Florida Manatees

These are some images of some very cold Florida Manatees (Trichechus manatus latirostrus) Monday at Blue Spring in Orange City.



I was playing around with the new Canon Rebel T2i camera and was impressed with how close the camera brought the manatees to my viewfinder.



I've never before been able to capture the manatees playing quite like I did with these quick shots from the Rebel T2i. The camera has an 18.0 Megapixel CMOS (APS-C) Sensor and DIGIC 4 Image Processor. In other words its a powerful and fast little computer.



As for the manatees. . . I'm not sure if they were trying to keep warm, playing around, or engaging in coitus. Regardless, it was fun to see them so up-close-and-personal. The afternoon air temperature was a chilly 45° F. (7° C.) with brisk winds. . . as our coldest December in memory continues to be distressingly cold. Tonight's low temperature is forecast to be 25° F. (-4° C.) so I'm sure the spring will be full of manatees tonight and for days to come.



Manatees cannot tolerate water temperatures below 60° F. (15.5° C.) therefore they take refuge in Blue Spring on cold days as the spring water is 72° F. (22.2° C.) year-round.



There is little food for the manatees in the spring run but there is ample food nearby. We watched as several groups of manatees quickly swam to nearby floating plants in the St. Johns River to eat, then just as quickly, returned to the warm water of the spring.



ABOVE: There's an Anhinga in with this group of manatees if you look closely. Click on the image for a full-size view.

Blue Spring is about 4 miles (6.4 km.) north of our home so it was a quick ride up to test the new camera.