The Myakka River is known for its alligator and bird populations. We weren't disappointed. We stopped counting after the first 30 alligators. Dawn & I put on the river Wednesday morning early. The weather was great, but the river was very low. Because of the low level, we put in at the bridge in the park and paddled down to Lower Myakka Lake and back up.

Around the first bend below the bridge we came upon two roseate spoonbills and a great egret on the river left beach. By the time I got the camera out they were taking off, but I took a wild shot (point & shoot and hope for the best) and to my surprise, two of the birda are actually in the photo, but a bit out of focus. I was still pretty happy with it, since I had never even seen a roseate spoonbill before.

At the lower lake the water was only inches deep and the wind had picked up. The boat was barely afloat and we could only get about half a paddle blade in the water, so we stayed fairly close to the river mouth.

We had lunch when we got back to the bridge, and then we tried to paddle upstream to Upper Myakka Lake and float back down. We only got about a half mile before the water became too shallow. We would have had to carry the boat over virtually every sand bar. Consequently we gave up and came back down to the bridge and took off early.

The last few pictures were taken Friday morning early as we were leaving for Juniper Springs. The weather was much colder that morning.