Glades Gator

From the Florida Everglades - a place that has stood still in time, thank goodness. C & C

welcome. Thanks for looking.

i love the point of view. he appears to be flirting.

Cool shot Alberta. I just returned from there but only saw baby ones :(

Great shot. Nasty looking beast.

I certainly hope you took this with a LOoooOOOOooooNG lens!! :-) Great that you got to shoot him in the wild, Alberta!

Thanks for your comments and votes.

 

This shot was taken with a Tamron 90 mm, tripod mounted, about 6 feet from the beast. I was pretty, no very, nervous. This was one of two approximately 5-foot gators blocking the walking trail. I'll be posting another shot of the two together shortly. After snapping these shots, we had to turn around. It was their trail and they weren't moving.

Terrific color on that beast!

If it weren't for the gold/yellow colors on the underside, you wouldn't see these guys in the dense swamp. They blend in so well with their surroundings. It hadn't occurred to me before but I think that's why most New Yorkers wear black, brown and grey :)

Scary photo Alberta, nice capture. He looks upset...

Alberta, what trail were you on? We were on Facahatchee strand (or something like that)

Thanks :)

 

lauren - the path we were on didn't have a name but was off Tram Road just a few yards before the observation tower (about 7 miles into the park from the Shark Valley Visitor Center).

ah, further in than we were. There was a sign saying we might encounter alligators but we only saw little ones - I'm almost thankful. I can't believe you hung around for a photo!

"A photo?" - we hung around for 6 photos of the two gators blocking the trail.

 

I was muttering "we have to go" over and over in a quivering voice - IF in fact I had a voice ;)

As I said, I can't believe you hung around for a photo (let alone 6! lol) I barely wanted to walk down the trail after reading the warning and we didn't even see a big one!

What a cute little guy. He did a fine job of posing for you! I love the curvy posture and the face to face camera angle. When I was in the glades these guys seemed to be everywhere.

Thanks for your comments. Yes, they are prolific aren't they?

 

What I didn't know until the other day was that there are crocodiles in the Everglades too. It was mentioned during our tour (so says my husband) but I must have been too focused on my photos. If you missed it, check out Young Crocodile by Miguel A. Leyva.