Enchanted Forest Nature Sanctuary

Friday, January 23, 2009

On the way home we stopped off at Enchanted Forest Nature Sanctuary in Titusville, Florida. We wanted to visit this sanctuary because it features: scrub, hammock, pine flatwood and wet prairie habitats.

Tours with a naturalist are FREE with advance reservation and they have a wonderful child friendly Visitor's Center. Some of our favorite activities in the Visitor's Center included: looking at objects found on the property under a microscope, using a computer to learn about controlled forest fires, and making animal tracks in the sand.

On our nature walk we saw an otter, armadillo, gopher tortoise hole, Bob Cat & raccoon tracks, several zebra Longwing butterflies, and a variety of air plants and shelf mushrooms (also known as shell mushrooms). And we finally learned what the tree was that we saw at Paynes Prairie---it is commonly known as a Toothache Tree (Hercules Club Tree), the Seminole Indians used it's bark and leaves to make a tea to cure toothaches!



We also learned that you can turn your binoculars into a microscope by turning it upside down and looking through the large holes. Try it, this works much better than a magnifying glass!

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