Sat, 3/16/13:

Everglades National Park, Homestead, FL:  Not quite so cold this morning and it warmed up quickly. Made a big breakfast of scrambled eggs with cheese, sausage, biscuits, and juice.  Tasted pretty good.  Can’t remember the last time I cooked breakfast in here. We drove over to the gumbo limbo trail and walked it since we’d heard there were owls there also.  Sure enough, there was one adult owl.  No sign of any owlets though.  Drove back to Mahogany Hammock one last time to see if we could find any owlets.  Got there and a bunch of people were gathered around with cameras, tripods, and spotting scopes.  There were two owls.  One had just brought the other a snake to eat.  So, it appears we couldn’t find any owlets because they had already fledged, but the mother was still feeding them.  You could tell the owl receiving the snake didn’t quite know what to do with it.  He finally dropped part of it.  They were way back in the canopy so it was hard to get a picture.  They weren’t cute and fuzzy any more. Watched them for a while and continued on.  On the way back to our campground, we stopped at Pine Land and walked the trail.  We always see a lot of tree snails on this trail, but this year we found only one.  They’re getting very rare, and most of them have been exterminated—humanoids again.  During the winter season they affix themselves to a tree and basically sleep the winter away—in sort of a state of hibernation.  If you remove them from the tree in this state they die.  Back to our site and relaxed outside enjoying this beautiful day.  Made a chocolate cream pie and warmed up some lasagna for dinner.  81 today.  Tomorrow we leave for Jupiter, FL.

Adult Owl--Gumbo Limbo Trail

Tree Snail on Pine Land Trail

Fledgling owl trying to eat a snake brought by the adult.
Picture by Mike