St. Augustine Alligator Farm

Last Friday, my brother and I visited the St. Augustine Alligator Farm, in St. Augustine, Florida. The alligator farm has been there for decades. I remember visiting in the 1950s, while in elementary school.

I remember the alligators as a kid, but nothing about birds. Actually, the recovery of the bird population in North Florida is a wonderful story that I witnessed. I grew up on the St. Johns River, but it was a rare event to see an osprey, or great blue heron, or eagle. The combination of banning DDT and The Clean Rivers Act totally revived the very sick ecosystem. Now, I you can see osprey every few hundred yards along the river. I never even knew that a species called the roseate spoonbill existing, but I can now direct you to two or three rookeries.

The Alligator Farm is part of that success story. As the rivers recovered, more and more birds started moving back North. Of course, prime rookery trees are often in hammocks surrounded by alligators. This protects the eggs from opossum, raccoon and similar hungry thieves. Surely, a few chicks end in the jaws of alligators, but most thrive and fledge.

At the Alligator Farm, there are several acres of rookery, with thousands of birds and hundreds of nests. You can see some nests at eye level, from the sturdy boardwalk that winds among the trees. I saw roseate spoonbill, wood stork, great egret, snowy egret, little blue heron, curlew and others. Last Friday, nests were in all stages of development, with some chicks ready to fledge and some eggs still being turned by their parents. Of course, mating plumage is on display everywhere.

I found my 100-400mm perfect for the situation. A 70-200mm would be okay and even a super-zoom compact camera would fare well here, in good light. It doesn't open to the public until 9 a.m., but you can get an annual pass that allows early entry, at 8. I found the light great at 9. There'd been rain the night before, but the sky cleared for my shoot.

Here's a link to an Album of my shots. Keep in mind that this only took two-hours:

Alligator Farm Rookery

Here's a sample picture:

Sweet Bird In A Sweet Pose by David Stephens, on Flickr

I was at the St. Augustine Alligator Farm in February, great place

www.flickr.com/photos/mmirrorless