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| Manatee nostrils. You're welcome. |
We went to Manatee Park today, located on the Orange River near the local power plant. I saw one Manatee in Key West years ago, but I’ve never seen that many gathered in one spot. Manatees cluster there by the score, adults and babies, to lounge around and socialize in the warm water discharge. So the park is sort of like a giant manatee hot tub.
In case you didn’t know, manatees are mammals about 10 feet long that look basically like really big slugs, with a pointy nose and tail like a mermaid. They must taste bad because they don’t have many natural enemies, and they themselves eat only plants. So to put it another way, they just don’t move real fast. They hover there clustered in groups just below the surface, totally unconcerned, squeaking at each other, until it’s time to come up for air. This can be anywhere from 30 seconds to 20 minutes, so you can’t predict when they’re going to surface. But when they do, and you’re waiting there with your finger on the shutter release, well of course then they decide to move fast. I must have shot 50 frames today of manatees just after they came up for air. However, I did manage to get one shot of some manatee nostrils. I do this for you.
For you New York rPodders who may be reading this, I had my first Nathan’s hotdog for lunch at the park today. I admit they’re pretty good, but I still think our Michigan Koegel’s are better. We’ll settle this at the rPod roundup in KY in June.
There was an art and music fair on Pine Island/Matlacha today, and our friend Sue wanted to see what that was about, so off we went. When we got by the water, it was had to believe we were in Florida. With a north wind today, it never broke 60 degrees. It felt like the shore of Lake Superior during a November gale. Hey, wasn’t there a song about that? I wandered the back streets a bit, both to look for photo opps and to stay out of the wind, because I got tired of holding my hat on.
In case you didn’t know, manatees are mammals about 10 feet long that look basically like really big slugs, with a pointy nose and tail like a mermaid. They must taste bad because they don’t have many natural enemies, and they themselves eat only plants. So to put it another way, they just don’t move real fast. They hover there clustered in groups just below the surface, totally unconcerned, squeaking at each other, until it’s time to come up for air. This can be anywhere from 30 seconds to 20 minutes, so you can’t predict when they’re going to surface. But when they do, and you’re waiting there with your finger on the shutter release, well of course then they decide to move fast. I must have shot 50 frames today of manatees just after they came up for air. However, I did manage to get one shot of some manatee nostrils. I do this for you.
For you New York rPodders who may be reading this, I had my first Nathan’s hotdog for lunch at the park today. I admit they’re pretty good, but I still think our Michigan Koegel’s are better. We’ll settle this at the rPod roundup in KY in June.
There was an art and music fair on Pine Island/Matlacha today, and our friend Sue wanted to see what that was about, so off we went. When we got by the water, it was had to believe we were in Florida. With a north wind today, it never broke 60 degrees. It felt like the shore of Lake Superior during a November gale. Hey, wasn’t there a song about that? I wandered the back streets a bit, both to look for photo opps and to stay out of the wind, because I got tired of holding my hat on.
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| Manatee hot tub party |
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| War canoe, Manatee Park |
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