Nothing very inspiring going on for me here in Brooklyn. It's been rainy, I've been social distancing and working from home, I have a few more flowers I haven't shared yet, I probably will but rather than change the name of my blog to Flowerma, tonight I decided to dip back into my Florida pictures.
We'd had a couple of near misses with manatees in the preceding days. My friends in Anna Maria Island had taken us to a place where some manatees had been earlier in the week, but they'd moseyed on. The Mote Marine Lab has a pair of manatees, Hugh and Buffett, but their habitat had just closed temporarily for renovations the week we visited. These near misses made me even more interested in seeing manatees. A little online research turned up Manatee Park in Ft. Myers. It was a 45 minute drive, but when I called the park & asked if we would see manatees if we came, the very sweet woman who answered the phone positively guaranteed it. So the next morning my sister and TQ and I all jumped in the car and set off to see the manatees.
Manatees, as we learned from one of the volunteers there, have no blubber. I would never have guessed that, they are so roly-poly looking, but they don't, and that's the reason that when the waters of the Gulf get too cold for them (below 68 fahrenheit) they make their way up into the warmer inland waters. They particularly like the warm outflow from power plants, and Manatee Park is built around one such outflow that runs into the Orange River. We didn't end up paddling with the manatees here - there is a kayak and canoe rental there but as usual, we hadn't gotten the quickest start so didn't have hours and hours and hours to play with, and we found that the manatee viewing from the shore of the outflow canal was fantastic. There were mamas and babies, and the volunteers told us some really interesting stuff (including stories about how wildlife rehabilitators go about releasing manatees - this is a frequent release spot and the newly freed animals are tracked carefully to make sure they're doing ok, all really interesting) so we decided to stick with that, plus a little time exploring the grounds.
That was a good call because they had this lovely short nature walk on a boardwalk through the mangroves where the outflow met the river, and while we were exploring that, we found a wild river otter! We'd enjoyed seeing the ones they had at the Mote Marine Lab the day before, and getting to watch this one going about his wild otter daily routine was just fantastic.
And we got to see a herd of manatees getting spooked by something - that was pretty impressive, they had been floating so peacefully but my goodness, when these big creatures all went diving away simultaneously, they left the water roiling!
Another beautiful day in Florida! All photos after this, click for a slideshow view.
We'd had a couple of near misses with manatees in the preceding days. My friends in Anna Maria Island had taken us to a place where some manatees had been earlier in the week, but they'd moseyed on. The Mote Marine Lab has a pair of manatees, Hugh and Buffett, but their habitat had just closed temporarily for renovations the week we visited. These near misses made me even more interested in seeing manatees. A little online research turned up Manatee Park in Ft. Myers. It was a 45 minute drive, but when I called the park & asked if we would see manatees if we came, the very sweet woman who answered the phone positively guaranteed it. So the next morning my sister and TQ and I all jumped in the car and set off to see the manatees.
Manatees, as we learned from one of the volunteers there, have no blubber. I would never have guessed that, they are so roly-poly looking, but they don't, and that's the reason that when the waters of the Gulf get too cold for them (below 68 fahrenheit) they make their way up into the warmer inland waters. They particularly like the warm outflow from power plants, and Manatee Park is built around one such outflow that runs into the Orange River. We didn't end up paddling with the manatees here - there is a kayak and canoe rental there but as usual, we hadn't gotten the quickest start so didn't have hours and hours and hours to play with, and we found that the manatee viewing from the shore of the outflow canal was fantastic. There were mamas and babies, and the volunteers told us some really interesting stuff (including stories about how wildlife rehabilitators go about releasing manatees - this is a frequent release spot and the newly freed animals are tracked carefully to make sure they're doing ok, all really interesting) so we decided to stick with that, plus a little time exploring the grounds.
That was a good call because they had this lovely short nature walk on a boardwalk through the mangroves where the outflow met the river, and while we were exploring that, we found a wild river otter! We'd enjoyed seeing the ones they had at the Mote Marine Lab the day before, and getting to watch this one going about his wild otter daily routine was just fantastic.
And we got to see a herd of manatees getting spooked by something - that was pretty impressive, they had been floating so peacefully but my goodness, when these big creatures all went diving away simultaneously, they left the water roiling!
Another beautiful day in Florida! All photos after this, click for a slideshow view.
2 comments:
I love manatees.when we were in Florida a few years ago, our friends who live near Tamps took us to a local park that serves as a wildlife refuge, and we got to see some manatees. They are magnificent, aren’t they?
They are! It was lovely getting to see them here!
Post a Comment