Lake Apopka Wildlife Drive, FL 7/5/25

For the July Fourth weekend I travelled to Orlando, FL with my wife and eldest daughter. My daughter is a Disney World junkie, and we have travelled there the past few summers. On Saturday, my wife and daughter started out early park-hopping. They released me of any obligation to spend the day at the parks and allowed me to go do what I like to do - walk around looking for birds and other creatures. I drove up to Lake Apopka to visit the wildlife drive there. I have been there a few times, and it is a nice eight- or nine-mile drive through central Florida's natural habitat. On a good day in the right season, one can leave there with an eBird list of 70 or more bird species. I knew going in at mid-morning on a sweltering hot day that I wasn’t going to reach that number. Since eBird recently began allowing inclusion of photos of other animals observed to your checklist, that has added a new adventure to my birding. I h...