Everglades National Park & Big Cypress Swamp National Preserve

November 18 & 20, 2018: I think that the Everglades and Big Cypress Swamp are one of my favorite national parks and preserves, if not my favorite. Now the weather was great, not too hot or humid, which made it tolerable for Tom. I just LOVED the birds and wildlife. It was like going on a safari. I would upgrade my cell phone camera to a proper SLR camera if I thought I’d be in this area long enough to really focus on taking photos of birds.

Everglades National Park: Although the overall scenery shots look like you are looking over a field, but those fields are all water and the grasses are just water grasses. There are big lumps of land throughout the Everglades that are called “hammocks” that are real land built up over thousands of years with hardwood trees. Animals like panthers and bears live on the hammocks, but we didn’t get to see any of that wildlife.

3′ pass along the road into the heart of the Everglades
White Great Blue Heron & Comorant
Hammock in the distance–still swampy out there
Gator hiding out
Royal Palm Visitor Center
Don’t be fooled–this is all watery swamp land!

Big Cypress Swamp National Preserve: As you drive across southern Florida on Highway 41, you drive through the Everglades and Big Cypress Swamp National Preserve on the western side of FL. We took a 20 mile “Loop Drive” down a dirt road lined with cypress swamp, which was truly a safari drive with alligators basking in the sun along side of the road and a huge variety of birds taking off or sitting in trees.