Haulover Canal

Reddish Egret

A friend from Wyoming was visiting Florida and asked me about a good place to see manatees. I offered to take her and her friend, a wildlife professor at Purdue University, to Haulover Canal. Here is what happened that morning.

Manatee Mating Mat

Put In / Take Out: End of dirt road at the North West side of the canal. There are plenty of posts from this location in this blog. Feel free to check them for exact location. I have posted the GPS coordinates in some of them.

Brown Pelican

Did the usual counterclockwise trip around Mullet Head Island. The waters of the Indian River were a bit choppy. The first leg of the trip was bumpy but once we made it to the island area it did not matter. Dr. Flaherty, my friend's friend, told me she had never seen so many different bird species together. Here is a sample of what we saw:

Woodstorks

Tri-Colored Heron

Brown Pelican

Great Blue Heron

Rudy Turnstones

TBD

I missed a lot of pics chances and other pics came back not good enough, most likely because the bumpy set up. We finished circling the island and headed back to see what they came to see; manatees. To Bair's Cove we went, spotting a couple of dolphins on our way there..

I see you!!!!!!

Manatees were very active at Bair's Cove

Manatee comes close to my kayak

Head Shot!!!!!!

Christina and Liz are entertained by a curious manatee 

Osprey

Offered to take our guests to the other end of the canal, Mosquito Lagoon, so they could have the whole experience. I thought that maybe would have the chance to see dolphins. We did not make it. There was a manatee mating mat frenzy at the Observation Deck area, with manatees completely coming out of the water and lots splash and tail splashes...

Manatees

 

Manatee mating mat

Manatee mating mat

Manatee mating mat

Manatee mating mat

Frenzy!!!!!!!

Manatee

A volunteer trying to tag a manatee

And this is it. Thanks for checking our blog and hope to be in the water soon to share with you more Views From Our Kayak...

Haulover Canal manatee

Wacissa River

Wacissa River Otter

Finally had time to work the pics. It is one of the reasons I have not been kayaking often for a long time. Other responsibilities keep me away from the water and when am finally able to do it the pics stay in the memory card for days...and weeks. Anyways...Sorry for the delay here are the pics from our short trip to the Wacissa River...

Swallow-Tailed Kite

Turtle

Turtle

Green Heron

Green Heron

Moorhen

Tri-Colored Heron

Tri-Colored Heron

Snowy Egret

Wacissa River little Gator

Snowy Egret

Close Up

Classic Turtle in a Log Pic

Ibis

Little Blue

Mississippi Kite....Not a good pic but that is what I was able to got. It was really high in the sky

Mississippi Kite...Same as above

Green Heron

Juvenile Wood Duck

Great Egret

That is it for this one. If you have questions about location of this Put In and Take Out shoot me a note or just look for a previous post from this location. There is information there. Thanks for checking and wait from our next post and more Views From Our Kayak.

Gator

Wakulla River

Swallow Tailed Kite

July 4th 2018: We went to the Wakulla River. Was not the best trip, actually it may be the worse one, but it had its moments. Here we go....

Osprey

This was a 4th of July trip and the river was full of kayakers (no problem with that), boats (annoying but not a big problem), and boats with drunk people and people doing fireworks (big problem for me). It rained on top of that. So this is it for this one. Disappointing... Well, hope you come back for another posts and Views From Our Kayak!!!!!

Lazy Wakulla River Gator