Wildlife, landscape and weather photography
This pretty lady was doing her best to hide from us during our air boat ride in central Florida back in June. It clearly did not work.
Our boat driver was awesome and gave me all the time I needed to get my pics of the Alligators we came across. In this case, I laid down on my belly to get as low of an angle as possible. I definitely was not going to hop in the water with her so that had to do. Ha!
It donned on me this morning I hadn’t shared many pictures of these creatures from my excursion into the headwaters of the Florida Everglades a few weeks ago. Let’s fix that today.
This pretty lady was sunning herself on a small patch of high ground in the swamp. Our airboat captain did a fantastic job of putting me in a good position to get some nice, close up captures of her.
We saw at least a half dozen gators in the span of a couple of hours and was surprised at how, for the most part, they didn’t seem particularly bothered by us. In a way, that was a bit disconcerting as they are absolutely impressive. This one was a female so somewhat on the small size as she was “only” about 8 feet long or so. Males can be up to 15 feet long!
The American Alligator came under the protection of the Endangered Species Act in 1967. Twenty years later, it had recovered enough to be removed from the list and today they are quite numerous.
And I am back! I forgot to post a notice but I was ‘out of the office’ for the past week on some much needed R & R. While the primary focus was a family vacation, I did manage to snap some pics to share, including some of creatures I haven’t photographed before – including this one.
While in Florida we took an airboat ride one day exploring the headwaters to the Everglades with its gorgeous scenery and abundant wildlife. We saw more than our fair share of gators up close including this young one that was hanging out close to mama. While this “baby” didn’t look so intimidating, mom definitely did (pics of her to come later).
The American Alligator is a success story of man righting a wrong. It was nearly extinct and listed for protection under the Endangered Species Act in 1967. Conservation and preservation saw these cool creatures stage a fantastic comeback and they were removed from the list in 1987.
I am going to give a shameless plug to Marsh Landing Adventures for the tour they and Captain Scott provided us. We had a ton of fun and he did a great job educating us, keeping us entertained and getting me in the right spots for pictures. If you’re ever in the Orlando area, I would highly recommend them!
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