Cycling Eagle Lakes Community Park

When we stayed in Naples, Florida in 2013, we visited Eagle Lakes Community Park during our exploration of the area.  We wrote about it in this blog entry.  The park was very memorable because of the large flocks of shorebirds that flew back at sunset to roost in the park's trees.

When we arrived in Naples this time, one of the first things we wanted to do was revisit Eagle Lakes Community Park.  We did some research and found that it was only a short, 2-mile bike ride from our current campground!  As it turned out, we pedaled over to the park three times during this stay, and the following photos are the best that resulted from our visits.

Our ride to the lake took us through residential areas -- enclaves of houses, mobile homes and RV's:

Our first view of the lake happened to be the view that we most remembered from our prior visit -- looking out over the lake from a gazebo on the bike trail:

At just before sunset, the lakes take on the look of French landscape paintings:

This time, we did not see nearly as many roosting birds as we had in 2013, but, if we looked closely, we could see birds taking their intimate places in the colorful landscape -- such as this wing-spreading anhinga --

-- and this fishing egret --

-- and this stork hunting for bugs in the company of other birds --

-- and this heron hunting with dark ibis or limpkins:

Not all of the wildlife was distant.  Below, Kathy rode by this anhinga as, seemingly undisturbed, it continued drying its wings:

This stork tolerated our approach, long enough for us to get a photo without disturbing him:

And then there was the white heron, basking in the expanding glow of sunset:

Even this great blue heron, known for being shy and skittish, let us approach more closely than normal to take his portrait:

But the light was fading and our camera could only catch the outlines of figures, including this stately anhinga, watching over the lake:

There was just enough light to shine on this beautiful white heron and make the grasses glow around:

We found only one critter that was not a shorebird.  He had taken up residence on the flood control culvert at the edge of one of the lakes, and he made it clear that we were not to approach very close:

We left him in peace and turned toward the setting sun, just in time to get one final view of the lakes before we had to peddle home to our campground: