Everglades National Park is big. Really big. So I’ve split it into three sections: Royal Palm Visitor Center, Flamingo Visitor Center, and Shark Valley Visitor Center.
Royal Palm, near Homestead FL, is where most visitors enter the park. It is the best place to see birdies. Lots of birdies.
The ecology of the Everglades is a bit complex. Technically, the Everglades is a slough (pronounced “slew”), which is a wide shallow slow-moving sheet of water. It moves very slowly from Lake Okeechobee to empty into the Gulf of Mexico at the southern tip of Florida.
The majority of the Everglades ecosystem consists of sawgrass prairie. During the rainy season this is usually around knee-deep, but during the dry winter season it can dry up almost completely, with just wet mud allowing the grasses to survive.
In areas that have a slightly higher elevation (sometimes as little as six inches) there is enough drier soil to allow trees to root, and these form hills called “hammocks”. The plant and animal species here are completely different from those that inhabit the surrounding sawgrass prairie.
Conversely, areas that are slightly deeper than the surrounding sawgrass (often because a Gator dug himself a winter gatorhole) are usually inhabited by willows or cypress, and these too are distinct microhabitats.
There are also some areas that are very deep (several feet) and these were made by humans who dug out blocks of the limestone bedrock for construction. This forms ponds which are usually covered by Spatterdock, and this is where many of the birdies like to hang out.
Some photos.
For those who don't know, I live in a converted campervan and travel around the country, posting photo diaries of places that I visit. I am currently in Florida for the winter.