The crowd quickly gathered — a dozen or so people, cameras in hand — as an 8-foot alligator came ashore.“Alligator!” someone yelled as camera shutters clicked. “It’s got a turtle in its mouth!” said someone else. “Poor turtle,” said another.But hungry alligators are just one of the sights at Wakodahatchee Wetlands in Delray Beach, Florida, 20 miles from Palm Beach. The wetlands are primarily known as one of the best bird-watching sites in South Florida.“It’s a slice of the Everglades,” says Robert Nelton of Palm Beach County’s water utilities department. “You’ll see everything you would see in the Everglades but in suburban Delray Beach.”More than 150 species, from migrating birds to native tropical birds, have been spotted at Wakodahatchee. Five years ago, there were no wood storks in the wetlands. Now, says Nelton, the population has boomed, with 60 to 80 nesting pairs of wood storks living there year-round “because the hunting is good,” he said.
