Homasassa Springs State Park

[mariness]

Sunday, chattycatsmeow viciously kidnapped me and took me to Homosassa Springs state park. (For the sake of her own safety, she allowed us to stop at a Starbucks along the way. This is the sort of kidnapping I approve of

Comments

[malterre]

Looks like a great outdoor roust

[mariness]

There's actually not much of a current there. At some point I'll try to take pictures of some estuary areas.

[switchknitter]

Great pics.

[mariness]

Thanks :)

[queerbychoice]

Wow! I like the last one best - and the owls and hawks.

[mariness]

The owls were pretty cute. I wish I could have gotten a decent picture of the bears, but they was bound and determined to take their naps behind the tree.

And yes, something about these Florida rivers and springs just demands photos. I did take more river shots, but this one came out better than the rest.

Hopefully I'll make it to DeLeon and to Wekiva Springs for more shots. With birds.

[chattycatsmeow]

To be fair, the Starbucks was as much for your Retail Deprived Captor as for you so that was a win-win all around. And yes, after viewing the native Floridian hippo, the only way to complete the day is with native Floridian Chinese takeout. :P Oh well. At least the panther and the Raptor Taunting Squirrel were genuine native fauna.

[mariness]

:: coughs ::

I checked on that panther...the one we saw was actually from California. The park does house one of the remaining Florida panthers, number #79, who is not a pure Florida panther either. He is a first generation intercross Florida/Texas cougar; Texas mother, Florida father, remarked because he was born with normal testicles, free of the testicle problems that were plaguing most Florida panthers prior to his birth.

It says something about the current state of panthers that it didn't take me too long to find out an incredible amount about this particular panther. But tiven that only 20 to 50 pure Florida panthers were still alive in the early 80s, it's not surprising that we didn't see one.

[chattycatsmeow]

that panther...the one we saw was actually from California.

::sigh::

So much for authentic native fauna as propagated by the State of Florida.

Hmmm..maybe they really ARE working on a cloning program to expand the number of Real Florida Animals, and the ticket agent we saw was one of the test subjects. After all, they wouldn't want to risk the animals until they knew for certain that the process was safe.

[mariness]

And for all we know, that squirrel migrated down from Georgia :)

Unlikely, I admit, but possible. It was, after all, clearly Evil.