Field Study Everglades February 2016

AOI (Areas of Interactions)- Nature

We took a field study trip to the Florida Everglades "The Loop". We chose to go in the winter season here in Florida to try to avoid the rain and the mosquitoes.  

Description of Environment:  The Everglades National Park is made up of 1.5 million acres of wet sawgrass prairie land, dry hardwood hammocks, pinelands and mangrove swamps.  There are also estuaries (partly enclosed coastal body of brackish water with one or more rivers or streams flowing into it).  This environment provides shelter and food for many species like manatees, crocodile, dolphin, panther, alligator, turtles, birds and many other animals.  

Journal Notes: 

There are many options to visit the Everglades National Park to enjoy all it offers. You can walk on the Anhinga Trail if you want a short hiking experience.  You can climb to the observation tower at Shark Valley to see the everything from high up and take the tram tour after.  You can go canoeing or kayaking in Nine Mile Pond. There are even free ranger led tours during the winter months. 

We left the house at 7 am.  It was a long drive.  I slept most of the way but woke up when we got to alligator alley which is a long road that leads into the everglades.  Its plain and slow going.  I saw a dead alligator on the side of the road. We arrived to Shark Valley at almost 9am.  We stopped at the visitor center.  I saw this sign and there were vultures everywhere.  Big black birds sitting high up on palm trees, sitting on cars, walking on the ground. My mom was worried about our car.    

It was already so hot we decide to drive instead on the loop.    That was about 10 minutes away so it wasn't too bad to get there.  

The loop is about 20 miles of gravel road. It's not a smooth ride so the whole way felt like we were going over bumps.  It cuts through in a loop all past the different types of environments in the everglades Big Cypress preserve.  

It was very dusty and loud.  We lowered our windows to hear the birds, bird songs and the insects.  It got hot pretty fast.  Since we could only go about 15 mph there wasn't a breeze.  My mom brought a 24 pack of water.  We drank a lot of water.  

I was beautiful though. And we saw so many alligators.  We saw one crossing the road ahead and we stopped to watch.  Well we had to stop or we would have run it over, 

There was water on both sides a lot of the way so we saw several alligator.  We get out to see them better.  

I wanted to walk around but my mom said no because she was afraid too many alligators and maybe panthers around.  I wasn't afraid.  We only saw one other car and it was parked so that a guy could go fishing.  I counted seven turtles.  There were too many birds to count.  

After almost three hours we stopped at a rest stop.  There were lot of alligators just waiting there for food it seemed.  They swam right up to where we were standing on a bridge. My mom says a lot of people feed the alligators and that's dangerous.  

I could not believe I saw houses there. People live there.  There were a lot of houses along the road. I would love to live there! My mom said I wouldn't like it because eventually the mosquitoes would be too much.  

When we reached the end there was a vulture eating a coconut.  

It was a good day.  We finished just in time for lunch.  When we stopped to eat I had alligator bites.  They tasted like chicken.