Not a mile past the park entrance, there is a public boat ramp and small bridge. The people in the tiny kayaks fleeing the alligator said that there should be more over here.

There is a decent sized parking lot for the trucks and boat trailers, the boat ramp, and a floating plastic doc with four or five slots for boats.

We saw an alligator, but we lost track of him when people walked on the dock and rocked it so much that we could not focus. With a telescopic lens, a small amount of rocking is a huge problem.

At that, we saw a mix of turtles; some have the yellow “S” of the Yellow-bellied Sliders and some do not. We are not sure what they all are.

We saw a brown “Heron” or “Egret” fly in to land in the grasses. We thought it might be a Yellow-crowned Heron, but Kate searched and identified it as a Limpkin. Either one would have been a new bird, but this one is kind of unique. It is adapted for eating Apple Snails. Sadly, it was far away, the dock kept rocking, and there was heat shimmer, so the pictures are not great.

We also saw some more Common Gallinules.

After this, we went up to the bridge. There were about five people fishing, and they had to reel in their lines every time a boat went under it. It was the fishing equivalent of kids playing in the street. Instead of yelling “Car!”, they yelled “Boat!”. Without the rocking, Kate was able to locate the alligator again. This one looked bigger than the ones in Louisiana and Alabama.

Around the bridge, there were a variety of birds, but none of them were close enough for good pictures.

After this, we needed to get back to start prepping for travel on Sunday.