Merritt Island Visit

Kevan and I went to Florida in December.  During our visits we try to drive out to Merritt Island and drive through Black Point Wildlife Drive before we head to Dixie Crossroads restaurant in Titusville.  I know I've posted about our adventures here before, but we like to have a memory of our visit so I wanted to type out a post with pictures.  I hope you enjoy anyway.

One of the bad things about visiting now is that they now require you to pay to drive through Black Point Wildlife Drive, but it isn't too expensive.  You pay $5 per car for a Daily Pass or $15 annually.

Usually, when we arrive at the Merritt Island Wildlife Refuge we go to the Visitor's Center.  There is a fun area for kids to explore, some stuffed animals (real and non-real), an outside area to walk around and it gives you an opportunity to ask the park rangers/volunteers if there have been any animal sightings that day and where.  This day that we visited someone that came in told us they just saw a bobcat down the road.  We have only seen one bobcat all the years we have been going and it was pretty far away from us.  Below is a picture of a "stuffed" bobcat that is in the visitor's center.

The visitor's center also has a little walking trail.  Below is a picture of the trail.

We also found out from the visitor's center that there was an owl sitting in the nest down the road.  We hopped in our car to go see him.  Kevan and I love owls and have a few fun owl stories.  Anyway, when we made our way down there we could only see his ears flipping in the wind, but it was till neat to see.  His picture is below.  I took this while sticking my head out of our sunroof.

Also, on this day...we didn't have the $5 to put into the box for our entrance fee and we didn't want to be dishonest.  So, we decided to skip Black Point Wildlife Drive and we just drove through Biolab road instead.  It isn't as nice and it is shorter, but we were late anyway so we decided to do the short route.  I didn't want to miss having dinner at my favorite shrimp place.  lol!

As you drive around you will see MANY different types of birds.  Below is a Great Blue Heron.

I believe this is a Snowy Egret hiding in the brush.

Here is another one standing on a dock.

 

Below are a bunch of cute white Ibis.  They are pretty cute and make funny noises.  There are also ducks in the background.

Blue Heron flying over us.

Below are a bunch of Roseate Spoonbills (not to be confused with pink flamingos).   There is also another Blue Heron in front of the bush below.

The Roseate Spoonbills are very cute to watch because they use their "Spoon" bill to swish around in the water looking for food.  You might be able to tell in the video below, but on my computer it seems a little choppy for some reason.

On this visit we saw LOTS of ducks.  Much more than we usually do.

If you look at this picture below...the ENTIRE part in black were ducks.  The sound of them talking to each other was ADORABLE.  We sat there for quite awhile and just listened. 

I know a lot of people don't think buzzards are that cute, but I do.  Look at his cute face.

 

 Lastly, we did see a few alligators.  Here is one of the bigger ones.

We usually see many more things, but we left after church, arrived late and it was getting dark fast.  So, the pictures we took later in the evening did not turn out well.  We also see (on occasion) eagles, wild boars, snakes, jellyfish, many types of other birds and fish jumping out of the water.  The refuge also has an area to view manatees.  We only see them sometimes and it seems like most of the time they are not around.

If you want to see more pictures of our Merritt Island Adventures click here.