Loxahatchee Saturday

Since Jake is in Richmond this weekend, this afternoon I went to check out the Arthur R. Marshall Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge. It's only about 10 miles away to the west, at the edge of civilization. This area was once part of a huge cypress forest that ran from east of Lake Okeechobee all the way down to Ft. Lauderdale. Now there are only about 400 acres left of that original cypress swamp preserved here. It is now a refuge for any wildlife that cares to be here, and offers a safe place for them to do their thing.

I came in by the main entrance, which was just a single road with a visitor center, remnants of the cypress forest, a marsh trail, and at the end was a place to put a boat in the water. I think there are other entrances and maybe more stuff to see, but I was kinda unimpressed by the whole thing. The marsh trail was a bunch of impounded compartments surrounded by levees. The water level in each compartment is manipulated to entice different species of wildlife to live there. So I didn't really feel like I was authentically in the "wilderness." I'm glad I went and checked it out though.

Behind the visitor center there was a .4 mile boardwalk through the cypress trees, so I walked that and took a few pictures. I didn't see too much... being in the middle of all the trees is pretty cool, and I heard/saw a few woodpeckers. A cardinal was a pretty spot of red amongst all the green. I heard a lot of rustling and then saw a raccoon come out of a bush, which scared the crap out of me. I'm always sure a Florida panther is stalking me when I go to these kinds of places alone.

Then I headed to the marsh trail. Like I said before, It was just a bunch of levees criss-crossing and making different compartments of water. The actual trail was .8 miles, but you could walk on any of the levees around the whole area so I went all the way around to see what I could see. I'm not sure how far it actually was but it took me probably about an hour and a half to walk all the way around, with stopping here and there to take pictures. Not very much in the way of wildlife this time of year, but I took some pics of the little that I did see.

this reminded me of Monet :)