OK, it IS all about Winter, but my photos aren’t all about Miss Winter!  I quickly waded through some manatee photographs from earlier this year.  Boy do I have some good ones!!!  Just have to get to them all!!

Above was taken on a lovely day in February ’07 during wonderful but rare blue water conditions with lots of manatee at Crystal River.  A mother and child manatee (albeit a large child - hey they stay with mom till 2 or 3 years of age so some are pretty sizable-!!).  Anyway an idyllic scene all too rare now in Florida.  In fact you can see smaller propeller scars on “mom” but these two were pretty propeller scar free and lucky to be resting as manatee have rested in Florida for many thousands of years.  One of the most beautiful places in the world!!

The photo below is of a very young manatee who is showing off what he has just learned from mom.  Manatee youngsters (and moms) seem to be very “proud” of learning new things and sometimes you just can’t get a proud manatee calf to stop demonstrating his new found skill! :-)

“Junior” below has just learned that if he flips only his left flipper and spins it like mad he will turn and turn.  He wasn’t shy of me at all, in fact I had trouble taking his photo because he was so proud of his new skill that he would come too close to me for a good photograph and keep “turning and turning”.....  Mom rested nearby and when she checked in seemed quite proud of the whole scenario!

Enjoy the pics - more Winter and manatee to come!  My new computer has been delayed but I’ll get it soon and update this site, etc!  Yea!!

Best, Carol