Ten Thousand Islands National Wildlife Refuge Marsh Trail

Sunday February 26th 2023

It was another beautiful day in south Florida. A steady breeze kept the above normal temperatures from being oppressive. The high temperature for the day was in the mid eighties.

I expected the campground to have a mass departure this morning. It wasn’t as dramatic as I expected. While a lot of people did leave early, others hung on to the 1PM checkout time. I think some even paid for the extra night so they could leave late in the afternoon. There still weren’t as many empty sites as I expected. Maybe more will depart tomorrow.

One medium sized alligator in the brackish water of the marsh. Bigger gators prefer fresh water.

For exercise and entertainment today, I ventured back to the east on the Tamiami trail to the Ten Thousand Island National Wildlife Refuge Marsh Trail. This trail is a gravel road into the marsh to access some monitoring equipment. A viewing tower, benches and informational signs have been added to make it a nice trail. It is an out and back trail that goes about 1.5 miles into the marsh. There are mangroves and water on both sides of the trail.

When I zoomed and cropped this photo the turtle in the heron’s mouth came into view.

Today, most of the wildlife was along the first half of the trail. I saw lots of varieties of birds, an alligator and a turtle in a Heron’s mouth. I took plenty of pictures.