One of the fun outdoor things to do when my sisters are here for Christmas is to drive over to the Tampa Electric Company to see the manatees. The electric plant pulls in cold water to cool the plant and flushes out the warm water so the manatees spend the winter in the channel next to the plant where the water is warmer.
It’s always fun seeing the manatees floating around in the channel. Several of them were floating on their backs. Some of them only stick their noses out to get air.
They have a new stingray pool where you can pet them. You can also see them out in the channel swimming by.
The mangroves along the channel are covered in these black mangrove crabs.
White pelicans were flying high over our heads.
Pretty flower in the butterfly garden.
It was a beautiful day right before Christmas but too warm. 82 degrees is too hot for the end of December. It would have been nice to have long sleeves on when we were out running around. The tourist from up north didn’t seem to mind. I’m sure they were all happy to be out of the snow. The Manatee Viewing Center at TECO is only opened from November through April. Even though the weather was warm, there were still plenty of manatees to see.
When we lived in Brandon, we spent many a Sunday afternoon watching them at the power plant. Thanks for this lovely reminder.
I love visiting manatees during the winter. They’re so ugly they’re cute!
Like a heated swimming pool for the manatees! Very cool!!
Amazing pics
Beautiful photos, I love each of them!! and that is an interesting story about the manatees..
Such a cool place! Beautiful photos. Thank you for sharing.
lovely photos of wildlife.