Spot the Manatee: Blue Spring State Park
- Orange City, Florida
- Feb 20, 2016
- 3 min read
On the morning of the last full day we had in the beautiful, warm state of Florida, I got a tip from an old classmate who has been in the Sunshine State a lot in her youth. “Go see the manatees in Blue Spring State Park”, she said. “You’ll love it.” And right she was! Blue Spring State Park, Oramge County is described as a popular tourist destination with a lot of possibilities, like canoeing, hiking, wildlife watching and much more. In winter (Floridian winter is nothing more than a name as far as I’m concerned), the warm water of the spring itself serves as a refuge for manatees. Manatees? I can’t even remember seeing a manatee in the zoo, let alone seeing one in the wild. I wanna go, I wanna go!
Now, before you get all excited like I did: we didn’t get to see much of the manatees. We’ve seen quite some shadows in the water of which we were 98% sure they may have had the shape of a manatee, but that’s about it. In some of the pictures you might be able to spot such a shadow if you try hard enough, but I’m warning you – it’s tough!
That doesn’t mean there isn’t anything to see at all at Blue Spring State Park, though. I’ve seen quite some other animals I’d never be able to spot back at home. There was an alligator, for example. Doing its thing in the spring. Ever seen a gator in The Netherlands? Didn’t think so. Awesome! But there was more. Nature once again did her thing with this place, and I’ve never seen anything like it before. Funny enough, the environment here looked totally, entirely different from what we’d seen in the Orlando Wetlands Park in Christmas earlier this week. Here, we were surrounded by plants and trees I’ll never know the names of, but I definitely fell in love with them, right on the spot. The trees near the water were all old and twirly; I think you call it a mangrove? There was a long wooden path that winded around this mangrove, and walking on it made me wonder if we just hadn’t accidentally ended up in a zoo or something. But it was all very real! When we were about halfway on the wooden path, I got a massively exciting surprise – and a massively disappointing one, right after. I saw a staircase that led down into the water so you could take a swim! My pants were already down on my ankles when I noticed the sign. “Manatee refuge, no swimming today”. Cursed. I don’t think I’ll ever get over that.
Zoo or not, animals were definitely to be spotted. I heard a lot of birds I wish I could see but couldn’t, but luckily there was quite some other wildlife that would show itself. Now I may be just a naive Dutch tourist girl, ‘cause I came to understand that most Americans consider this one a pest. But one of the wonders Blue Spring State Park held for me, were the squirrels. There were so many! In Holland it’s quite rare to spot one, and they’re definitely not around where I live. So if I ever see one, I go completely nuts (pun intended). But here in this Floridian park, they were everywhere. In the trees, on terraces, trying to steal your food… loved it. Too bad all the Americans didn't seem to appreciate their presence as much as I did, and kept chasing them away. I didn’t appreciate seeing those Americans in their natural habitat either, but hey, what can you do.
At the end of the day, we decided to go a little off-road. Nothing too adventurous, but I just wanted to see a liiitle bit more. I got that little bit more when we ended up at a sort of watering hole. It was wet and soggy and we had to watch our step for a bit, but the sights to behold were amazing! This watering hole was apparently a sort of bathing place for American Black Vultures. I’d seen those flying around everywhere, but I couldn’t quite believe they were actually vultures. Until now. The birds were slightly ticked off by our presence, but continued bathing and drying in the sun, wings spread wide. It gave us a very nice chance to fully check them out, which I had been hoping for the whole week already.
I loved Blue Spring State Park. I really did, every little bit of it. It may have been crowded and we may have had to wait in line for quite a while before we were even allowed entrance, but it was well worth it. Would I go back there if I ever was around during summer? Yes I would. I still have some unfinished business with the swimming area!
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