Wildlife of Snead Island

 We rode our bikes around the island and part way into Emerson Point Sanctury and saw a lot along the way.  We hope to actually walk the paths tomorrow but here is some of what we saw.

Baby gator checking us out

.

You can see how thick the duck weed is in the
ditches along the road. We saw about 8 baby gators

but this one stuck around to be photographed.

Daddy gator waiting for his next meal.  It might have been

the mama but we're were not getting in the water to check.

We also saw a large number of turtles of all sizes
all covered in duck weed.

At first, we thought this massive shape was just trash

but then legs and head popped out.  The turtle next

to it was large in its own right but nothing like his

friend.  A gentleman walking by said it was a leatherback.

We've seen ocean going leatherback seaturtles but never one

on land.

Down a finger canal we saw a pod of manatees.

You can see the nose sticking out of the water and 

another one beside it.

This was a fluke just after it was out of the 

water, really it is!

Manatees are massive and slow movers but

rarely surface.  Another friendly neighbor explained

that this canal has an artisian outflow that draws the

manatees in to the fresh water.  Yesterday all 6 in the pod 

were on the surface sunning but our phone battery had died.