Everyone who comes to the Everglades, must tour them in an airboat. If you’ve watched the opening credits to “CSI-Miami” you see one. In fact, that boat and the sequence was filmed down the road from the tour we took. Our airboat had one engine on it. It was a Chevy 454 engine with a single propellor mounted on it. The boat pictured above was for bigger tours and had TWO props on it.
Now, I always thought of the Everglades as a big, smelly, swamp; teeming with alligators, rotten vegetation, mosquitos and not much else. This is not the case. The Everglades is also known as the River of Grass. It is one of the slowest moving rivers in the world and flows from the freshwaters of Lake Okeechobee and heads south through much of southern Florida to run into the saltwater of the ocean. There are well over 1.5 million acres of land that makes up the Everglades. Since it is a river, it is wet but only to an average depth of 15-18 inches. Every once in a while, some trees have come together and a small island has formed. The Everglades is home to an amazing collection of plant and animal life and even more so in the Winter (when migratory birds come here to hang out). But, the resident that everyone comes to see is the Alligator (there are even crocodiles here, but they are salt water crocs and are found only near the ocean in far southern Florida). Even before we started our boat ride we saw our first ‘gator. This guy was lounging on the bank where we waited to board the boat. There was a small fence “protecting” us from him. We thought he was a prop at first, until he blinked and moved! It being overcast and cool, they weren’t too inclined to move very much.
Our boat Captain and tour guide set off into the Everglades at a slow pace. We saw five or six gators within the first 100 yards or so!
They are masters of camouflage. You have to really look hard to see them, even if they are on the bank. If they are in the water, you can come up on one and not even know it.
As I said before, there are many birds in the Everglades. We came upon this guy and stopped to watch. Just as we settled in, his head shot into the water and out he came with lunch! He tipped his head up and swallowed it whole.
The airboat is a neat ride. It skims over the surface of the water/grass and can make some amazing turns. We even slid sideways for a bit (like driving on ice, but under control). It was great fun!
As the photo implies, our next stop was to the Everglades National Park. The National Park protects about 25% of the original Everglades and, unlike other National Parks that protect a natural feature, this park is designed to protect the fragile ecosystem that is the Everglades. The southern Florida ecosystems have suffered terribly at the hands of man due to both water usage and the many farm fields that provide the fruit and vegetables we eat and the inherent runoff of chemicals that goes with that; repair and restoration of the Everglades is a major political football around here. Shark Valley has a six mile, paved trail that you can walk, bike, or take a Ranger led shuttle through. We decided to walk some of it because, in order to see the wildlife, you must slow down and observe. Zooming through on a bike or shuttle seemed to us to be kind of a waste of time. So off we set down the trail... and we weren’t disappointed. Not more than twenty yards down the trail we had our first gator encounter. There are signs warning you to stay fifteen feet away from the wildlife. I didn’t expect them to be on MY SIDE OF THE TRAIL!
But they are. They really didn’t seem interested in us and, in some cases, we had to go to the other side of the trail in order to stay our 15 feet away.
Often they were napping and would lazily open one eye to look at you, just to make sure that you weren’t going to bother them. Then they’d go back to napping. One gator watched us as we walked by, this time from across the channel. We didn’t feel threatened, but this made for a great picture.
A little farther down the trail, we were treated to a unique view. There was a mother and babies on the bank. You can see them sitting on her. We watched for a while and they never moved. Then, for no apparent reason, the little ones chirped and dove under cover. Mom moved quickly into the water and was very interested in something back in the weeds. Never did figure out what it was, but it was interesting to watch.
In addition to the alligators, there were many birds. One that was most plentiful was the Anhinga. The throat is brown and the black and white feathers along his back is very striking. You’d think that this color would stand out, but there were times that you had to look really hard to see them. They are a water bird and are sometimes called the Snake bird. This is because, when swimming only their neck and head stick out of the water. The brown coloring makes it look like a snake in the water ready to strike.
Another interesting thing is that even though it is a water bird, unlike the duck, the feathers do not repel water. Therefore after diving for a meal, the Anhinga must air dry his soggy feathers. Frequently you could see them all spread out into the wind as seen below.
As I said above, sometimes the gators were so close that we had to go on the other side of the trail to keep our required 15 feet. You can see one in the upper left along the grass.
Coming up closer to him, you can see he isn’t the least bit concerned with us.
Here we saw these two little guys hiding just across the channel. Almost missed seeing them, they were so well camouflaged.
So, like I said, you had to slow down and look closely or you missed some remarkable opportunities to see nature in the wild. Pausing to watch a dozing alligator, or to see a bird stalk a fish, is something that can’t be seen whizzing by on a bike or shuttle. If you have the opportunity to do this, put on your best walking shoes, open your eyes and ears, and watch nature unfold right in front of you!!
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