February 15th, 2007 – Lake Dora Boat Trip!
by Rob Smith, Jr. on Feb.19, 2007, under Florida Outdoors!, What\'s New?
We launched off of the Lake Dora shore at the Lakeside Inn in Mount Dora Thursday along with members of the nature based tourism divison of the state tourism group. We cut across the lake at a pretty good speed through freezing temperatures. Along the way, Captain Reg and his crew gave us an overview of the lake and it’s area. Soon we slowed down and drifted into a tributary of the lake. We drifted through some fantastic natural areas. With a very low water level, the cypress knees were nearly spooky as the matrix of roots entertwined and reached out from the water.
As we continued through we found mobile home parks intermingled with the cypress swamp. An otter travelled with us for awhile, zipping through the water, over and under fallen tree limbs.
 
We also were fortunate to be able to view quite a large number of birds. The best of this was the giant pine where a giant eagle’s nest was nestled in it’s arms high above us. In the nest is a collection of eggs. At the edge of the nest standing watch was mama eagle. A little further from the nest on a lower limb sat the valiant daddy eagle. Above all of them was a vulture hovering. He wisely kept his distance.
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