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Our family joined us on Sanibel Island for swimming, collecting shells and viewing interesting wildlife. These two birds are a great egret and the smaller one is the snowy egret.

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The brown pelican is the most widely recognized coastal bird and can be seen everywhere along the shoreline at Sanibel. This is the adult. They are fun to watch when they are fishing.

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The juvenile is more brownish. This one was pretty friendly.

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They fly over the water and when they see a fish they drop like a torpedo.

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Hitting the water with a splash.

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After scooping up water and the fish they let the water out and swallow the fish.

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Sometimes the fish get away as you can see this minnow on top of the pelican’s head that somehow jumped out of the pelican's beak. A larger one is being swallowed.

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At JN “Ding” Darling National Wildlife Refuge they have to clean the salt water from the engines at the end of the day..

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The manatee will come over for the fresh water as they are flushing out the engines. Manatee live mostly in the salt water lagoons and bays but need access to fresh water to survive. A lot of times they get their fresh water from drinking it off the leaves after a rain.

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Our granddaughters got to watch as the manatee (Sea Cow) came right up to the dock. They were pretty thrilled to see these 800 plus pound mammals floating in the water. Silje said they look like floating potatoes. One of the girls was so excited they said this is better than my tablet I could watch this for hours.

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They certainly are interesting creatures to watch.

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At one point there were four manatee in front of us.

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They would get every last drop of fresh water.

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When you look straight into the face of a manatee you realize this is a face that only a mother could love.

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