Judy P's Tickle Trunk

……..or Oh the huge-manatee.

When my daughter was little we were putting away some of her little plastic menagerie when I said “Here’s a cute little baby walrus!” “That’s not a walrus, Mom” she informed me, “That’s a manatee.” “What’s a manatee?” I asked and that was the first time I knew of their existence. On February 16th Lance and I paddled from our campsite to the Homosassa River to see if we could see some manatees in the flesh.

One-handed paddling while taking pictures makes for tippy pictures.

In the process we encountered a pair of nesting osprey. They were right in the middle of the river on a post!

Is it conceivable that these osprey are also Milton birds wintering in Florida?

It wasn’t long before we were paddling with the manatees. They hang out at the fresh water springs in the Homosassa River where the water is a consistent 72º but they have to leave the river to feed so there was lots of coming and going.

If you keep a sharp eye out it doesn’t take
long to find a manatee or two. Or three.

I have a waterproof camera which for the longest time I have been reluctant to use because I never really trusted it not to leak when fully immersed. On this particular Monday the thought of getting just one manatee picture from below the surface was worth the risk of ruining the camera.

Most of a manatee. Today’s photography was not so much ‘trial and error’ as it was ‘close your eyes and hope for the best’.

It was a fine balance – the river was full of pontoon boats, kayaks, snorkelers who had paid to swim with the manatees, and the beasts themselves. It is illegal to harass a manatee in any way as they are a protected endangered species. I hope that hanging over the side of my inflatable kayak, waving a camera in their faces, doesn’t qualify as harassment. I couldn’t see the viewfinder so I just aimed and clicked randomly. I had to discard a lot of shots but got plenty with which I was pleased.

All of a manatee.

They are the most amazing beasts to hang out with. Their closest relative is not the whale or the walrus as I thought, but the elephant.

To me, the manatee bears little resemblance to its cousin, the elephant.

Manatees spend about 50 percent of their day asleep, usually just resting on bottom. They surface every 20 minutes or so to breath and then go right back to sleep.

Looks like they have little flappers inside their nostrils.

They are herbivore marine mammals with “cheek” teeth which wear out and are replaced. Not with dentures by the manatee dentist, silly, they grow new ones. When they are not sleeping they are grazing or swimming to find food. Being vegetarians (vegans?) they build up great quantities of gas which is what makes them so round. And if you are ever downwind of one, you won’t need to wonder which end of the manatee those bubbles came from. Phew.

Wha-at? Wasn’t me!

Manatees are described as solitary creatures but the ones we encountered were in close quarters and seemed to travel in small groups.

Heading out to sea.

A manatee dinner date.

Manatee can live to be 60 years old if they aren’t killed by the cold, red tide, or their greatest enemy, boat propellers.

I don’t know the age of this manatee but I do know he’s no rolling stone by his accumulation of moss.

I was most excited to spot a mother and her calf….

A manatee (or as Jon would say, a womanatee) breeds every two years.

and even more excited to get an underwater picture.

The calf stays with the mother for 12 to 18 months, until weaned.

I was downright trigger happy.

I had looked at this photo two or three times before I realized that it was a nursing baby.

The calf nurses from a teat just behind the mother’s flipper.

Manatee armpits do double duty.

Manatees are the gentlest, calmest and cutest creatures I have ever encountered (seahorses are a close second.) For this reason, I think that they would make excellent therapy pets. If only they were more portable!

A manatee always looks like it is just waiting to give you a great big hug.

If I could choose the form of my next reincarnation it would certainly be a manatee.

A glorious beast.

© All photos and text Judy Parsons 2015, Click on any picture for a larger view.