Sanderling, at least I think that’s what he is. I love his reflection in the water too.

A Laughing Gull laughing at me. lol

Yellowlegs or Willet?  I’m really bad at identifying these birds.

I loved chasing bigger birds with my lens while in Florida.  The challenge of Wisconsin bird is that most of the ones I see are small and they’re very flighty.

Hosted by Cecily

But, as you can see, this gull seemed as intrigued with me as I was with him.  Now I suppose he could be a juvenile Herring Gull, but due to the time of year, I’m assuming this is a Ring-Billed Gull in his winter plumage.

This big fellow was sunning very near the road, so I carefully stepped from the car and snapped.

I inched my zoomy lens closer, but I stepped a little closer too. I quickly decided that I was going to have to keep it fresh in my mind that these are massively huge creatures capable of biting off my arm – or more – and there was no fence between me and them. A little scary because I easily forget my distance when looking through my lens.  Check out his teeth!  And I think that eye is following me!

So, this is my alligator macro. I still have all my fingers and toes and this really is close enough, don’t you think?

Macro Monday is easy to play, snap a macro (or any close-up) photo, post it on your blog and come back here and sign MckLinky.  Don’t forget to visit each other. 

I think this is a Tern, in my little book I thought it looked like the Least Tern, but the book shows it being in Florida in the summer (not winter) and that it’s endangered – so I really am not sure.  I love its little scissortail, lol.

It’s a petite little thing, whatever it is.

Seems I keep using the gulls for a size comparison, but there were a lot of gulls everywhere so they make convenient rulers.  I love shorebirds!

After sleeping in Big Cypress, camping deep in the no-where, lol we traveled back down the 18 miles of potholes and continued to explore. (Dennis posted some great photos that he took from our campsite, sunrise on the long bumpy road and such over here)  Occasionally we got out of the car to walk a path or such and a few times I asked Haden to snap a quick photo of us.  So here we are after surviving the long (scary) night, lol.

We did travel another dirt road – I think it was called the loop – into the everglades and were greeted by views like these from time to tome.

At one point we even ran into the end of the Florida Trail, I think the sign said it was 18 miles to the visitor’s center, which means it was also 18 miles to the next road.

Most of the road looked like this. Yeah, not a lot of other cars and we could easily just stop in the road, get out, snap a few pics, then continue on. It was a great adventure! I must say I felt much safer exploring this way than hiking for miles, it made me nervous leaving the road and traipsing down paths. I would get so caught up in getting closer to birds I feared I would step on a gator, lol.

Hosted by Cecily and Lolli

We parked in front of this vehicle at the Big Cypress visitor’s center. Too funny!