Manatees

As my days in Florida were dwindling down, I read that Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge was a good place to see Roseate Spoonbills (the large pink birds that kind of look like flamingos but have a spoon shaped bill). I got up well before sunrise and drove the two hours to the refuge to be there right around sunrise because I had read that was a good time to see the spoonbills.

After driving through the main part of the refuge and not seeing a single bird… not just no spoonbills, but nothing at all… seriously… not a single bird… I then was driving down the second main wildlife drive in the refuge – a road called Bio Lab Road (I have no idea why it is called that). It is a gravel road so I was driving fairly slow and I was looking out towards the water and I noticed some weird rocks that just didn’t look right. Something about the way the water was moving around them just seemed weird. So I slowed down even more and looked closer and then I realized they weren’t rocks at all and so I quickly pulled over into a good parking spot and grabbed the camera hoping those “weird rocks” wouldn’t swim away and I’d get an opportunity to see another iconic Florida animal that I’d not yet checked off my list…