We began the day early with a beautiful sunrise. We headed for Venice today. We went to visit the Venice Rookery. It was noisy and very active. Less than a stones throw from the shoreline, herons, egrets and anhingas pose and repose. 
Quite a number of them had babies still in the nest so there was lots of squawking and carrying on. Fascinating place. And we are well past the busy season there...it must be bedlam in March and April! We stayed there for several hours and then headed back toward Lehigh Acres. Next stop was Shamrock Park to see if we could find a Florida scrub jay--success! Then off to the Babcock/Webb Wildlife Management Area just a little way from where we are staying and found a drought stricken lake well below it's normal level, but there were lots of shore birds there, sandhill cranes (4.5' tall), morehens, and in the lake about 4' from the cranes a very large alligator! What brought us to that spot were two bald eagles flying overhead. One landed in a tree not far away and we got him too. There were deer, rabbits and armadillos too. We headed home as the rain started to get packed. We're off to the Flamingo area of the Everglades tomorrow and camping there tomorrow night and then Sunday off to Key Largo to the John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park to snorkel and spend the night. Then Monday probably head up toward Orlando. We probably won't have email or internet access until Tues. Another great day!
