Little Manatee River does not have any manatees in it right now. The water looked far too low, and they will be out in the gulf in this season anyway. I’ve actually seen no mention at all about manatees at the state park. Perhaps the manatees never come up this far.

The south side of the park has the ranger station ($5 entrance fee per vehicle), equestrian trails (negative coggins required. If you don’t know, it doesn’t apply to you) campsites, a canoe launch and a short, hidden nature trail.

Not sure what type of dragonfly this was.

Palamedes swallowtail, all stained glass like.

Swallowtail kite, three pictures stitched into one.

The hiking trails are north of the river, but there is no bridge within the park. Upon our second visit to the ranger station, the polite park ranger gave us a map noted with a lock combination that opens the gate to the parking area for the hiking trail. Parking area is perhaps a bit generous, as is calling the two tire tracks off of the highway leading to the gate a “gravel road.” You don’t get much access to the river, and the trail blazes aren’t nearly as frequent as at Myakka or Withlacochee, but it’s a really nice trail, lush and intimate without having to clear away branches or wade through mud, and distinct from the terrain on the other side of the river.

We saw lots of flitty butterflies (see Mike’s picture here, while I was dousing myself in anti mosquito oil) and these beautiful black winged damselflies with iridescent green bodies, also not in my Audubon guide. They would land and blossom their wings, but preferred the shadows near the water, where all I got were blurry photos.

yellow rat snake

perhaps a broadhead skink.

… which did not sound at all like drink-your-teeeaaa, toe-WHEEE, che-wink or wank. At the Florida Botanical Gardens.

Green Swamp Wilderness Preserve protects 560,000 acres that serve as the headwaters of four major central Florida rivers and replenishes the Florida aquifer, which rises close to the surface in this area. Hiking trails crisscross the preserve. The place is large and not as developed as many of the springs, which permits a solitude that is rare to find in a two hour drive from Tampa.

We stopped at two places, Withlacoochee River Park, and Colt Creek State Park. The latter was well suited for horses, and not so much for people, but the former was just perfect for us. We ended up on a trail that wasn’t listed on the park map, which caused some confusion as I tried to match us to intersections that we never reached. I’ve started looking at handheld GPSs again.

Up until this trip, we’d seen more frogs in Washington than Florida, but tiny frogs were everywhere at Withlacoochee River Park. They must have just come out of the river. We had to walk carefully to try to avoid them as they haphazardly hopped away, making it much more difficult to observe the scenery.

This was also the first time that we saw sandhill cranes. They are larger than herons, and were unperturbed by the traffic going by as they stood along the side of the road. This pair in the park seemed more cautious.

Common tickseed, waving to the Native American flute music wafting across the entire park. Miles away from our car, we could still hear it.

Some butterflies land more often than others. Zebra swallowtail are on the flitty side, although not as bad as the yellow butterflies. But then on the way back, this old one stopped on the path for us.

You start the Florida trail at the canoe launch.

Leaving the river, there are some marshy spots marked by the cypress trees, but we were never in mud. The main path was well cleared and marked by orange blazes on the tree trunks, often on beautiful arching oaks.

And then you round one bend or another, and you find palm, or prairie, or grassy open pine lands.

And then we passed by a clearing that bordered a smelly chicken farm, and guessed (correctly) that we were out of the park boundaries, although still on public land encompassed in Green Swamp. Giving up on the idea of the loop trail, we backtracked back to the flute music and the canoe launch.

Estimated odds of being struck by lightning in a given year: somewhere around 1:280,000 to 1:500,000 (Only about 10% of people who are struck by lightning are killed, though I still wouldn’t recommend going boating in a storm)
Odds of winning the Florida Powerball jackpot: 1:195,249,054
Odds of winning a share in the pool of Powerball tickets at my work: about 1:7,810,000

“About one out of every three people in the United States think that winning the lottery is the only way to become financially secure in their life.” That could be either because people just don’t get large numbers, or, as a commenter later states, that people feel that their career has no future. I would be mildly interested to see how this aligns with the group that thinks that the government shouldn’t be providing any social services.

We’re getting a bit out of order again. These were taken at the end of April.

A dike topped by a very pleasant mowed path circles around Alligator Lake, accessible from Alligator Lake Park off of SE Country Club Road. As the only land surrounded by alligator infested waters, wildlife concentrates along this path.

We walked along until the second bridge. Getting hungry and not knowing how far we’d gone, we decided to turn around. It turns out we were about 2/3 around the dike, so it would have been shorter to keep walking.

Brown Thrasher:

Best picture of several I tried taking of a cedar waxwing:

Gar fish (actually two, the second is deeper at the bottom of the picture)

Male common pondhawks. Mike has been taming dragonflies lately. Perhaps because he saved one from a spider web.

Viceroy (note the inner black circle on the lower wings, and no light orange on the upper wings):

While most of the turtles we walked by slipped into the water with a small splish (as opposed to the larger crash the alligators make) before we caught sight of them, this one was up on the path, and seemed not terribly concerned by us. It might be a cooter. All of the yellow striped turtles look pretty much the same to me.

This is what I envisioned when moving here. Dropping by the beach after work and watching the sun sink. Tonight an offshore storm hid the colors, but we watched the dolphins and pelicans hunting.

There was a picturesque woman beach combing, leaning on ski poles as she examined what the surf brought in. I have decided her car was the Celica with the Coexist bumper sticker because that seems like a nice beachy combination.