Legal Aliens, Manatees

Yeah, I've ranted here about illegal aliens. Today you get some photos of some of our legal aliens, manatees. A week or so ago I talked about turning in 13 rolls of film I found, 10 print film and 3 rolls of slides. These are from the slides I finally picked up day before yesterday on the way home from work.

I took these photos a couple of years ago at a local park here in Palm Bay called Goode Park. It is on Turkey Creek and Turkey Creek is a favorite wintering area for manatees. The park has a boat ramp and lots of people launch from there and it has boardwalks onto the water to launch canoes and kayaks.

There are 'Don't Feed The Manatees' signs all over the place, but as soon as one is spotted, kids and adults alike grab soft leaves and put them in the water and they come up and eat them.

I'm not sayin' it's right, I just took the pictures, OK? So give 'em a click to enlarge.

I really, really like this first picture. You can see his snout is up so he can eat, but it looks like he's smiling for the camera. The jowls usually droop down like a Saint Bernard's jowls.

This next one I tried to get all creative on ya and ended up with too slow a shutter speed and the manatees moved and blurred. But that's what makes this shot work for me. It makes them look like alien creatures.

And one more. This shows more of the body and you can see his snout up so he can eat.