Manatees of the St Johns River, FL

In late November we had the pleasure of spending a few weeks on the St Johns River. There are many sections where you have to cruise at slow or idle speed because the Manatees are traveling to the warmer (72 deg) waters of the springs. One of the very popular is Blue Springs. They might be as many as 100 Manatees in there on a cold day. So at some point they will be traveling S on the river.

We stopped to photograph a fairly large alligator…and Jim called to me that he saw a Manatee. So we shut down the boats engine and drifted. Sure enough a female Manatee surfaced.

 

We were surprised to see a very small one with her….and even more surprised to see two.

We thought we had found a female with twins. The little one surfaced together.

and then they dove under the boat (we were glad the motor was off) and continued an S towards Blue Springs.

If you are on the river..watch for these wide flat swirls. It wont be long before you’ll spot a nose or a back. Just sit quiet and wait.

The area between Hontoon Island and Blue Springs is especially busy as the Manatees leave the springs to feed and then return. Be very vigilant and travel very slow. If you look at many Manatees you will start to notice all the prop marks on them.

Luckily this one didn’t have any major scars.

But this Manatee..seen at Salt River Run Springs  a few weeks earlier wasn’t so lucky.

If you really want a thrill…rent a canoe from the Springs. The Manatees are very friendly and curious and will even come over to investigate you. In this photo we are in our inflatable dingy.

Take your time on the river to slow down and give these big beautiful slow moving animals a chance to enjoy you…enjoying them.

Barred Owl

On our last trip up the St Johns River, we stopped at Hontoon Island and docked for the night. They have a nice museum and a video you should definitely watch if you are in the area. They have campsites and cabins for rent.

We took a short walk up the trail … towards the Indian Shell Mounds and spotted this Barred Owl.

It was quite content to sit there for a few pictures..

I had my small poodle with me…she’s about the size of a small rabbit. Perhaps that was the attraction and kept it in the area. I can’t tell if it’s licking it’s chops or not.

 

I was surprised at how large the Barred Owl is, and that it has brown eyes where most other owls eyes are yellow.

Gators on the St Johns River

We had a wonderful day on the river. Seemed like every where we looked there was a nice sized gator sunning itself. This one was sharing the area with a turtle and a White Heron.

The water was so flat the reflections are almost perfect.

 

This one sat for a short video before heading into the water.

I definitely missed getting some good pictures of the biggest gator we’ve seen out here.

He had a nice spot behind a few big trees with some brush for cover. As we got closer, he raised up and walked a few steps.

Then he dropped down and waited to see what we were going to do. Look at the size of that hind foot and claws.

Before we could get around the tree he went into the water. We have his spot marked on the chart and will be looking for him on the way back up river. He was huge!!

Gators….

Haven't been on the boat for a few weeks so I went back through my photos and found a few nice gators. This one was sunning itself with a smaller one.

Here they are swimming out toward the boat.

This gator was sitting with his back to us…we cruised up as close as we could.

As we got closer it turned to watch us….then went into the water.

I find these creatures fascinating and never tire of watching for and photographing them.  We cruise much slower than most boats on the river (6 mph) and create very little wake. If they are out there…we spot them. Oh…don’t think for a minute that because you don’t see them….that they aren’t there….Just start shining the shoreline after dark…all those eyes are most likely gators….big and small.

Great White Heron

This Great White Heron was working the shoreline at Salt River Springs when Raisin and I rowed shore.

It wandered off a bit…but didn’t seem bothered by our presence. Raisin is used to seeing large birds in the yard and knows she isn’t supposed to chase them. We have wild turkeys coming in all the time.

 

Just one of the beautiful birds found in this area.

Salt Springs Run Manatees

We have spent many nights in Salt Springs and never knew Manatees were frequent visitors here. There is a boat launch, ramps and gift shop. If you look close you can see tow of the Manatees (grey spots in the water).

You can see it’s back raising out of the water.

This looked like the smallest one…maybe 5 or 6 ft long. You can see several prop scars on it already.

In this photo you can see the same one, on the right,  with another much larger one.

Here are 3 of them together.

This Manatee swam right past our dingy. The white on the R is the back of our boat. You can see how close they came.

At first glance, this looks like the same Manatee in the photo above, but it’s not. Look at the different prop scars on this one. You can even see several on the tail. They are big and slow moving, and it’s hard to get out of the way if there are several boats and shallow waters. Yet they still seem to find us interesting.

Our dingy is 8’ long and this Manatee was much longer than that.

There is a Manatee under all the sparkles the wind and sunshine created.

Manatees come into Salt River Run Springs and Blue Springs because the water is warmer than the river during the winter. Blue Springs can have 90 or more at one time, and can be visited by car or by boat.

Salt River Run Springs has 15 that are regulars.

If you have a shallow draft boat you will have no trouble getting into Salt River Run. Be careful during the winter as that’s when you will be most apt to encounter Manatees on the Run.

We draw 3’ and can only get over the bar at the entrance when the water level in Lake George is up.

Gators on this trip

We spotted these two on Blue Creek, just off the St Johns River, FL. I found it intriguing since the small gator is resting his head on  a large turtle. Someday it will be on the gator’s menu…

 

The turtle didn’t like us getting so close and  decided to leave.

A few days later we spotted this one on the river bank. It was fairly large. I would guess at least 9 or 10 ft.

But the biggest treat was to spot this huge gator at one of our favorite anchorages.

It has a very broad back,  a very large head and a lot of “gator tail”.  One of the specialties on the menus around here. So I’m not going to mention where we spotted it.

Just as I switched from photos to video it headed into the water and I missed the action.

Is it grinning at me?