Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge

The northern end of the Everglades is a short drive from the Folly.  The Arthur R. Marshall Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge covers nearly 150,000 acres.

There's usually a gator around.

But I'd never seen deer before.  They're much healthier looking here than in the Pines. More skittish, too.  

I've already become blasé about big wading birds like great blue herons.

Much more exciting to spot this unusual couple sharing a half-submerged log:  a snowy egret and a peninsula cooter.

Encroaching agriculture threatens what Marjorie Stoneman Douglas called the slow moving "river of grass."

I didn't have to look far to see the evidence.