I thought last week would be our last pictures from Lettuce Lake, but we couldn’t stay away! This time we concentrated on the lake itself, rather than kayak up the river. As usual, we saw many beautiful birds, quite a few alligators, and some gorgeous scenery to frame them. But what was unexpected, were many… well, you have to read on to find out!

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The Roseate Spoonbill is still one of my favorites. Sometimes we see very few, sometimes hundreds! This one seems to be wearing headphones.

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I’ve gotta keep putting ‘gator shots in…

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We noticed (OK, Cherryl noticed) this Great Blue Heron at the top of a tree, sitting near what looked like a nest.

We watched for quite a while, and were able to see TWO BABIES in the nest!

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These pictures may not be the best, but they were way up there!

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After hearing the racket that the baby herons made, we were able to track down two other nests by following the noise!

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Many of you have mentioned that the many alligators so close to our kayak seem frightening. I’ll admit that we were a little leery at first, but experience has led us to believe what we were told… if we don’t bother them, they don’t bother us. Now we eagerly look for them. But snakes are different. I really have no use for snakes… So i was less than thrilled to see this guy sunning himself several feet from our kayak’s path. This is the only snake we’ve seen… but how many have seen us??

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Sometimes we get to see Limpkins, and we think they are extra special because Giny said they were her favorite. If you look carefully at these pictures, you will notice this Limpkin is herding 3 fuzzy little Limpkinettes! I doubt that is the official name for the chicks, but I like the sound of it. Great fun to see more babies!

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Lots of turtles…

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A pair ‘a herons:

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A very friendly Black Crowned Heron flew past us, then right at us and over our heads.

These guys always look at you with this rather sarcastic grin…

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After seeing three Heron nests, and three baby Limpkins, we shouldn’t have been that shocked to see baby Alligators. But here were at least eight, most sitting on the “Mama?” ‘gator, some on the log in front. Amazing! Even the little ones, maybe a foot and a half long, are intimidating.

So the really unexpected delight on this trip was seeing three types of young ones. That was definitely a first for us.

I titled this “Last Lettuce”, because we move on soon. Before long, we hope to be in the Florida Keys! I’m really looking forward to that!