Pat wanted me to highlight a nature/botanical sidetrip less than an hour away. Sawgrass Lake Park is about 400 acres with boardwalks and trails to walk through the largest maple swamp in Florida. It was very surprising to see maple trees, leaves and seed "keys" growing thickly in this tropical dampland. Our maples back home won't look like this until May.
Sawgrass is specifically mentioned as one of the premier birding sights in Florida by the National Audubon Society! Without trying too hard on a hot sunny day we saw herons, ibis, wood storks, egrets, eagles and wrens but also turtles, alligators and fish leaping out of the freshwater areas. (The park drains to the ocean but a system of dams prevents the saltwater from backing in.)
But what's remarkable is that this no-admission park is within the most densely populated county in Florida. On one side is 12 lanes of high-speed Interstate 275. On another side is a gun range where pistols and skeet shotguns boom out, scaring park visitors but not the thousands of migratory birds passing through. Also nearby are huge shopping plazas and dense housing. Talk about a needle in a haystack, or should that be a diamond in the rough?
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