Manatee mania

So I mentioned in this morning's post that I'm currently on a bit of a mission to photograph some big apex predators. Well 2 species are already safely captured on memory card for future posts and I'm hoping to add a third (and perhaps even a fourth or fifth if my luck continues to be so outrageous) tonight [edited to add - yeah, that didn't go so well, although the evening was not wasted]......however the highlight of the day had nothing to do with big sharp teeth and everything to do with slow lumbering herbivores. I really lucked out and came across a pod of tremendously friendly manatees. Even though I was on dry land, they got so close that using the 50-500mm lens was becoming an issue and I had to back away.

Its always nice when a local tells you, you're having great luck with wildlife, a passing park ranger told me she'd never seen them so close and then, when a sixth (or was it seventh?) head popped up within 10 feet of me just added "wow - this is crazy".

Centre of the group was a couple of mothers. I think one had twins (you'll see why in another post) but a couple of manatees always had at least one youngster in tow.

I'm starting to see why FC's posts are always so happy.