It's around 8 o'clock in the morning and the Blue Spring State Park is quiet, at least for now.

The teal blue water that is all around there is still and the boardwalk that runs alongside the water is mostly empty.

There is still time before the big morning rush when all the visitors arrive.

Cora Bircham is out on the water in a canoe.

She is not taking in the sights.

She is taking measurements, things like the water temperature which usually

hovers somewhere around 72 degrees and more importantly we have literally hundreds of manatees come to the spring for the

warm waters so we were out on the research canoe every morning and you know count them

and identify them so that's how we see them up close.

Just like people flock to Florida in the wintertime. So do manatees.

And if you're a manatee, the hottest vacation spot there is is Blue Spring State Park, just about an hour outside of Orlando.

So on a cold winter morning, you can literally see hundreds of them in the protected spring.

There's a lot of mist coming off the water and the me either he's just, you know, chilling.

The rest, they, you know,

the nurse, they young.

People can observe them from the boardwalk,

which the water is very clear,

so it's a really nice place to see them

in their natural habitat without actually disturbing them.

I'm Dylant Thuris and this is Atlas Obscira,

a celebration of the world's strange, incredible, and wondrous places.

This episode was produced in partnership with Visit Florida.

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