Unfortunately it is hard and dangerous to stop and get out. It was even printed on the roadmap: "Warning! Vehicles on U.S. 41 (Tamiami Trail) travel dangerously fast. Parking along the highway is hazardous."
There is no really roadside and there is a lot of traffic on this quite narrow road. One can drive on to the grass beside the road but it is risky to cross the road (the grass is on the "wrong" side of the road) and you risk to get stuck and have to be towed on to the road if the grass i wet. Despite the risk we did stop a couple of times, but most of the times birds and animals flew away or swam off. Some of them (who understood the value of tourism) stayed and got their picture taken :-).
There is of course possible to take good pictures here, but it would demand more time and planning; somewhere to park, sneaking up, maybe using a blind or camo of somekind. The grass grows high close to the water and the the bank is rather steep and down there something could be lurking and that is something to take in to consideration before you lay down to get into eye level :-)
After a while I realise that my eyes were more concentrated on what was along the canal than on the road so I decided that is was time to leave birds and alligators and focus on driving safely. A bit up ahead there should be a opportunity to leave the risky road and get on to a dirt road, In the western part of Big Cypress is a loop road. As soon as we left the tarmac and got on to the gravel traffic intensity got low. There were still plenty of wildlife, at least in some parts of the loop, and it was safer to get out of the car. The road is close to the wild life and it was possible to shoot from the car which meant that more animals stayed in place close to the road.
One thing that fascinated me was that people actually practises ordinary outdoor activities such as camping and hiking in the swampy areas. And that is probably the only way that you really could get closer and enjoy the real beauty of this area. I left with a feeling that I should try to test this sometime, maybe next time if possible.
Earlier I wrote that alligators doesn't consider humans as food. Well that is mostly true unless you feed them. So when pulling over at some resting-places close to alligators one should be more watchful. Other people may have learned that resting humans equals food by leaving food behind or even by feeding the alligators (despite it is against the law).
One park ranger said that an alligator easily could chase a human if it thinks it could get food. The doesn't take feeding lightly and if caught you will get prosecuted.
I got the impression that there were more alligators close to resting-places than on other parts along the road. Maybe it was just my imagination but these guys came silently cruising towards us when we took a rest at a frequently used resting-place.
My experience of this day is that tourist areas has a lot more wildlife that are used to humans and that nature outside this areas is much more wild. The wild part demands more time to get the shot, just the same as it is back home in Sweden. The strong sun is not a problem when shooting close to the trees since they does provide a cool shade. Taking pictures of wildlife close to the road takes more time than you normally think when getting out of the car. Often you end up with pictures like the one above; water both in the foreground as well as in the background which isn't the most perfect setup for a good picture.
Finally something outside the wildlife photography. Leaving Big Cypress we saw this small building. Its actually a fully working post-office. A perfect place to leave our postcards :-)
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