Hiking Wekiwa Springs State Park
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- čas přidán 26. 04. 2024
- Across the water from Rock Springs Run State Reserve, I found myself in a similar situation. The long hike I planned didn't yield near as much wildlife as I found near the trailheads. Once I finished the loop I designed, I headed off toward the lake on the side of the property I hadn't explored yet. Very glad I did.
So my loop basically started at Sand Lake and went to the boundary with Kelly Park. It then more or less followed the spring run back to Sand Lake 09:43. Once back there I started seeing small grasshoppers, skinks, turtles, an alligator, and many more tortoises. I had only seen one tortoise on trail. That and a few birds and flowers, insects and frogs. Those sorts of things.
The deer at the beginning are before I reached the parking lot at Sand Lake. The only other deer I saw was not captured on video.
Once back to my van, I drove to the parking lot at the swimming area and hiked over to Prevatt Lake 11:56. Here I found lots of water fowl and an even bigger gator. As I returned to the spring to film it and the boardwalk nearby, I spotted some wild turkey in a burn area.
All in all I saw quite a bit. I just wish I felt the days worth of hiking was worth it, considering I could have probably filmed more wildlife by just doing shorter trails.
I'm gonna keep doing what I'm doing though.
As for the wait to get into the park, I was hoping to do this hike during the colder months but summer came early. I was waiting for the time change so sunrise would be closer to opening time.
I arrived about 30 minutes before the park opened and I'd say there were 20 to 30 cars in front of me already. 30 minutes after the park opened, I still wasn't passed the ranger station where you pay to get in. It wasn't great getting to the lesser used parking area to find several cars already there. I like to be first on trail to increase my odds of finding wildlife. A lot of these cars were probably from overnight backwoods campers though. What I did like was the park staying open until 8. I might have missed sunrise but I was there for sunset.
The extra attention to the bugs was interesting! Great video!
I need to look for bugs more often. I usually start looking when I can't find anything bigger to film.
Wow ! I’m impressed by the wide variety of species !!!
Thanks so much for sharing.
For real! I was keeping an eye out for bear and fox squirrels too. I heard they were there but no luck.
Thanks for sharing. I liked the gopher tortoises. My house in Naples is ready. I will let you know when I will be down there again.
Might come in handy, thanks.
the swallow tail kite is so cool to watch !!
Yeah, I've really been enjoying them in recent hikes.
Excellent video. I see it hasn't changed a bit since my last visit. Absolutely crawling with wildlife. One of my favorite state parks.
The campgrounds are great and the primitive camps are good as well. So many trails to hike and so much to see. Would be easy to spend several days there and still not see everything.
Have you considered using King's Landing shuttle service with your kayak?
Yeah, I definitely didn't see it all. There have been plans to paddle there, just haven't made it happen yet.
Classic Jurassic Park Tee...
I'm cool like that.