Gopher tortoise

Saturday
Before leaving Naples, and heading down to Homestead for a few days as a base for exploring the Everglades, we spent the morning and early afternoon visiting Barefoot Beach, a Collier County Park. Last night’s fog, whilst largely lifted from where we were staying, still persisted at the coast, where initially it was quite thick, though it did lift somewhat while we were there, though not to the point of enticing us to put our swimsuits on! Instead, we walked along the beach, and then along one of the trails, where we saw several of these gopher tortoises. At this spot, there were two, and they seemed to be having a stand off, standing facing each other for quite some time, one seemed to be guarding the entrance to the burrow, and the other one seemed to want to get in! I have put another shot in extras. These gentle reptiles dig deep burrows for shelter and feed on low-growing plants. Their large limbs are uniquely designed to excavate burrows up to about 35 feet long in Florida’s sandy soils. They share their burrows with many other species including the Eastern indigo snake, rodents, gopher frog, Florida mouse, and hundreds of invertebrates like beetles and crickets who also depend on the burrows for shelter and predator protection. This makes gopher tortoises a keystone species—one without which many other species would not survive. A single tortoise may dig more than one burrow a season, and multiple tortoises may occupy the same burrow. These underground tunnels provide ideal winter hibernation quarters, retreats from the summer heat and shelter from fire for both the tortoise and the other resident animals who share their quarters. Unfortunately, the sort of areas they frequent are also sought after for development, hence they are losing their habitat, and are regarded as a threatened species.
We then continued on to our Airbnb in Homestead, where we are staying for four nights