Wildlife Wednesday - mangroves, smoke, river

The other afternoon we were covered in a smoke haze. I went down to the river and I snapped this shot. It's much more atmospheric than the afternoon appeared to me :)

These are some young mangrove trees growing at the quiet end of the river. I hope they get a good establishment. They've been growing for a couple of years now and they're mighty slow. I'm worried that if the river gets really stagnant and polluted again (like when we first moved here and it hadn't flooded in years), they may die before they get established.

Mangroves are an important ecosystem, vital for healthy rivers. They allow for nurseries where young fish and other river critters can grow relatively protected. They also work as a filtration system. And their pneumatophores (snorkels poking out of the ground to get air at low tide for the tree to live) are one of the niftiest plant adaptations :)