After 2½ months in Florida, Are the Stops Starting to Look the Same??

We have been to over 30 state parks, the Everglades, city park preserves, national forests, wildlife refuges, beaches, barrier islands, hammocks, wetlands, sloughs, swamps, rails to trails bike paths, kayak/canoe trails, botanic gardens, the Great Florida Birding and Wildlife Trail, etc.  

There certainly is overlap in what we see. Palms, saw palmettos, different pines, mangroves, lots of birds, ocean, springs, wetlands, swamps, beaches. 

But every single day, we manage to see something new.

For example, this past Sunday, Feb 2^nd, we went to the Wakodahatchee Wetlands Park (of the Palm Beach County Water Utilities Department’s Southern Region Water Reclamation Facility*) in Delray Beach. After all the great stuff we have seen so far in so many places, these are the things we saw for the first time on this trip at the Wakodahatchee Wetlands. (Thanks Mike and Betty! This place was a great recommendation!)

1. First baby birds - Cormorant chicks in one nest, baby Great Blue Herons in another

2. Flocks of wood storks very close by (had seen from a distance before)

3. First birds building nests - Wood storks gathering twigs and branches for nests

4. First snake - a large water snake (I had really wanted to see a python in the Everglades, but no such luck)

5. First raccoon not in a garbage can

6. First iguanas! Lots of them!

7. First time ever seeing an American Bittern

(Bird identification tip: Just go over to anyone with a huge camera lens and ask) 

So no, it never gets old. 

* This place was much better than the excellent Japanese Garden and Sewage Treatment Plant  at the Donald C. Tillman Water Reclamation Plant in Los Angeles.