oceangrant's photostream  

What could be more endearing? Manatees holding flippers! This is a female manatee and a young male "flipper holding". In observing this young male I concluded this was not his mother. This young male manatee was sleeping by himself on the sand (seemingly a bit forlorn). Earlier, a male manatee came by to play with him and coaxed him into some activity. This female then came and did the same thing; nuzzled him into activity and she seemed to be reassuring him. Manatees lead such interesting lives! They do have extended families and/or certain manatees who seem to have special privileges playing with members of their "clique". This young male seems to be too young to be weaned from mom yet, so I suppose his mother left him in the springs while she went socializing or foraging for food. It is possible this one is an orphan, as adoption has been documented by scientists at Three Sisters Springs. But, he looks pretty rotund, so my guess is these adult manatees were just trying to play with him and cheer him up till mom returned? Is this female manatee a sister, grandmother, or just a friend of the family? Regardless, this photograph was taken on my Birthday in 2011 and it made my day! Also, considering I had just completed almost a year of treatment for breast cancer - well, I'll just add this experience and photograph is priceless to me!

Here is the 1st in the series, right-side up manatee and actively hovering, curious, with quite a gaze! The 4 photo progression from right-side up to upside-down swimming is detailed in the other photos. In this photograph she seems to be deciding what to do? Other manatee peacefully sleep undisturbed a distance away by the warm springhead.

With full description detailed in "Upside-down Manatee Progression 3" I wanted to show the previous progression at almost right-side up. Note how she is "eyeing" me. There is some kind of playful communication happening here with this active manatee. The rest of the manatees are peacefully resting in the distance undisturbed, around the warm spring outflow.

I wanted to show the progression of this manatee right-side up vs. my popular existing photograph of upside-down swimming. Here this female manatee is almost upside-down. Why do they turn upside-down? Maybe they feel "playful", are a little frisky from previous cavorting or possibly it just feels so darn good! I've noticed certain water conditions encourage more upside-down swims, as everything needs to be in equilibrium. Of course water conditions are nothing without a manatee who wants to revel in the warm springs! Also, yes the water color is totally real! I was blessed with this water balance and strong sunlight at a particularly good angle to capture this moment.

Manatee usually swim right side up, so I was delighted to photograph this female manatee swimming upside down and taking a seemingly carefree jaunt around the springs. It was important to me to be able to capture this lighthearted sirenian behavior, especially in a year when the unprecedented cold temperatures claimed so many of the endangered manatee's lives. These natural warm spring sites have largely disappeared in Florida and many manatee just couldn't find water warm enough to survive. Seeing her lit a fire of hope in me that this endearing marine mammal can still take a pleasurable swim around these springs, despite the many hurdles to its survival in the twenty-first century.