The pictures in this gallery post were taken along the La Chua Trail on the north side of the Paynes Prairie Preserve State Park, an amazing wilderness on the southern edge of Gainesville, Florida. Click once on a thumbnail to open it in a separate window. Maximum dimension is 600 pixels.
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- High clouds made for bright light without harsh contrast.
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- A Great Egret.
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- We saw many different birds, large and small.
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- The La Chua Trail leads to a sinkhole that feeds the water into the Florida aquifer.
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- Egret and Great Blue Heron
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- This alligator was about 20 feet from the trail, the minimum recommended distance on land.
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- A half-dozen of the alligators were along the edge of the dike, 10 to 30 feet from the trail.
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- Great Blue Heron.
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- The largest alligators were 12 feet long.
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- We think this was a Green Heron.
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- Even the squirrels posed for photos.
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- Great Blue Heron.
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- Great Blue Heron.
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- Paynes Prairie is an enchanting place.
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- Amazing, almost prehistoric, creatures.
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- We counted 54 alligators on our walk along La Chua Trail.
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- Little Blue Heron.
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- These little birds were about 4 inches long and accompanied us along the trail.
Fantastic images! Paynes Prairie looks like a photographer’s paradise. It continues to be frigid and snowy here in Michigan, so I am very much enjoying living vicariously through you and Linda.
Thanks Kate. Paynes Prairie is an amazing place. Glad we are helping you make it through this historic Michigan winter. We were in Venice (FL) yesterday and went to Myakka River State Park (FL) today; another amazing place. It will take me part of Wednesday to select, process, and post photos. I’m very much wishing I had a much longer/faster lens and a lighter tripod. I’ve been shooting everything hand held as we don’t want to lug the tripod around. These images were made using a 100-300mm zoom on a 3/4 image sensor, so at 300mm it acted like a 400mm + lens on a full-frame body.