Yesterday I had a really beautiful and fun afternoon at one of our county’s relatively unknown public parks. I had a meeting outside of town, and on my way back, I decided to shoot off the the Henry Beck Park. It’s a ways out of town, and although I’ve driven by the turn off loads of times, I had never been out to the park. Usually when I’m out that way I’m headed someplace specific, and people are expecting me, so stopping at the park isn’t really an option. Especially since it’s ten miles out off the main road, so just getting in and out is a little time consuming. Yesterday, though, after my meeting I had nothing pressing to do, so I decided to visit the park.

The park is pretty small and definitely family oriented. There are plenty of picnic tables and grills, a central gathering place, a small beach and a little playground for the younger kids. There’s also a basketball court and paved walking trails. There’s also an offshoot of the river running through the area with access to the water in several spots. At first, I wasn’t sure how much there would be for me there. I wasn’t dressed to swim or go tubing, play basketball, or grill out, but I decided to walk around and just look at the sights. There weren’t really any unpaved trails through the woods, but I decided to kind of wander around the edges of the woods looking for insects, flowers, spiders, and other wildlife.

My first stop took me down beside the river where there was a set of steps that lead down to the water. It seemed like a nice place to sit for awhile. I was hoping maybe to see some birds in the woods, and even though I could hear several types singing, I didn’t have any luck spotting any. At one point a large bird of prey, probably a red tailed hawk, flew over squawking, but it was too high up to identify for sure. Since I hadn’t planned this trip, I hadn’t brought any binoculars, either.

Once I gave up on birds and started paying more attention to the water, I actually started seeing some pretty interesting plants and animals. There were several types of small and medium sized fish in the water. For quite awhile I was entertained by a beautiful swallow tailed butterfly, and then later by a dark butterfly that I haven’t identified yet. There were some very cool little water snails attached to the bottom step. I also spotted some larger snail eggs attached to the stalk of one of the nearby plants, but I didn’t see the adult snail. I also spotted several new plants that don’t grow in my much drier habitat. Over the course of the afternoon, I added several new species to my life list.

After the stop by the water, I wandered around the rest of the edges of the park and spotted plenty of interesting plants, flowers, insects, spiders, bees, a snake, water lilies, and some beautiful vines. Every time I thought I was just about done, I’d spot something else interesting. I ended up staying for about two and a half hours and shooting enough photos to use up my entire battery. One of the great things about this little park was that aside from the park attendants, there were only three other people there the entire afternoon. I’m sure it gets busier on the weekends, but since it’s small and so far out, it’s probably not even too crowded then. It’s certainly not someplace I will run out to all the time, but I will definitely be back to Henry Beck Park. If you are visiting central Florida and need a pretty, nature filled place to take the kids for an afternoon, this is a great place to go.