August 27, 2015
Moccasin Lake Park
Clearwater, Florida
Weather:  Overcast, breezy, temperature "feels like" 79 degrees

Our first field trip was to Moccasin Lake Park in Clearwater.  This park is nestled in the middle of a neighborhood and one would never know such an expansive park with a lake is back here.  The nature exhibit in the front of the park houses examples of the many different plant and wildlife that makes Florida their home.  While in the nature exhibit we ran into this guy, the Great Horned Owl, Bubo virginianus, which makes it home in Florida among the trees and parks, while his cage was being cleaned out:

We saw a few examples of the amphibious life that can be found in the park and throughout Florida, for example, the Green Anole, Anolis carolinensis, which is not as common as the Brown Anole which we see everywhere in Florida, as well as this guy, known as the American alligator, Alligator mississippiensis, basking in a moment of sun on this otherwise dreary day:

It was a nice afternoon at the park where we gleaned some interesting information about the plants and animals co-habitating in this unique ecosystem