Royal Palm Visitor Center

Florida Red-bellied Turtle (or Red-bellied Cooter?) with male Anhinga. February 2026.

When I think of the Everglades National Park’s Royal Palm Visitor Center I immediately see two visions in my mind: a parking lot full of vultures and Anhingas. The first vision includes a non-identified carcass suspended from a lamp pole which supposedly kept the Black Vultures from eating the rubber off of your car’s windshield wipers. The second one looks like this:

Male Anhinga at Royal Palm Visitor Center. March 2010.

I snapped this photo on our previous visit to the ‘Glades in 2010, printed it out when we got home, and admired it for some years after. It represents what I like about southern Florida in general and the Royal Palm Visitor Center in particular: a person can get very close to many remarkable birds, reptiles, and amphibians. Here are some from our recent trip, which like the first one, didn’t disappoint…

Female Anhinga with fish. February 2026.

We had barely arrived to the center when we watched a female Anhinga stab a fish. She then spent five minutes or more attempting to figure out how to get it off of her beak without losing the fish altogether. She did eventually succeed. The photo looks strangely colored because I heavily tweaked the contrast parameters to bring out the fish.

A beautiful Peters’s Rock Agama. February 2026.

Sadly, the photo above shows a gorgeous male Peters’s Rock Agama. Sad because it’s an invasive species from Africa that’s out-competing local lizards. Yes, there are two S’s because it’s named after a biologist named Peters. He’s perched atop a rock wall bordering the walking area outside the center itself. In other words, it only took a bit of telephoto and my being ready to snap the shot when he stopped for a second. They’re skittish.

In the center of the walk visitors can access several viewpoints around a large, lily pad-choked pond. Surveying the pond, one can pick out alligators here and there…

Lily pads with gator. Royal Palm Visitor Center, Everglades National Park. February 2026.

Sharper eyes spot turtles…

Everglades National Park. February 2026.

And running across the lily pads are the most striking little birds! Behold, the Purple Gallinule:

Purple Gallinule (adult). Bright yellow legs not shown. Everglades National Park. February 2026.

When birds abound I tend to ignore the rest of my photographic subjects. I apologize to myself, and I promise to make something of a few of those photos which haven’t made the cut this time. To carry on, though: I had a good time “stalking” this Green Heron in an attempt to get a shot where it held still.

Green heron. Everglades National Park. February 2026.

One benefits in several ways when a visit to the Everglades occurs in the so-called winter months. It’s usually warm enough for shirt sleeves; mosquitoes have disappeared; manatees congregate in the warmer waters near the shore where people can see them (sorry, no good photos of those, I’m afraid); and in late February and March young fledglings have been born. This striking set of shots caught me by surprise. I’ve never seen a family of Anhingas before. Frustratingly, they were located across the pond and partially hidden in the branches of the trees. I don’t usually publish out-of-focus photos but this old man couldn’t get the shot at that zoom level with no tripod/monopod or grip.

Female Anhinga with juvenile. Everglades National Park. February 2026.

Female Anhinga with two fledglings. Everglades National Park. February 2026.

Female Anhinga and juvenile. Everglades National Park. February 2026.

As we left the pond and headed back to the parking lot, I looked for the little gator we’d seen on our way out. Only three to four feet long, it had found refuge in a shallow bit of water no large alligator would deign to look at. It had disappeared, found its way elsewhere just as we planned to do. Will I visit again? Unsure. There are so many places to go in the world. It had been 16 years since our previous visit; 16 more years and I’ll be looking at my 88th birthday (Lord willing). Tough to say.

Small alligator in a few inches of water. Everglades National Park. February 2026.

Back to the ‘Glades

View from Shark Valley Visitors Center, Everglades National Park. There are two alligators in this photo. February 2026.

Technically we re-entered the Everglades National Park at the end of our day in the Big Cypress National Preserve, stopping at the Shark Valley Visitors Center at the end of the afternoon. We didn’t want to take the tram ride to the actual Shark Valley viewing tower, which left us little to do there. Another hour brought us to Homestead, FL. I discovered a Cuban restaurant next door which delighted me a great deal. But first, where are those alligators in the photo above? Look up that slough in the center of the photo. On the far bank? Just above the light-colored shoreline? Here’s a zoomed in photo:

Alligators at Shark Valley Visitors Center. February 2026.

We hit up the Cuban restaurant for breakfast, easily besting the hotel’s “continental” offering, then headed to what I still regard as the heart of the Everglades—the Ernest F. Coe and Royal Palm Visitor Centers and the road which leads deeply through the park until it reaches Flamingo where one can stare southward at the Florida Keys. We arrived just as the Coe center opened then headed southward.

Huevos rancheros, Cuban-style: plantain pancake under the egg and a fruited salsa atop. February 2026.

After spotting a half dozen or so school buses in parking lot, we decided to visit Royal Palm at the end of our day, on the way back out of the park. Quietly spotting wildlife with a hundred or so elementary students alongside (we checked) seemed to be mutually exclusive. We stopped at some of the major sights on the way south, a few on the back out.

