Florida, Day 4

Monday morning, we drove to the Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary & Blair Audubon Center. We walked the 2-mile boardwalk through several types of wetlands, including an amazing virgin bald cypress swamp.

The boardwalk

As in tropical forests, there were many epiphytes, sometime called “air plants” because they grow on top of (epi) other plants (phytes) and never have roots in the ground. This one was blooming.

A blooming air plant

In places, the entire floor was covered with ferns.

Ferns beneath the cypress

The area has been a cypress swamp for at least 500 years. The massive older trees have been named for individuals who were instrumental in establishing the sanctuary.

One of the old cypress trees

Sadly, some of these trees had lost their tops in hurricanes.

Here are some of the photos I took of the wildlife.

Anhinga

Green heron

Great blue heron 

Little blue heron

So many herons! 

Crappy picture of a kingfisher

Crappy picture of a yellow-bellied sapsucker

When I looked at the pictures in the evening, I saw that this alligator has a baby alligator lying with it head near its mom’s belly.

Mama Gator with a baby

And there were hawks.

Red-shouldered hawk

This might be the Florida subspecies of a red-shouldered hawk, which is lighter in color

A purple gallinule in a bed of water lettuce.

Purple gallinule

Pretty proud of myself that I got a more-or-less in-focus picture of a black and white warbler. Warblers are very annoying to photograph, all that flitting around.

Black and white warbler

Jane took pictures of the bird feeder by the visitors' center.

Painted bunting

Painted bunting with a female cardinal

We also saw, but were unable to get a good picture of, a raccoon, ibis, red-bellied woodpecker, and egret.

We did not see any wood storks, but there was a lovely sculpture of them by the visitors’ center. The peril of the wood stork was a major impetus to establishing the sanctuary.

Sculpture of wood storks

We stopped at Royal Ice Cream on the way home for an ice cream lunch. I had mint chip and chocolate almond. We decided that Love Boat was a better value because of lower price and larger serving sizes. And it came in a Styrofoam cup. Horreur! 

Royal mint chip and chocolate almond  ice cream

We were home for sunset at the condo.

 

Another beautiful sunset on the Gulf