly enough that it’s difficult to get even decent pictures of them.

The rest are Mike’s. He did the conversions on all of this post as well.

The yellow-rumped warbler is also pretty common. On this morning there were several little birds fluttering through branches near enough to attempt to take their picture.

This is a sunfish of unknown type.

softshell turtle

This is probably a rather old turtle that has seen some bumps and scrapes, possibly a yellow bellied slider

red-eared slider, with coat of algae

We moved about two weeks ago (again). Our new place looks out on a drainage pond and equestrian field. Although we’ve yet to see any horses, we have seen lots of birds (great egret, ducks, robins, blue jays, parakeets and Mike saw a kingfisher), a few turtles, ubiquitous brown anoles of course, a black snake, and today a coyote. We’ve heard them yowling at night, a crazier sound than domestic dogs, but were surprised to see one out during the day. Pictures and processing by Mike, using the NEX-5N.