Good by to Flamingo - Hello to Big Cypress Swamp

Saturday February 1 and Sunday February 2, 2014
Midway Campground site 16
Ochopee, Florida

 

 

Saturday morning is another gray and eerie sunrise.  

 

 

 

 

The view to the bay.

 

 

The view to the campground.

 

The walk in campsites right on the bay and more than usually full on this Saturday.

 

People come from far away to camp here.

 

 

On my last morning at Eco Pond the birds have definitely arrived. 

 

I imagine it is going to be great here in February.  Birds birds and more birds this morning.   It’s still hazy but they don’t mind.   If you are coming to Flamingo in February you have a lot to look forward to.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I walk over to the Visitor Center for the last time.  Tomorrow we will be leaving Flamingo and moving North.

How wonderful of this Giant White Butterfly to actually alight where I can photograph him and the blue tip at the end of his antenna.   They are very common here and flit and fly and never stand still.  I’ve been trying to get a good photograph of one for the entire time we’ve been here.   Guess this leaf or flower had what it takes to cause him to stop and stay a while. 
Can you see the blue tip?

 

 

We spend the early part of our last afternoon under the shade of our beautiful mahogany tree and our awning.

 

 

How about this for a view to read by.   Now you can see why we pulled in “backwards”

 

 

Check out the size of this Florida avocado David us using to make lunch sandwiches.
And that’s just half of it.

 

 

 

 

It’s still too hot to venture into the mangroves so this afternoon we take a trip back to Mrazek Pond.

 

 

 

I am standing right on the shore photographing the coots and moorhens, when the illusive green heron flies up and lands on a branch right in front of me. 
It’s amazing.
I stand so still I am afraid to breath.  I could reach out and touch him if I wanted.

Look at those eyes.

 

 

 

 

This moorhen was doing a little dance.   I only got a couple of steps.

 

 

 

It’s true, I take too many pictures of him but he has all sorts of looks and expressions. 

 

 

 

Joining the moorhens are many coots and again the green winged teal.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s a postcard sunset send off!

 

We get the big orange ball for our last night in Flamingo.  We guessed wrong on which night we should take out the kayaks.  Today things are all put away so we enjoy it from the shore along with lots of the week-enders some of whom have come from Miami for the day and are snapping pictures.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sunday February 2nd

 

Just 11 hours later, the sun returns for my very last sunrise over Florida Bay and it does not disappoint.

 

 

 

 

No Eco Pond or Guy Bradley trail today, I have to go directly back and finish packing up to move on to Big Cypress National Preserve.  But as I pass the scag tree on the way, the kestrel is there to bid me good bye.   What a striking pose he makes.   I feel blessed.

 

 

 

 

And then we are on our way up the long park road with the Everglades on either side.  We travel through 5 different habitats all based on elevation.   The pinelands are the apex at 4’.  :-)

 

 

 

Once we leave the park, the protection of the glades is no more and they have been turned into agricultural fields; one of the things for which the natural flow of water to the Everglades is being controlled.

 

 

 

Controlled in order to bring these Giant tomatoes to ‘Robert is Here’ where he is showing off his antique vehicle collection this week-end.

 

 

 

It’s just 104 miles, my kind of day, with one stop at Robert’s and we are in our site overlooking the pond with one alligator at Midway Campground in The Big Cypress National Preserve.  
What is becoming our annual visit in the Everglades isn’t QUITE over yet.