Day 7 - Goat Is. To Dead River

Slept in until daylight today.  Got up and baked some cinnamon coffee cake muffins, ate two with coffee. Saved the other two for tomorrow morning. Washed dishes, cleaned up and took off by 9 am.

Headed to Blue Springs one more time, per Michael's encouragement. It paid off. Again, no traffic even passed me for that short jaunt. Saw maybe three fishing boats.  No one pulled in at the tree tie up on the south side of the Spring outlet. Tied up and went looking. A few people but not many.  Kayak wranglers were waiting for customers...tells you something.  It later got busy since it was only 10 am.

Took some pics of Florida Gar on my way up the walkway.  Stopped at the store to see what they had. I stopped later and bought a hot dog, chips, and a drink and later an ice cream bar. They also had ice so I will return for some.

Florida Gar (4' or more)

Kept hiking along the walkway to the spring proper and saw some wild hogs, not wild boar, but hogs that live wild.  (See below)

These wild pigs likely weighed about
50-75 lbs and were not large

Hiked up to the head of the spring, called the boil, but it wasn't that active. Divers with tanks were walking that way and I later saw them there. You can dive into the cave if you are certified.  It goes down deep and the spring has a huge output per day.

No manatee initially but before I was done I saw five, two with babes following. Hard to get pics through water but manaaged to get a couple. I decided not to snorkle today, but probably should have. Though, they have signs up all over to get out of the water if there are manatee present! I saw no one following the rule!  You can kayak up the spring with no rules about leaving the area if manatee are present.

Tough to take pics through a water suface but here are
a few.  This was a large one 8-9' accompanied by a
smaller one. The broad tail is interesting.

The flipper and head are visible here

This was a mother with a young one along side, the
young one is maybe 3.5' or so, mom is about 8'. They
average from 800 to 1200 lbs but can reach 3000 lbs.

The site has historical significance since it is the first homestead of white settlers (Louis Thursby purchased in 1856 and built the house in 1872. The house has a self guided tour but, unfortunately, it is closed Monday and Tuesday! This area was very busy back in those days with paddle wheelers regularly docking. It was a busy river landing.

Thursby House (1872)

I later dumped garbage got some more ice, a constant problem! Headed out by around noon. Backtracked along the river to the logging canal and headed west for the Dead River.  An interesting canal with overhanging trees.  Narrow and would be tight for passing boats.

Logging Canal Shots

Headed south once in the Dead River and went to the end looking for spots to park for the night. Found a good looking one but wanted to check to the end.  There was a spot at the end but I decided it would be a cooker with no breeze to keep cool. Went back to the good spot and parked.

Looking south from my parking spot, nice breeze here.

Looking north on Dead River from parking spot

I was parked by 1 pm.  Got a glass of white wine and sat down to see if the marginal internet will work.  So far so good!  Today's track is shown below:

                                                       Day 7 - Goat Island to Dead River

Click to Enlarge

The cypress is kind of a mainstay for this part of Florida and the tree below I thought represented it well, though young it just looked good.

Cypress with cattails in foreground, saw only a few of these

One of the things I enjoy is watching animal behavior and often in the evening you see some interesting things as I did this eve.  I watched some long billed water birds gather in what appeared to be a roosting tree about a 1/4 mile from me.  The birds would mostly approach coming from the north low along the water and fly up and land on the roost tree.  A small group gathered, then a about two birds chose another tree closer to me and all the birds on the first roost changed roosts immediately, very interesting.

This is roost tree #2, after they left roost tree #1,
small group at this point. Notice the size difference
of the white birds and the darker birds on the lower limbs.

I heard no sounds made, but there was obviously some communcation going on. Even more interesting is that at least two species were involved.  Some white, some dark, some with straight bills some with curved. Could have been even three species based on size. Anyway, before long four birds approached from the east and all the birds on the second roost took off and followed them to a third tree I could not see. However, before long they were all back at the first roost tree. See below:

Excuse the quality of the picture, this is at a
quarter mile after sunset. You primarily
see the white birds due to the distance, the
darker color birds are harder to see at this
range, see the picture above for reference.

I was forced in by mosquitos but I'm guessing there were 75 birds gathered by the time I went in and they were still coming, likely well over a 100 gathered by dark.  Can't explain much but it was interesting to see them interact and two or more species at that.  The final roost seemed less adequate since the branches were so small, some of the birds took 1-2 minutes trying to maintain balance on the small twigs they landed on. While the cypress had substantial branches. Hey but you know, that's why they refer to them as bird brains!

By the way, I've not had any mosquito issues at all.  Tonight they showed up in small numbers and forced me in but have not really been an issue. I've not used repellent at all.