Six Mile Cypress Slough

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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.