Friday April 7th 2023

Today’s weather flirted with record highs once again. I suspect new records were set in the area, but I didn’t listen to the TV weather forecast to know for sure. The bottom line is it was warm and humid resulting in a high around ninety.

I’m still on the lazy energy pattern I established during my stay at Colt Creek State Park over the last couple of weeks. I wasn’t really ready to begin the active portion of my day until afternoon. That is going to work here at Myakka River State Park. I missed the morning viewing at the bridge over the river. The alligators and birds are usually more active in the morning.

Once I kicked myself into gear shortly after noon, my first order of business was stocking up on some groceries. I chose the nearest Walmart for my shopping so I could get back and check out the park for more animal sightings. The newer and better stores are several miles further away. This isn’t the best Walmart. It is older and not in a modern purpose built building. I find it very disorganized with items scattered all over the place. They also don’t have as big a selection as your average Walmart. I still managed to get everything I needed.

After unpacking all the groceries and taking a break for lunch, I walked over to the river in the area between the campground and the park entrance. I couldn’t explore the whole river bank today. The park volunteer group was busy setting up for a concert fundraiser tonight. There didn’t seem to be many birds along the river and once again the alligators were in the water with only their noses sticking out. I’m really going to have to get up and going in the morning.

My second walk in search of wildlife was just before sunset. I walked deeper into the state park along the park road to the bridge over the Myakka river. There must have been fifteen to twenty alligator noses poking out of the water, but none were on the banks. Other than a couple of lympkins grubbing along the shore, there weren’t many water birds around. None the less many people were standing on the bridge actively watching the action along the river bank. A pair of feral hogs with nine piglets were foraging along the banks. Many of the alligators were waiting for a piglet to get too close to the edge and many of the people were waiting to observe the carnage. I don’t think it was that cut and dry. All of the piglets stayed a few feet back from the water and the gators were a few yards back just walking. Still the spectators had lots of comments about pork chops and Easter dinner.

This was the evening for mammals instead of birds and amphibians. In addition to the wild hogs on the river bank a deer arrived just as I was heading back to my RV home. Along the road walking back an additional group of deer approached the road from the woods. I stop and stood still allowing them to approach closer. I got a few blurry pictures before someone else yell a query about what I was watching loud enough to spook the deer. If you recognized that I was watching something, why would you speak in a voice to be heard around the world?