Sunday, October 18, 2015

Sawgrass Lake Park 

Cloud coverage 30%

Temperature 84

Sawgrass Lake is a fantastic park, probably one of my top 3 we have visited so far. We visited sawgrass to explore and observe lake and swamp ecosystems.This park is teeming with life, as we arrived we ran into 2 tortoise's which happened to be hanging out nibbling on some grass.

 The baby tortoise came to say hi after we gathered around the larger one jealousy perhaps?

 War Hens are seen above using their large feet to stand on the plants floating in water searching for food.

A soft shell turtle was seen in the grass near the war hens 

 The squirrels here had no fear of humans this one walked right up to me

 The canopies are medium density, larger trees fall and new life is able to grow from the stable foundation they form. This provides a dense amount of plant life on the swamp floor

 This alligator was found sun bathing

 Yet another Soft shell turtle going for a swim

 Mother alligator sunbathing with its offspring

Even though this park is teeming with life the water quality was threatened by a near by gun range that was causing run off of harmful chemicals to the swamp. This was a major clean up project that involved dredging up layers of swamp bed to ensure as much of the toxins had been removed. The park has litter spread throughout the park, it seem it may need another clean up.