This is the time of year….
that everyone is talking about and wanting to see Manatee…so I thought I would do a flash back and again show you my experience with the fantastic lovable creatures…my experience was only about 500 yards from my camp drive way at dads in what I call my home park…the name of this park is Ballard Park..it starts out with the pic below…this is a mom and baby…mom is this big one in the foreground and if you look close on the left is the baby…I was leaning around the bush trying to get the pic…and they just kept munching away…I could not believe what I was seeing…I could not get a good pic of the baby…
This was the first pic I took …could not get the baby so had to lean way out…lucky I did not end up in the drink…if you look closer behind you can see another manatee swimming by…this was high tied and the leaves from the bushes were hanging in the water…
Then a little while later I was walking around looking for manatee again…and walked up to this guy eating the grass from the bank…I was so close I could have reached out and touched him…you could not get any closer to him unless you were in the water swimming with him and the others…he just kept chomping and eating looking at me the whole time…I could not take my eyes off him…finally he just slowly backed out and went on is way…
Here is a pic of him leaving..he was very large but nothing in the pic to compare him with…
This was a really great day for me..it was a week day and no one was around….I am not sure they would be that close on a weekend when the place is packed…I have since learned how to spot them while they are swimming around farther out in the river..they make small like oval waves as they swim along then all of a sudden you see this cute little nose pop up…this was a couple years ago…I haven’t been that close since…but I have been down there a couple times that Florida Wild Life has towed them to shore..when found dead…don’t want to flash back that memory…to sad…Well that was my fun time with manatee…thanks for looking and come back soon…blessings to all G&M
I love the manatee and have several encounters with them when in my kayak. They also frequent the Florida Springs state parks which I love to go to and see them. They are fabulous! You got some great pictures of your experience.
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