Ellie Schiller Homosassa Springs Wildlife State Park

March 15/14  Weather beautiful clear warm day 77, low at night 61

Do you know what the Florida State Bird is?   Flamingo, right?  Wrong.....   it is the Northern Mockingbird.  Funny as a kid I always associated the Flamingos with Florida.  Even when I see one of those tacky plastic lawn ornaments.   So where are all the pretty pink birds hiding?   It felt like there were lots of them in Florida when I was a kid but maybe that's because when we visited the sunny south we hit all the theme parks in a two week span and those are your memories.  The Ellie Schiller Homosassa Springs Wildlife State Park features many different native Florida wildlife.    It is situated on the Homosassa River and without a doubt the main attraction is the West Indian Manatee but for us it was the Flamingos!

Take the walking tour and see black bear, alligators, otters, hippo, birds of prey, whooping crane, shore birds, waterfowl, reptiles, key deer and the beloved manatee.    Spoiler alert~ Flamingos are found on the island in the shore birds section!

Gators

Wounded Bald Eagle

 

 

Owls

Homosassa Springs, Florida

Dec 3 - 11/12  Warm and warmer everyday 80+, nights about mid 60's but very very humid.  Fog a few days in the morning.

We did a little zig zag across the north Florida.  First in Silver Springs then over to the coast to St. Augustine then back to Umatilla.   This was our last stop before we head down to Orlando to fly home for Christmas.  The park we are staying at is very big with many snowbirds; I think we are only one of three that are only staying for the week or less, it's called Olde Mill Stream in Umatilla.   They do have a big rally area where groups come in and all stay together, even have a clubhouse for them - which is really unique.  We have not seen any park cater to rally groups before, last weekend there was a Good Sam Club from Osceola, about 20 motorhomes.

Anyways while we are so close to our friends we did some more riding around all the lakes in Lake County.  Little, little lakes.  One day Don and Annie and little Buddy took us with their pontoon boat over to Homosassa Springs where it is one of the best places in Florida to see the Manatees.   We saw a few of them, a Mom and her baby too! Beautiful.  
In the river they have this island that has a bunch of monkeys on it, now that's the life!