Florida: Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary, Feb 7, 2019

The next stop on our Florida trip (see here) was Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary. We ate lunch at Jimmy John’s (near Ding Darling NP), and made the 1.5 hour drive to Corkscrew Swamp. When we got there the parking lot was crowded; this is a destination for a lot of people. The Sanctuary is run by the Audubon Society, and consists of about 2.5 miles of boardwalk through the swamp. It’s really cool to be able to walk deep into the swamp. We didn’t see a lot of wildlife (maybe it was too late in the afternoon), but it was an awesome place to visit. It was nice to see the Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, which was a first for me.

The Sanctuary closes at 5:30, and they start chasing people out at 4:30. After we left, we made a quick stop at the Bird Rookery Swamp Trail which was on the way back to the hotel. This is a large area on the Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary property, with about 12 miles of trails through the swamp. I read some very positive reviews about it online, and I wanted to make a quick stop to see it for myself. It was getting dark and light was too poor to get any good pictures.

We made the 40 minute drive back to our hotel. Our next, and final, stop was Bunche Beach, the subject of my next post.