"Wintering in the Florida Everglades."

I have always enjoyed and loved my time in the Florida Everglades during the winter. The warm days and cool evenings in January are usually interrupted with a cold snap where temperatures drop below forty degrees.
Unless I’m backing, anything below 40-degrees will require an Air-BnB reservation, which is what I did. So after a warm night in Kendal Fl, west of Miami.

I awoke around 7 am with a Starbucks coffee on my mind. I warmed the car up, and my driving route included the sight of dozens if not more colorful green Iguanas laying on the ground that had fallen from every Palm tree in sight.

It was a very surreal sight as I watched shocked walking Miami residents skirting the Iguanas laying on the sidewalk is a sight I will never forget.

Iguanas are not native to Florida and considered an invasive species, according to the state’s Fish and Wildlife Conserversation Commission. Iguanas were first reported in Florida during the 1960s in Hialeah, Coral Gables, and Key Biscayne, and along the southeastern coast of Miami-Dade County.

The best way to describe this sight is to consider every squirrel in your community falling onto the ground from every tree they occupy laying still. It was, by far, one of the weirdest views of my life as I drove.

The added caveat to the beauty in the Everglades are the sunrises and sunsets, with each inspiring the warm fuzzy feeling within your soul.

The wading bird population increases like the human Snow Birds who retreat to warmer climates mimicking mother natures bird migration.

The wading birds of the Everglades have patience for the hunt of anything in the waters they can consume. The photos of the Anhinga above is one of the unique hunters above and below water.

There are hundreds of other birds in the Everglades but Herons and Anhinga are my favorite. 🙂