Everglades National Park: Where birds, reptiles and mammals coexist -

July 5 at 9:00 a.m.

Photographer Bonnie Jo Mount traveled to Florida for The Washington Post’s latest podcast “Field Trip,” a journey through the messy past and uncertain future of America’s national parks.

The researcher, steady on her feet, led the way. My colleagues and I trudged, teetered and toppled in mud that tugged at us like quicksand. We were trying to reach roseate spoonbills in one of their habitats, on a small, protected key in Everglades National Park. After spotting several atop barren trees, we trekked back through the mud and boated to another island, where we reveled in the pink birds launching and landing in treetops. Once hunted almost to extinction, these distinctive birds help scientists understand a precarious and changing ecosystem.

I grew up in Florida, but this was my first visit to the Everglades.

Tap photos for captions

As a child, I imagined alligators and airboats, but the park offers much, much more.

Visitors navigate the Flamingo Canal.

Stretching across more than 1.5 million acres, the park contains multiple habitats and hosts hundreds of birds, numerous reptiles and dozens of mammals, including threatened manatees and endangered panthers.

For photographers, the opportunities are endless.

A cormorant along the Anhinga Trail.

A large bird with dark feathers standing in front of a marsh.

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The evening I arrived I joined a group of tourists for a night walk on the Anhinga Trail. Ranger Dave Zelagin guided us. His bright flashlight in the dark illuminated a little blue heron resting safely in a tree and searched for red-eyed alligators. After spotting one on the path ahead, we decided to detour — these reptiles are hungry at night.

Alligators animate the Everglades: gliding through water, snoozing next to footpaths and sometimes startling passersby with territorial growls. Amid the salt and freshwater habitats, they also coexist with crocodiles — unlike any other place on the planet.

Spanish moss drapes an oak tree.

A view of a tree from the ground with moss hanging down.

The curved bill of a double-crested cormorant.

A dark bird with teal-blue eyes opens its hooked beak.

Birds are everywhere — big birds — and many seem unperturbed by the visitors.

Visitors take in a view of the landscape from the Shark Valley Observation Tower.

People walk toward a circular tower standing above marshland.

I don’t think I’ve ever been so close to great blue herons; I probably could have petted the jade-eyed cormorant that was sunning on a rail.

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A turtle surfaces.

Native American environmental activists Houston Cypress and Durante Blais-Billie tour the Everglades.

Two people travel through marsh on an airboat.

An anhinga cleans and dries its feathers in Shark Valley.

A large, dark bird uses its bill to scratch its back.

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A great blue heron lingers. These birds have a wing span that is greater than their height.

Ranger Dave Zelagin leads a night walk along the Anhinga Trail.

A guide points his flashlight in the direction of a marsh at night.

A Florida Cottonmouth is illuminated by a flashlight.

One afternoon, a group of kayakers invited me to join them. Crossing Coot Bay Pond, we watched as an osprey dove for dinner. Moments later, a fish jumped over my kayak! (What a photo that might have been.)

A visitor pauses to photograph an American alligator.

A woman standing on a flat, paved road uses her telephone to take a picture of an alligator in the grass nearby.

Cypress trees.

An American crocodile relaxes.

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An osprey rises after an unsuccessful plunge for food in Coot Bay Pond.

A black-and-white bird with its wings outstretched above water.

We navigated past luminous mangroves on rust-colored, tannic water.

A West Indian manatee surfaces at the Flamingo Marina. Manatees were once listed as endangered species but through conservation efforts, the listing was changed to "threatened" in 2017.

I spent my final night in the park in a simple glamping tent near the water’s edge. Rising early to photograph birds on the shoreline, I cherished their chatter and a sky that shifted from muted twilight to sunrise orange — beckoning me to return.

Journey with Lillian Cunningham through the messy past and uncertain future of America’s most awe-inspiring places: the national parks.

Lillian slogs through the marsh and steps back in time to explore how past mistakes devastated the “River of Grass.” What will it take to restore this unique landscape of water and sky? Along the way, the park’s wildlife has a thing or two to say.

64 min

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