Around Town - Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge

One place that I really enjoy visiting is the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge.  You never know what you will see, but no matter what you see, you are guaranteed to find plenty of things to take pictures of.  This last time that I was there, it was raining like crazy!

The rain made for some beautiful and unusual lighting, but it also made it difficult to get my camera to focus on anything...

I'm not sure what type of tree this is...but if I had to guess, I'd say it was some type of juniper tree...whatever type of tree it is, it was covered in little white berries and I thought it was pretty.

Eventually, the rain stopped and the sun came back out...the greens and the blues looked so vibrant!

Look at the motion in the water....after the rain, schools of hundreds of tiny fish all started surfacing at the same time!  It was very cool to see!  This also brought out the big wading birds...it was so interesting to watch the birds running around chasing after the schools of fish.

And then we rounded a curve and I saw something I have never seen before...I wild hog!  It was quite far out, in the middle of a pasture type area.

Almost immediately after we saw him, he turned and started walking towards our vehicle.

And sure enough....he found his way all the way out to the road.

He didn't even care when we pulled up right next to him, to take a picture!

Check out this bird, spreading his wings to dry, after the rain.

And last but certainly not least....we came upon a very large alligator that was laying in a puddle, in the middle of the road.  He didn't want to hang around with us, so when we got there, he got up and walked away.

If you live in Central Florida and have never driven through the Merritt Island Wildlife Refuge, I totally recommend it!  And if you are a tourist in the area and want to see wildlife in their natural habitat...I cannot recommend any place better!