I was planning on getting gup early but ended up sleeping until 1100. Once up, I headed back up north to Shark Valley Visitor Centre and got the 1300 tram that went out to the Observation Tower. Along the way we passed many baby Alligators, birds and hummock vegetation. The guide was explaining to us about the Anhinga birds and how they mate for life. The male finds a stick and offers it to the female. If she likes the stick they go off and use it as the starting point of their nest, if she doesn’t accept it, he either finds another stick or finds another female. They then return to the same site every year to breed. Apparently there are 250,000 Burmese Pythons in the Everglades. Some have been dumped as unwanted pets and the rest floated down after Hurricane Katrina (from pet shops and peoples pets) and settled in the Park. They have people licensed to hunt them and dogs specially trained but so far it hasn’t been overly successful. Yesterday they caught one that had a full grown deer in its gut. They are decimating the native wildlife and they are at a loss as to what to do about it.
After the tram ride which took about 1 1/2hrs, I did the Otter Cave Hammock Trail which was knee deep in water. I persevered and saw lots of Zebra Butterflies. Unfortunately I didn’t come across any Otters which live there. I then did the Bobcat Boardwalk and saw a couple of ?. Towards the end it started to rain so I headed back to the car and set off back the main entrance at the southern end of the park. I went back to Royal Palm and did some more spotlighting. On the way home I stopped to take photos of a few snakes and then it started to rain again so I headed back to the hostel. I repacked my bags and had an early night.
No comments:
Post a Comment