January was a brutally cold month in Indiana, with a historically large storm burying us in snow. Luckily for us, we had thought ahead and planned a getaway that turned out to be perfectly timed. As the temperatures hit their lowest point, we were boarding a plane to south Florida! We chose to stay in Homestead, which is about a half hour away from the Everglades National Park's south entrance.
We spent most of our week in the national park itself, visiting the hikes and boardwalks along the main park road. Most of these walks are on the shorter side, but the point isn't to wear out the soles of your shoes, it's to enjoy this amazing place. We loved scanning the water and the plants around us for critters as much as scanning the horizon with our binoculars to watch egrets and herons in the distance.
The Anhinga Trail has a reputation for great wildlife viewing, and it lived up to it! It's one of the closest trails to the park entrance. A short boardwalk loop, the Anhinga Trail offers many chances to pause and watch wildlife. The purple gallinules walking on leaves of aquatic plants seemed to be the stars of the show. One of our favorite moments was watching an anhinga mother on the nest with a pair of loud, squirmy chicks constantly begging to be fed. We also saw a great blue heron scared from its hunting spot by an alligator and a black-crowned night heron who flew over us and landed nearby.
We really enjoyed the Gumbo Limbo, Pineland, and Mahogany Hammock trails. Each trail is a world of its own, with unique flora and fauna. It takes more patience to find the wildlife in the wooded areas, but we were rewarded by tree snails, barred owls hooting back and forth, lizards scrapping for the right to bask in a sunny spot on a tree, and a mixed flock of warblers foraging in the foliage right next to the trail in Mahogany Hammock.
We also visited the area around the Big Cypress National Preserve and 10,000 Islands Wildlife Refuge. It was definitely worth the drive from Homestead. The boardwalk at the Oasis Visitor Center overlooked a section of canal that was bustling with alligators, fish, and birds. A pair of young gators were putting on a show, launching themselves out of the water and splashing back down in an attempt to grab a fish. The egrets and little blue, great blue, green, and tricolored herons seemed to have two modes: perfect stillness and patience as they hunted or noisy squabbling as they jockeyed for position. Further down the road at the Nathaniel P. Reed Visitor Center, we were treated to a softshell turtle and a group of manatees swimming and occasionally coming up for air.
Along the Big Cypress Bend Boardwalk, we had a lot of fun chasing after yellow-rumped warblers (thank you, Merlin, for helping with the ID). One of the most memorable moments came when we were scanning the tangle of mangroves to find a chirping warbler and Jennie spotted a pair of baby alligators.
Traffic kept us from venturing into Miami too much, but we can't resist a good botanical garden, and Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden was calling our name. We walked around the entire property, taking refuge as often as possible in the shade. This was where we saw our first iguanas, as well as frisky little anoles. Our favorite plant was the Tahina Palm, a giant with a native range of only 12 hectares in Madagascar. Although we enjoyed the indoor butterfly garden, the biggest treat was visiting the outdoor native butterfly garden, where we got to see Florida's state butterfly, the zebra longwing.
On our last day, we visited Biscayne National Park's visitor center, which has a nice boardwalk along the shore of Biscayne Bay and a jetty walk. The jetty gave us our first chance to see juvenile yellow-crowned night herons, one of which we followed as it stalked along the shoreline and jabbed into the sand to grab what must have been very tasty morsels. At the very end of the jetty, we spent time watching royal terns, brown pelicans, gulls, and cormorants, as well as a little spotted sandpiper, whose butt-bouncing walk was very entertaining.
