South Florida Road Trip

Generally he sole purpose of any road trip for me is to find animals that I can't find in my area.  South Florida has basically all the same species of reptiles up here as down south with a few exceptions.  However, in the past couple decades many species of exotic reptiles, amphibians, fish, and birds have been introduced to this sub-tropical environment.

I don't like that any of these animals are here but in many cases they are here to stay and it would be extremely difficult/impossible to remove them.  Nonetheless, they are awesome animals and some friends and I went down to find some of the exotic reptiles that live down there.  So, here's what we found!

These were the two biggest finds of the trip!  Both were found outside of Everglades Nat'l Park.  These two guys were found about 15 minutes apart and that burmese python was fresh out of the egg.  The adult female chameleon was one of 4 chameleons found on that trip.  The python was the only one we found but we know several other people found pythons in ENP over during the time we were there.

All in all it was an awesome trip with these two highlights but we did find a lot of other exotics including iguanas, anoles, and basilisks.

Birds of Prey

Okay, so this was a fun and extensive episode to film.  I spent more time on this one than any of the others.  Most of the time was spent with the falconer and his hawk.  Yes, you do falconry with hawks as well as falcons or any bird of prey for that matter.  I went on a lot of hunts with this falconer and I was only able to film two successful ones.  I guess that's the way it is with hunting.  One hunt wasn't successful until it started getting dark so most of that footage wasn't any good but I actually got the shot of the hawk catching the squirrel.  The first one caught the squirrel out of sight but I was able to run over and film everything after the kill.  So I just threw the two kill scenes together into one thing.

My favorite scene was the vulture scene.  I had been thinking about how I would do this and one day it was just served to me on a silver platter.  I was going down a country road and saw a freshly killed snapping turtle.  She was real big too.  I hate seeing turtles dead on the road but I hate seeing scavengers dead next to them even more.  I pulled off and tossed the turtle in the back of my truck and brought it to the cow pasture near my house.  I set it out and waited.  After about half an hour the black vultures started coming down.  The turkey vultures stayed in the air.  I think they're a lot more shy of humans and once the black vultures are on a carcass the turkey vultures kind of get bullied a lot.  They can be aggressive.  Once one hit the ground several others came down too and it was just a squabbling mess.  Anyway, here's the video and you can see how all that went down

Until next time, find a new way to appreciate nature!

I Like Turtles

I do like turtles but I never really developed much of an affinity for them until I jumped in the water with them.  When you get in the water with an aquatic animal you realize they live in a much different world than you and I.  I did a lot of free diving with these animals and it was so much fun!  Some of them are curious, some ignore you, and others try to get as far away from you as possible.  I had to change my tactics for each species in order to get footage of them.

One thing in particular that I noticed was their behavior difference in and out of the water.  I have encountered many snapping turtles when they were crossing land from one body of water to another and every time they have acted very offended to have my help in getting them across the road or over a fence.  This is because land is not their domain.  Turtles are very slow and clumsy on land.  For the snapping turtle this means it has to put on a ferocious show when it feels threatened because land is where it is most vulnerable.  Now, when I went underwater with these guys they were calm and allowed me to approach much closer than the ones I found on land.  In fact, they seemed to hardly care that I was even there.  They would just sit and sway to the flow of the river.

Turtles are awesome animals that deserve our respect and maintain a very important role in nature.

Monkeys in Florida!

For this episode I went down to Silver River.  This place is awesome! and easily one of my favorite places in the state.  This is a slow moving crystal clear river that goes through a forest of ancient trees.  The river is teaming with life from every type of fish to wading birds and there's hardly a log without a basking turtle.  Everywhere you look there is some kind of animal and the diversity is amazing!  As you paddle up the river looking at all the animals, all of a sudden something in the trees will catch your eye and you'll second guess what you're seeing.  You quickly realize that there are many of what caught your eye.  An entire troop of rhesus macaques is foraging along the river.  They're not real skittish as they're used to being fed by boaters.  This location is pretty easily accessed so if you want to go you can do it!  You can hire guided tours or just rent or bring your own kayak, or any kind of boat for that matter.  Anyway, check out the video below and learn all about these monkeys!