Island Hopping

Florida's landscape is beautiful, diverse, and quite unique. It is laden with mangroves, filled with life, and flat as a piece of paper before it is crumpled up. Below is just a portion of the magnificent wonders I have found this winter???

We begin close to home, in a trail within a preserve that leads us to a resting point by the estuary.

This is the only picture out of the 200 that survived when I tried capturing the sunset with an unpracticed Lensbaby Muse.

After the sun had woken up I finally gained some sense and switched lenses, but it was too late.

This little fellow is out of order but it gives me a great opportunity to explain one thing. The zoom lens I have is NOT a zoom lens. It sticks out a bit yeah, but it does not work well for wild life. Most of the close shots you see, such as the one below, require me to be realLY CLOSE to the subject. Some are great because it means that the wildlife is not afraid of us. Other pictures however suffer poor quality. My apologies.

Nice little shot behind the island's library.

Dock by the Randell Research Center, the archeological site that we are basing our class on.

We found coconuts. One in the water and two on land. This was my first time opening a coconut and drinking its juice. Ours unfortunately didn't taste like much =(

Osprey just chillin'. I have yet to see an eagle, YES a bald eagle. There is a nest close to us however, I'll need to go check it out.

Here begins the Sanibel Island visit. There is a wonderfully preserved trail that you can drive through, ride bikes on, walk, and fish on, and it is simply beautiful. You can really emerse yourself in the nature here. Too bad that it was high tide. At low tide more birds come through to hangout on the small sand mounds that show up.

I wish they flew toward me, but as the saying goes "photographers can't be choosers."

Yeah, pelicans.

A snow egret.

Oliver got to look at the birds from up close.

Pelican party!

I overheard this conversation while photographing the fellas below:

"Yo, have you heard that new movie that came out, the Hobbit?"

"Nah, is it good?"

"Dude it's SICK! I can't wait till they make the second one cause it has a dragon fight in it!"

"Word"

I love how the mangrove roots shoot out from above.

This habitat provides protection to all sorts of tiny fish and animals, while protecting the coast from storms and even floods.

Can you believe that one whole mangrove island can come from a tiny little seed like this one?

A pretty typical southwest floridian view.

The canals, both natural and man made are an incredible sight to see.

A big open lagoon.

This shows you how densely vegetation grows here, but none of it is very tall.

Tourist beach during peak season.

I did find a cactus but I haven't seen that many. Lensbaby Muse practice on those spikes! Chyeah baby!