Thursday, 14 April 2016

The panther trail, the FWC and Coopertown-March 1st.

The Panther trail and Alligator alley

Temperature: 28 degrees mainly clear, some cloudy patches.
An alligator spotted enjoying the sun at the side of the road.
In the morning we went to the Florida Panther National Wildlife Refuge. Most of this is closed off to the public but we did get to go on a walking trail of its habitat. Unfortunately, we didn't get to see any panthers but we also passed through the famous Alligator Alley on   route and we must have easily seen over 60 alligators in the space of two hours! There was also a black crowned night heron (Nycticorax nycticorax) spotted further up the trail by one of the vans which was really cool to see. 





Coopertown

Before we decided to go airboating we were warned that some of the guides show little care in avoiding some of the wildlife and can kill or seriously harm them. Thankfully, this did not occur when we were there and our guide knowledgeable given up to date facts that we had heard before. As for the trip itself it was my first time on an airboat and I found the experience to be quite enjoyable and the surrounding was gorgeous. Unfortunately there was also a small containment on site which had some large Alligators which I and many of the rest of us felt were really underdeveloped (and far too small) and the Alligators themselves seemed lethargic and unhappy





Canoeing


Today was our first chance to have a bit of an early evening but we decided to go out canoeing for our first but not last time! At first we found using the canoe to be a bit tricky but after a while we began to get the hand of it and really enjoyed ourselves. We saw lots pelicans roosting in the mangroves and getting some of the early morning sun. We also saw some large floating propagules of mangroves but many of these were dead or had been eaten by a hungry pelican! We got an incredible surprise when we were putting our canoe when we saw some bottlenose dolphins (Tursiop) inquisitively swam past us! 


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