OK, I confess—despite living in Florida for almost 20 years, I never visited the Everglades. So now that I am in Miami, I had to fix that.

The Everglades is in effect three separate parks, each with its own entrance and primary areas. The most popular by far is the Royal Palm area, near Homestead FL. Most of the species here will already be familiar from other areas of Florida. But the Everglades itself is a unique system—there is nothing like it anywhere else in the world. As southern Florida’s heavy rainfall builds up, it flows through the southern tip of the state to the Gulf Of Mexico, forming what is in effect a very wide, very shallow and very slow-moving river.

So here are some photos from a day along the Anhinga Trail.