After our first pancake and sausage breakfast of the trip we headed off on the bicycles to the Anhinga Trail at Royal Palm Hammock (we think). This involves a just over four mile bike ride on a combination of rough hard trail within the campground, smooth flat paved road, followed by rough grass and lastly a rooty dirt trail up to the visitor's center. One's "bum" is very happy to be out of the saddle upon arrival!
We had been told, while in Flamingo, that Eco Pond's water was too high and there were fewer birds there as a result. We were also told that Anhinga Trail would be much more greatly populated even though the water was higher. It was immediately evident that there were fewer wading birds as we started along the trail. They just were not there! We were seeing many more fish in the water though. There were Anhingas in the trees often drying their wings along with Cormorants.
There were plenty of gators along the trail, in one place alone we counted 23. That's a lot of gators.
We saw only a handful of Great Blue Herons. One near the entrance to the trail (we suspect it is one we have seen in this area over the years...his territory). He was standing with his wings slightly away from his body, possibly drying them as we have seen other birds do.
Anhingas are amazing birds. They dive for fish and when we drive along near waterways or here on the trail it is not unusual to see them up in a tree with their magnificanat wings spread wide to dry.
We did get somewhat of a treat while on the trail as there were Anhingas mating and nesting. In one tree, surrounded by water, there were several birds. One in particular caught our eyes because we could hear him making a different sound and he was bowing toward a female. He would then pull his tail up into a fan like position behind him and spread his wings so that mostly only the white and striped feathers where showing toward her. Unfortunately, he was too far away and we were at the wrong angle to get a decent shot of him. But to watch this was really amazing. We've never seen anything quite like this before.
Great Blues are always wonderful to watch and particularly when they take flight; such a wide wing span and they just seem to rise effortlessly up from wherever they are.
The other treat of the walk was watching the Purple Gallinules run across lilly pads and gathering blossoms off the lillies to eat. Usually we have seen these birds right at the entrance to the trail, but this time they were in a larger pond area.
This is a male Purple Gallinule looking for good stuff to eat. These birds have relatively long toes on their feet which appear to be why they can easily run across the lilly pads.
This is either a juvenile or a female. Our bird book doesn't tell us the difference between the genders and only shows a male and a juvenile.
And it is fitting that we close this little blog entry about the Anhinga Trail with the Purple Gallinule running across the lilly pads with a prize in it's mouth. We saw several birds with these blossoms and one even had managed to pull one up with a foot-long stem attached and was headed off for a feast.
Now for an interesting part of this blog's entry: Mr Bubbles
Several years ago when we needed a laundromat, we happened upon a place in Florida City called "Mr Bubbles". This was a clean facility with over-sized machines allowing us to put a whole week's worth of dirty clothes and towels in with room to spare. It also featured free Wi-Fi, benches outside, and that made for a pleasant and interesting laundry experience for people unaccustomed to the neighborhood laundromat. Two years since our last visit we found Mr Bubbles in much the same condition except the Wi-Fi wasn't working and half the facility was now commercial, where one could leave their dirties and return to have it washed, dried, and folded. It struck us that "laundromat life" is something that the four of us don't experience very often, so Mr. Bubbles gave us a window on folks faced with weekly trips to the neighbood laundromat. There is a certain sadness to laundromat life; no one seems to smile, the adults just come in with their soiled clothes, trailed by the kids. It seems to be written on the moms' faces that life should be better than laundromat drudgery. Children certainly are happy enough, they get to run around and have fun while their grim-faced mothers (usually) just get on with the job at hand.
The Missle Site - Monday
Within the Everglades National Park, close to the Long Pine Key campground, is a former Army Nike missile site, which was hurriedly installed in the early 1960s during the Cuban Missile Crisis. This was one of four sites in southern Florida deployed to intercept bomber attacks from Cuba. Of course, there never were any such attacks, but the site remained operational until it was shut down in 1979. The headquarters building and missile barns remain, now the object of daily tours conducted by volunteers from the National Park Service. Our tour, on Monday afternoon under an unrelenting South Florida sun, was with Scott Gabriel, who has been doing these tours for a couple of years. He has done a lot of research on the Cuban crisis in general and this missile site in particular, delivering a ninety-minute tour spiced with anecdotes and facts. One of the barns contains an actual Nike Hercules missile and related artifacts, collected over the years by private groups that are interested in preserving this fascinating period in our history.
Tuesday
We have had a quiet day. Listening to birds: cardinals, cat, mockingbirds, eastern Towhees, and woodpeckers and owls to mention a few. We got out for a walk around the small lake that is within the campground. We were hearing the knock-knock of a woodpecker but saw nothing. As we walked further we heard more knocking and stopped to look for a dead tree where there might be a bird. Saw two dead trees but no bird. Then we noticed two holes up near the top of the tree; 40 or more feet up. We continued to hear knocking and went around the tree and still saw nothing. Then a head emerged from the lower hole almost as though the bird was checking us out. David saw chips come flying out of the bird's bill. This was repeated several tines and then the bird came out and inspected the outside of the hole. The bird was a pileated woodpecker! We were thrilled to have spotted him.
Tossing out the wood chips!
We will make one more trip to Royal Palm and the Anhinga Trail this afternoon before dinner and then heading out tomorrow for another campground adventure.
Here is a one collage of six of the photos taken today.
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