Swamped

Roosting birds scatter from treetops as Bill Evans' helicopter whirs across Florida's Big Cypress Swamp. With herons, egrets and wood storks fluttering like brilliant white confetti below, he circles a stand of cypress trees, providing a glimpse down through the silvery canopy at a wild, hidden world.

With cool, parched winter winds drying the vast sea of wetland prairies that dominate South Florida's landscape, the water pounding around the bulbous cypress trunks lures thirsty native animals to drink and splash and to eat and be eaten. Birds and alligators, bears and white tail deer, frogs and turtles and snakes all gather at the watering hole. Even the most secretive and rare of creatures, the Florida panther, makes an occasional appearance.