Manatees

Every year we go to a local spring to see the manatees. The springs maintain a constant temperature of about 72 degrees year round. Manatees like warm water, so when the river water temp drops because it is cold outside, they head into the spring. By rights there should have been tons of them. In fact last year there were over 200 on the day we went. This year there were only 48. The water level was WAY low. So low the manatees couldn't swim up the spring very far. I think that's why we didn't see very many (48 is still a lot, but it pales in comparison to 200).
Here are some pictures:

Here's a mamma and her baby. The baby was nursing until a few seconds before this. Manatees nurse behind their mother's front flippers.

Here are the kids in our annual photo. We have pictures of them on this tree stump since before some of them were even born. Notice my nephew Bam-Bam joined us this year.

I loved the way these two "sucker" fish were facing each other on this log.