About a month back I went for a walk around the wetlands. Right now from a bird point of view the wetlands is very still. Most have migrated and the birds are few and far between. However, you will get the odd one. However, I was not holding my breath for birds. I heard there were new babies at the wetlands and I wanted to see them.
My first look as I walked around was this guy. Most of you know that I grew up in Africa, and so the Crocodile is my go to reptile, and I would not want to cross paths with one. The Alligator is it's American cousin. A little more docile than a Crocodile, but still not one to play around with. Interestingly you only find Alligators in the USA and China. American Alligators live in freshwater.
You will typically find large male Alligators alone. Most often I see just the tip of their nose and their eyes sticking out the water
As I walked further along I found what I was looking for - the tail of the mother Alligator. I certainly do not want to get whacked by one of those. Apparently Alligators use their tails in what is called a "death roll". They implement the death roll when they are trying to break up meat/food that is too big to swallow in one gulp. They cannot perform the death roll if for any reason their tail is unable to move. From what I recall Crocodiles do the same to drown their prey. As they grab their prey, they go into the death roll.
Here is mom. A rather large mom by all accounts. I was very happy to be situated above her on the board walk. Although I have to say - mom did not move the entire time I watched her. That's they thing with Alligators, they are pretty cool to see but they don't do very much. You could stand and watch them for the longest time and all they do is lie there.
And in relatively close proximity are the babies - about 8 of them in total. They are not tiny tiny, but probably about one and a half lengths of a ruler. Most of these babies had moved away from the mom. However, just the other day I saw a photo of them all sitting on top of mom.
Another interesting fact that I read was that temperature plays a deciding role in the sex of the baby alligator. If you are looking for female gators, make sure the temperature is 86 degrees F or lower. Males occur when the temperature is higher than 93 degrees F. It does seem like the females are in the majority.
The biggest threat to a baby Alligator is ironically bigger Alligators, and the mother will protect the babies for up to 12 months. The hatchlings will eat mainly small fish, insects snails etc. As they mature so does the size of their prey. There have been occasions when I have heard a large splash and a whole lot of squawking. That sounds decidedly like the Moorhen or Purple Gallinule.
This little guy below decided that it would be safer to stay by mom.
This is the first time I have really been up close to Alligators this tiny. We did kayak the Turner River in South Florida, and find ourselves in Alligator Alley in more ways than one. There were a few young gators, but not as small as these.
I have only once seen a Alligator on my back garden grass area and that was the first year we moved into our house. Since then I have only seen the Alligators swimming in our back canal. Sometimes I think that they watch my critters. Ducks, Anhingas, Herons are all part of their dietary food chain.
While I was watching the gators this Tri-colored Heron made an appearance and was walking towards the mother Alligator. I kept saying "I don't think that is a good idea", "change direction now". Fortunately for the Heron it did change direction. I am not sure I would have been happy to see feathers flying.
And in case you are wondering - this is mom. She is definitely not petite, and is probably one of the larger Alligators I have seen in this wetland.
I kind of like alligators - just from a distance or through my zoom lens. I hope you enjoyed seeing them as much as I did.
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