Six Mile Cypress Slough
Then we went and found Six Mile Cypress Slough, not far away. It's all boardwalks through cypress swamp. This great egret was right by the gate, sort of a wildlife emissary for the place.
This sign was encouraging--there must be alligators here if we are forbidden from feeding them!
This track showing where a big gator dragged its belly through the mud was even more encouraging!
While everyone else was looking around for alligators, I noticed a lichen species we don't get up north. This is Cryptothecia rubrocincta, the "Christmas lichen" or "Christmas wreath lichen," due to the red pigment--an unusual color among lichens.
The boardwalk allows visitors to see a terrain that would be difficult to hike otherwise, and protects the habitat from our destructive footsteps.
A bromeliad grows from the crotch of a tree. Bromeliads are "epiphytes" meaning they grow from other plants without harming them.
Another great egret allows a close-up photo I could only dream of in New England.
A leaf of palmetto as its own graceful beauty.
A lone wildflower pokes up from the duckweed and dead cypress needles.
A leaning dead tree bears a pair of old rotten polypores and some dry (but living) resurrection fern.
A brown anole has a perch near a convenient hiding place.
Another "friend from home," red maple, putting some fall color into the tropical winter.
Back at the nature center they encourage bicycling with an alligator-shaped bike rack, unfortunately the only alligator we saw here.
The great blue herons here seem bigger than the ones at home.