A juvenile heron. Not sure which one. Looks like a Black-crowned Night Heron, but those don’t have the yellow/orange beak. Closest I can come would be a Tricolored Heron but it doesn’t seem to be quite like this patterned brown. February 2026.

Small drainage creek at the Pa-Hay-Okee Lookout Tower, Everglades. February 2026.

My wife spotted a heron jumping in and out of the darkness of a creek at Pa-Hay-Okee Lookout (left and above). I needed a telephoto to see what she was talking about!

We spotted a barred owl at the Mahogany Hammock walk. While watching him (nearly positive this was a male), we were treated to a call-and-response with an owl we couldn’t locate. This apparently is classic barred owl behavior between a male and female. A sharp-eyed teenager pointed out a snail which I had difficulty locating even after she had described the location. Other attractions at this stop included huge root systems seen from underneath because hurricanes had blown them over in the past.

Barred owl at Mahogany Hammock. February 2026.

Tree snail at Mahogany Hammock. Approximately two inches. Everglades, February 2026.

We arrived at Flamingo a bit tired. Thankfully the best thing to do there involved sitting and staring at the shallow waters leading out to the Keys—unless you wanted to take a boat charter which we had done in the past. We spotted an osprey flying back and forth over the shoreline waters, and we saw the near-ubiquitous flock of White Ibises. Then we drove north again.

A stylized view of the Keys. Flamingo, Everglades. February 2026.

Osprey at Flamingo, Everglades. February 2026.

We turned around and drove north toward the Royal Palm Visitors Center, hopefully now without the youngsters. Royal Palm deserves its own post, however, so we’ll bring this to a close.

To the Everglades

One of a good-sized group of brown pelicans we watched while we ate lunch in Tin City, a group of shops located in old tin buildings on Naples Bay. Naples, FL, February 2026.

We had brought the frigid temps of the Carolinas and Georgia with us to Tampa, and my wife’s sister lamented the loss of her typical 70’s and 80’s. It warmed a bit on our second day there. I bundled up in the warmest things I’d packed and walked to a nearby reservoir to see what bird life I could find. Driving south the next day, we arrived at the Tin City shopping mecca early afternoon, and tucked into a late lunch. The food and the bird life entertained; the shops did not. Tin City seemed a poor and miniscule version of Seattle’s Pike Street Market. Most shops sold typical tourist trinkets which said “made in China” on the bottom. Combined with the exorbitant hotel rates—$300+ for a Springhill Suites on the outskirts of greater Naples?—I doubt we’ll be back in Naples. One saving grace? We’re not exactly foodies but we’re kissin’ close, and discovering that the Cracklin’ Jack’s just up the road from the hotel had recently been featured on Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives sure put a fine end to the day. Best fried catfish I’ve ever had! We looked forward a bit more eagerly to entering the Everglades and surrounds the next day.

Although the westernmost entry to the Everglades National Park, the Marjory Stoneman Douglas Visitor Center, purported to not be open until the end of February, we decided to chance it on the 26th. We were rewarded with an open, brand-spanking-refurbished center….but not much else because it’s a jump-off point for visitors who want to boaters and to those who want to hike/camp in the Ten Thousand Islands. We are neither of those types. We traveled east on US-41, a.k.a. the Tamiami Trail, the southern route across the Florida peninsula which parallels I-75 a.k.a. “Alligator Alley”. I planned the US-41 route; it became a wise decision when a fire broke out between the two and officials closed sections of the interstate. (It also precluded driving very far north from the US-41.) The southern tip of Florida is a patchwork of state parks, state forests, national preserves, and the national park. We stopped first at the Big Cypress Swamp Welcome Center in the Big Cypress National Preserve. After that, a stop at the H.P. Williams Roadside Park gave us our first good glimpse of alligators, and some nice views of the bird denizens.

A Tri-Colored Heron stalks its prey. Big Cypress National Preserve, February 2026.

It’s not “oh, look, there’s a gator.” It’s more a find-the-gator experience. Sure they’re swimming up and down the minor canal you’re looking at. Can you spot the one hanging out under your nose? Big Cypress National Preserve, February 2026.

“like ships passing in the night…” Some gators were easier to spot. Big Cypress National Preserve, February 2026.

Sometimes, though, the subtropical plants grab one’s attention…

“Moses-in-the-cradle”??? That’s what my plant ID program says, but it seems doubtful. Regardless, it created a stark contrast to the water’s edge. Big Cypress National Preserve, February 2026.

Technically, the final photo of the plants was taken at the Oasis Visitor Center for the Big Cypress National Preserve. If you’re traveling “to see the Everglades,” I would highly recommend US-41 and the Big Cypress route, because it’s basically the northern environs of the Everglades. When one leaves the eastern boundary of the preserve, it’s less than a mile before the Everglades’ Shark Valley Visitor Center. As good as our day’s beginning had been, we had much to look forward to, it turned out.