Travel Photography > Photos tagged as scenery and everglades
Morning Glories are one of the most common flowers, but I thought these were of interest for two reasons: the color (ours are all white), and the date - it is January 2nd. Flowers don't bloom in January out where I live!
Quite a difference a day makes! The temperature dropped from 84 F yesterday to 49 F this morning (rose to about 60 late afternoon). It didn't stop us from going to the beach however!
This is the far edge of Florida (exclucing the Key's).
These birds are endangered, but can commonly be seen in the Everglades NP however.
December & January are the dry months for the Everglades, but many areas still have low amounts of water seeping through them.
From the ground level, the Everglades looks like grassland, but it is a wide, shallow river. A few places where the ground rises slightly get covered with brush or trees. Small ones are called hammocks.
These were at the Royal Palms nature walk area. There were a lot of alligators in this area - at least 15 or more that we could see (& I'm sure more hidden in the tree's and underwater...)
He didnt' seem to be too worried about all the alligators hanging around just a few feet away.
These are slightly larger (by inches) than the black vultures. They also have red heads (vs black) and slightly different shaped wings.
I never realized how many different types of Heron's there are. We saw three just in the Royal Palms area today.
This was also at the Royal Palms nature walk area. We saw this bird, which wasn't very large, several Great Blue Herons, and a Tricolored Heron during the same walk.
This is just a glimps of what the nature walk area looks like. It used to have a lot more tall palms, but they were blown down by hurricanes Andrew & Wilma.
The wildlife in the Royal Palms nature walk area are quite used to people. Mom actually went up and touched this Cormorant later, he just ignored her.
One of the distinguishing features of the Heron's are that they tuck their necks in while flying. I was hoping this photo would show this, but it may not be clear enough.
Stunning bird.
This was at Mrazak Pond, about 5 miles east of Flamingo. He was only about 20 feet from the road, so I used the zoom as I didn't want to get too close to him (he had a pretty clear shot at me if he'd wanted to start chasing...)
The tree's are Bald Cypress. They aren't dead, they just go dormant during the dry season (Dec, Jan) to conserve water - one of the few needle type trees that loose their needles seasonally.
There are a lot of Cormorants all over south Florida. The Everglades are no exception.
These have black, featherless heads as opposed to Turkey Vultures, which have read heads.
These birds are so common at the Royal Palms area, the walk is called the Anhinga Trail. I'd never heard of them before - they are somewhat similar in size & & behavior to Cormorants.
Like the Cormorant, the Anhinga dives to catch fish. It can't fly with wet wings, so stands like this to dry them after diving.
View of some of the small islands off the southern coast of Florida
This was outside the Ernest F. Coe Visitors Center, at the beginning of the highway to Flamingo (36 miles farther)
This is a strange looking bird, but beautiful in an odd sort of way. This is the only stork native to North America.