A trip to the Florida Everglades a while back yielded some nice wildlife photos, one of which I shared last week for the weekly photo challenge theme of “close.” A shot I snapped of an alligator who had slipped to the edge of the river, ready to crawl up the bank towards the path, made a great subject for the theme. It turns out that people really like to see pictures of alligators, so I’m sharing some more today.
We walked along a paved path along the river and got some great views of lots and lots of gators: gators sulking in the grass; gators swimming; and the iconic gators floating silently along the river resembling a floating log. I took all the photos with my zoom lens, but in many cases, the gators were only 20 feet away. Despite their proximity, it felt fairly safe, as the gators made no attempts to approach the humans, and the humans (at least while I was there) wisely made no attempts to approach the gators. There were many birds, fish and other small wildlife in the river and surrounding area, so I think the gators had plenty of food and decided they didn’t need to eat the tourists. But not so for this recent Florida tour guide, who certainly ought to have known better than to hand-feed a gator.
Gator in the grass
Floating log or sneaky gator?
Blue heron, or gator lunch?
We saw more gators hunkered down in the grass than your could shake a stick at. But best not to shake a stick at a gator, ever!
Turtle enjoying the Florida sunshine.
Fat and happy gators as far as the eye can see at this gator farm, where we took an air-boat ride.
© Huffygirl 2012
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- Alligator Bites Hand Off Everglades Tour Guide (gadling.com)
- Weekly Photo Challenge: Close (huffygirl.wordpress.com)
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We went years ago with the kids-= fascinating place.
For someone like me who has never seen real alligators, it was an interesting and terrifying experience. The alligator farm was more scary than the ones in the wild, because there were so many. If you look closely at the photo, all those little specs way in the distance are also gators.
Very cool, and a bit scary. These kinds of tours, like safaris, always make me a bit nervous. As in that other story you linked to, some humans forget that these aren’t tame pets. Those people on board that boat, with their children, must have been freaked out, especially after the gator tried to jump into the boat and the guide still didn’t leave. They were prisoners of his stupidity.
Thanks for sharing these shots, Huffy.
Thanks Margaret, you are very welcome. I too thought of the people on that boat ride with the guide foolish enough to try to feed an alligator. When we were on that boat, it was no more than park benches perched atop pontoons, with everyone packed in shoulder to shoulder. Would hate to think of sitting next to someone who invited an alligator onto that boat!
Great photos–and sounds like great trip too!
Thanks. It was a fun trip. I hate to think what it would have turned into though, had our air boat ride turned into attack of the angry alligator, all because of a foolish tour guide. I wonder if the folks who experienced that will ever recover?
I was running an errand on saturdy and something like a blue heron flew right across the hood of my car, almost touching it because the bird was flying so low. Thought for sure I was going to hit it.
Glad you didn’t Ann. The herons are such enormous birds, and so beautiful, although often a little awkward looking in flight.
It was wierd seeing such a bird flying across the road in a city and not near water. And for it to be so low and CLOSE to the car.
Yes, almost like it was lost. I’ve only seen them near water.
Bicycling expert, rock climber, alligator photographer…what’s next in your bag of mission impossible tricks?!
🙂 🙂 I was hoping that duathlon racer might be next, but the tendonitis in my ankle has different story to tell.
Donna, I am not sure it was the same breed of bird, but it looked just like it.
I’m freaked out. I’d rather see a bear in the wild (which we didn’t) than a gator, even in a zoo.
There were so many fat and happy gators there that it didn’t seem frightening. But I think I would be afraid to see a bear because they are usually out of place when you see them.