Watch Your Step, Please!

I’ll be sharing a few more bird images from my winter Florida trip, but first I wanted to change the pace and feature some non-bird images today.

While photographing along the Anhinga Trail, I was always conscious of watching for American Alligators (Alligator mississippiensis). During the first portion of the Anhinga Trail, it is paved and alligators can, and do, occasionally walk across the trail (you remember the chicken joke, don’t you? “Why did the chicken cross the road?  Ans: to get to the other side”). Well, the alligators like to wander back and forth and it is best done when you are not standing on the trail at the point of crossing! One side of the paved trail is a low grass bank and then a narrow water slough. But on the other side, there is very dense foliage/trees and you cannot see past the edge of the foliage (which is not far off the trail). On more than one occasion, I walked by and heard the distinct bellow of an alligator back in the foliage. So I was extremely careful as to not step on one coming across the trail!

But on one of my many hikes around the trail, I did see a gator that was lying next to the paved trail. Not a large gator, but about 6-feet in length. I stopped several times along the trail as I headed back towards the parking lot. Here are a few images I captured of this guy:

American Alligator

American Alligator

American Alligator

Being from the Midwest, I’m always intrigued by these guys whenever I visit Florida. In future posts, I’ll share a few more gator images, as well as some more Florida birds.

Photography Equipment Used:

  • Canon 7D body
  • Canon EF100mm-400mm, f/4.5 – f/5.6 IS lens, shot from 365mm to 400mm (no wide angle lens used here!!!)
  • Handheld, with IS “On”
  • ISO 200
  • Aperture f/9 – f/10
  • Shutter 1/320 sec.

 

 

Posted in Nature Photography, Reptiles and Amphibians, Travel Photography
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