Post #11 Ding Darling

On my trip at ding darling I experienced many different things, many that some people may never see. Although I may not have fulfilled my requirement of taking a picture at the area where the park pumps in and out the water (I asked the tram driver but he forgot) I feel as if I experienced a great deal of things. Within this refuge there are only two species of nocturnal birds, the yellow crown night herring and the black crown night herring, both of these were out during the day time doing their daily routine. Even more significant about one of these birds, the yellow crown night herring, is that it is now endangered but we were lucky enough to see a female protecting her nest with several eggs within it. Another bird that we were lucky enough to capture a view during its primal hunting of fish was the reddish egret, the reason this is such a lucky even is because there are only 3000 left in the entire world and only 300 of them live in the state of Florida. These birds are not entirely red or red at all they are mostly grey with a hint of red going up their neck into their head, hence the name reddish egret. The other thing that I found extremely interesting is that although the ground looked solid we would not be able to cross through that refuge without that manmade road. This is because the firm ground that looks like is there are actually just the roots of the mangroves sprouting up. Within the park there are two kinds of mangroves the red mangrove and the black mangroves. The red mangroves have long roots that stick up very high allowing it to be in an area of significant tide change but the black mangrove has short finger like roots that poke up from the water. These roots are used to gather oxygen for the mangrove from the air instead of from the water. Like all mangroves, the ones within this refuge al started in Indonesia and were then carried to the United States by natural storms and seeds were then replanted. This park made for an excellent field trip and allowed me to take in significant amount of information about a lot of the wildlife that we now have with in florida.