Laguna Atacosta Wildlife Refuge

Finally, we got to an area where at least there are some shrubs waist high or better.  Mostly covered with thorns and impassible, but still...foliage of any kind.  I'm talking about the Laguna Anacosta Wildlife Refuge.


At first I thought the sign was a joke or someone had exotic cats as pets, but these are wild.  You can adopt an ocelot for $20 at the park.  

On the way into the park we saw this coyote running through the field.  That was exciting in itself.  The photo's not so good, but you can see it's a very large and healthy animal.  Not like the scraggly ones I saw in Arizona.

There were many birds in the area also, but most were too far away to get a good shot.  One thing I did get close to...closer than I really wanted to, was this huge black snake.  I didn't see the head, I thought it was a bicycle tire or a hose or something laying on the ground but then it started to slither into a hole in the ground.  Not a stellar snake shot, but keep in mind the circumference of his body was about the size of my wrist.

They are home to the few remaining ocelots, with about 30 of them in the park.  And they are doing everything possible to make sure you don't run over any of them.  


There are warning signs everywhere, I do believe each cat has its own sign.

What was even stranger is that they have imposed a speed limit on the deer down here.  


They must be incredibly fast to be causing such a ruckus.


We only did the 17 mile drive and didn't hike any of the trails, so we will have to revisit this refuge again soon.  Left Brain paid his $10 to pay for a lifetime of Federal parks, so we're all set to visit as often as we'd like to.  It's good to be an old guy's trophy wife...even if he didn't win first prize!

On the way out I spotted a turtle and had Left Brain stop so I could take its photo.  At least this subject wasn't going to bolt away from me too fast...or need their own speed limit sign.  I forget the name of them, but they have the coolest shells.
Well, that's it for today.  I'm having a Suzie Homemaker attack and need to go clean the canned ham and rearrange something...anything.


Long Live the Queen of the Ocelots