Jul 12, 2025 5 min read

A respite: Week ending July 11, 2025

This week's featured photo is of a double crested cormorant taking flight from the pristine waters along the Anhinga Trail at Royal Palm about five miles from the eastern entrance to Everglades National Park. The photo has some particular sentimental value to me.

After being introduced to the Everglades just a few weeks prior to that photo, I had rented a big, long, "fast" lens to test it out and this was the result. The osprey with chicks was taken the same day.

An osprey with a chick from 2024 in the Flamingo Area of Everglades National Park. Philip Cardella Copyright 2024.

Armed with these photos and with my graduation with my masters in history fast approaching, I thought maybe I could convince my parents to buy me the lens I was renting as a graduation present.

It worked.

A flower captured at Shark Valley in Everglades National Park in 2024. Philip Cardella

The thing is, the day my parents said "yes" to buying me the lens, my dad was in the hospital, having taken a bad fall a couple of days earlier. At the time, there was no indication that that conversation on the phone, while I was still wearing my graduation robe from the ceremony, would be one of the last lucid conversations I would have with him.

He passed a month later on May 20, 2024.

His memorial service was just about a year ago this week.

So, I think it was seeking life in its rawest, most abundant form I could get to, that I returned to the Everglades again and again since that point in time.

An alligator in the grass in Everglades National Park. Copyright Philip Cardella 2025

I found, as millions have found before me for thousands of years, that the Everglades is a sacred place. There, in the deep silence of distance from the hustle and bustle of Miami just a few miles to the northeast, I could commune with nature and life.

A purple gallinule on Anhinga Trail at Royal Palm in Everglades National Park. Photo Philip Cardella copyright 2024.

The purple gallinule above this text was captured by my camera only 45 miles from my front door. It is amazing that such astounding and unique beauty is so close to Miami.

A flower in Everglades National Park. Philip Cardella Copyright 2025.

I'm going out of town this week and don't have time to put together the normal TWIFL post. I also feel that there's been some mission creep as of late as TWIFL is supposed to be mostly positive, and the last several weeks have made it hard to find the positive.

So, this week, it's just the beauty of the sacred space nestled between Naples, Florida and Miami.

Enjoy.