Thursday, May 5, 2011

Shark Valley National Park - The Everglades

In southern Florida in the middle of the massive swamp known as the Everglades is a national park called Shark Valley. There are no sharks in Shark Valley. Shark Valley features a 15-mile paved loop out into the wilds of the Everglades which is used by tourist trams and bicyclists. At about the midway point is a large concrete tower which tourists can climb and from which they can see for miles in all directions.

One thing Shark Valley has is alligators. Lots of gators. On one of our bicycle excursions, we counted over 150 of them, many laying in the road making it necessary to ride around them!

Crows are also residents of Shark Valley. At the tower, the park offers bike racks for bicyclists to store their bikes while climbing the tower. The crows have become very efficient at getting the food the bicyclists might have packed away on their bikes.

I was sitting on a picnic bench watching the crows. They were brazen, utterly unafraid of my presence. Ignoring me and my camera they alit on a bike seat and proceeded to unzip the storage bags with their beak, pulling out potato chips, crackers or whatever else they could find. They would then proceed to tear the wrappings apart and eat their fill!

In this shot, you can see the crow has already unzipped the bag and is now working to pull out a bag of chips. Amazing!

8 comments:

Jack said...

Hey, Jacob, a guy has got to eat!

I didn't know you are a cyclist.

cieldequimper said...

Temptation...

Cezar and Léia said...

Little smart one! ;)
Léia

Small City Scenes said...

I kinda like crows because they are so ingenious. MB

Judy said...

Those pesky crows!

Lois said...

That is pretty funny! What a smart bird. I have never heard of Shark Valley before so I learned something today.

Unknown said...

Great timing and capture! I'm sure the Everglades are the place I will most enjoy in your corner of the world! And the Keys too, of course... :-)
Monkeys also unzip your bags in Costa Rica. We were swimming when we notice them; we had to get out of water and run towards them before it was too late! LOL!

EG CameraGirl said...

I think these crows would make me very angry! Nothing makes me madder than a bird that's smarter than I am. :)

The Bicycle - a Photo of a Painting