Sunday, May 24, 2009

Everglades National Park....part 2

We continued our scenic drive through the Everglades and next turned into the Pa-hay-okee Overlook. This has a 1/4-mile boardwalk that leads to an observation platform offering a panoramic view of the River of Grass. This is the saw grass that grows in many places in the park. It isn't really grass, but a member of the sedge family of plants. Here you could see evidence of drought with the dry, parched earth visible in many places.

This is the view from the boardwalk area. No wildlife to be seen here although there are sometimes panther or deer in this area.
Once again out onto the road we came upon this sign. We thought it was funny.
Continuing on we just enjoyed the scenery. Soon we saw an unnamed turn off that had a marker with a camera symbol on it. We turned in and found a bird nesting habitat. We got out of the car with our camera and from across the pond you could hear this loud squawking sound from about 200 birds nesting on the small hillside. It was awesome. A guy was there with a huge camera on a tripod taking photos of the birds and he told me they were Wood Stork and a few Ibis. Mainly, the ones making the racket were the Wood Stork. It was an interesting sight...and sound.
Here is the hillside habitat with the birds nesting.




More of the same but with a Wood Stork in flight (upper right corner).



Flying Wood Stork

Proceed to part 3.....



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