Flamingo Gardens statue

Our Panama Canal cruise on Holland America Nieuw Amsterdam started in Fort Lauderdale. After having nearly missed the last cruise we took from there due to plane delays when going one day early, and recently having a flight to Copenhagen completely canceled so we had to take a different plane the next day, we opted to go two days early this time so there were more options for another flight in case of any issues with the scheduled one. Our booked flight went off without a hitch so we had an extra day in Fort Lauderdale. Looking through the motel’s brochures we found a place called Flamingo Gardens. It was one of the few things to do they had brochures for that was actually near Fort Lauderdale rather than in Miami or even Cape Canaveral. There were also some online options of things to book, but this was a place where we could hang out pretty much all day rather than just for a few hours or less. The address is in Davie, FL, but it was close to Fort Lauderdale.

flamingo pond

Flamingo Gardens is a botanical garden and wildlife sanctuary. It also does wildlife rescue and has a wildlife hospital where the aim is rescue, recovery, and release. Some of the animals are too injured for eventual release so they end up living out their lives in the park’s animal exhibits. They also have some that were at one time someone’s inappropriate or illegal pet that ended up there. Peacocks, ibis (aka bin chickens if you’re Australian) and other birds run wild throughout park.

pelican on a bridge in the aviary

Various different birds live in the aviary which has a big area for some of them with separate facilities for raptors and tropical birds. There were some pelicans and other birds in the aviary. Flamingos have their own flamingo pond area. Flamingo Gardens was established in 1927 and has 60 acres of botanical gardens and wildlife sanctuary.

peacock strutting his stuff

The park has other animals as well. Feral cats run loose, though there are way more peacocks than cats. We met one peacock who seemed to enjoy strutting his stuff and posing for people’s cameras. He initially spread his tail for a peahen, but she ran off uninterested so he started showing off to anyone in the vicinity with a phone or camera and kept on posing until there was nobody left wanting to take pictures of him.

white peacock

The rest of them weren’t afraid of people, but didn’t go out of their way to pose either. We saw one white peacock. He had his tail spread, but wasn’t into strutting and posing for people like the other one. His tail looked like an upside-down wedding dress skirt, and the pattern of his feathers would actually make a lovely wedding dress if done in a more appropriate material rather than actual feathers.

lizard

The brochure mentions free-range iguanas, but we did not see any of those. We did see a lizard on one of the garden sculptures.

cactus garden

There were quite an assortment of different little gardens. Some native plants to the area, others including various flowering plants. There were also orchids, cactus, ferns and some ancient plants, and plants from faraway places.

tram stopped by the cactus garden

A tram ride which had tram cars pulled by a pickup ran every half hour and took about 20 minutes for a narrated ride around various gardens with a brief stop next to the cactus garden by the butterfly conservatory. It stops long enough for people to take a quick walk through the butterfly house. People can also walk those paths out to see the things on the tram tour.

butterfly house

The butterfly conservatory hatches out butterflies and then has a greenhouse type space full of plants where they can fly around, but unlike most butterfly houses they don’t care if these escape since the goal is to increase the butterfly population for pollinating the fruit that grows within the gardens.

bee in the pollinator garden

Just outside of the butterfly house there is a pollinator garden. Bees like it as well as any butterflies that escape to the outside from the butterfly house.

pollinator garden outside of the butterfly house

The land that is now Flamingo Gardens was once a citrus grove, but we did not see any citrus in the area where the gardens are other than some baby hybrid trees of a new variety. The original owners of the citrus grove planted many of the things that make up the gardens on what was then their property in addition to their citrus trees. Butterflies look pretty and harmless, but some had battered wings from fighting with each other.

butterfly in the conservatory

The former owner’s house is a little museum of their time period in around the 1920’s or 30’s. It’s called the Historic Wray Home. A building near there is called the Barbecue Pavilion. The name is deceptive because unless renting it for an event it’s not actually a restaurant. There is a food truck and snack shack near the tram station, which was the only food available in the park. Bin chickens (ibis) hang out at the picnic tables by the food waiting for people to drop stuff. We also saw one peahen and another little black bird hoping for handouts there. We got our lunch at the food truck along with a smoothie from the nearby smoothie bar. I got the food and Linda got the drinks. I expected her to have those in hand and come find me while I waited for our food to cook, but it took just as long waiting for the smoothies to get made as it did for the food so we met in the middle each looking for the other having gotten both things at the same time. There were not any empty picnic tables in the food area so we had to share one with a couple people already sitting there, and then others after they left and new ones came looking for a place to sit.

snake at the wildlife demonstration

The park has a little stadium where they do wildlife demonstrations several times a day. They had a snake, a skunk, and a barn owl when we were there. The barn owl had come there as a tiny badly injured baby owlet and had injuries too severe to ever be released as he doesn’t have full range of motion in his neck. The snake came from another wildlife place that closed down and the skunk had been an illegal pet. She couldn’t survive in the wild without stink glands, which had been removed. That’s a skunk’s only defense. Besides the wildlife talks with several animals they also have some sessions about just one animal – and of course one of those is flamingos.

peacock in a tree

We saw a lot of peacocks up in trees and on top of enclosures that housed other birds. We didn’t see any going up, but coming down it pretty much looked like they jump off and flap their wings to slow down the fall.

tree with air plants

Some of the trees grew quite a variety of air plants, including orchids.

butterfly sculpture

The pathway that the tram takes, which people can also walk on, has a series of different sculptures of glass and metal butterflies, beetles, and other insects like dragonflies. There are also some other decorative sculptures in other areas of the park, but they are made from different materials and not part of the glass and metal series.

dragonfly sculpture

We took the tram tour, but then later walked the trails. From the tram you just see everything in passing other than a quick walk through the butterfly house, but on foot you can see things closer up and stop anywhere that you want to see something more closely or to take photos. The tram has narration so you learn about the things you see as you go by so it’s nice to do both.

footpath

There are some pathways you can go on foot where the tram doesn’t go.

cactus flower

Entry and exit is through a gift shop, which is pretty big and has a variety of things. Flamingo Gardens rehabilitates over 1000 animals a year in their wildlife hospital and runs entirely on money made from visitors, donations, and memberships without any outside assistance.

orchids on a tree

It’s a pleasant place to spend a day and has a lot of different things to see with quite a variety of plants and birds as well as some other animals.

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