Good-bye, my lovelies...

No, I'm not quitting the blog any time soon. But this will be the last blog entry containing my good friend - can you guess? Yup, the American alligator.

On this day, Bill and I visited the Savannah NWR (National Wildlife Refuge), which is essentially composed of impounded rice fields from plantations in the 1700s! They had a nice little exhibit at the interpretive center.

No, I didn't photograph this in the field! As obvious as this is just from the photo factors, can you imagine ME letting an ugly old heron EAT one of my cute little baby gators?!!! In front of me?!! Hah! No way!!! Of course, it would probably turn out like the time when I tried to save a mouse from a cat when I was a little girl. Yeah, the mouse got away, but he BIT me first, the little bastard! (cat was none too pleased with me neither...) What a life lesson that was. And while I wouldn't relish having Baby gnaw on me, I would really be upset about Mommy Alligator getting involved! (although Mommy wasn't doing a very good job if ol' Mr. Heron was really having this meal with her around!)

You have to drive a little ways farther to get to the actual rice fields/refuge. And it was another sweltering day, but I'd have to say it was worth it! It was a pretty enough spot, but the few gators we saw were absolutely priceless!


See the dark blob floating there in the middle of that reddish water? Well, of course it's an alligator! This is Carrie behind the camera, remember! (I know, I know. That might not help - I DO take pictures of EVERYTHING!!) But it's amazing how such a big creature can kind of just blend into the larger scene... If he were just hanging out on the side for instance, or were more underwater, like they often are, with just eyes and nostrils/nose bumps sticking out...? Do you think you'd know he/she was there?

I like to think of allligators as icebergs. You often only see a tiny percentage of their whole mass... Most of it's underwater, and just like with the bergs, you probably don't want to get too close...! But unlike that beautiful floating ice, you needn't worry - the gators will come to you! ;)

More dots on sand. Hmm, where did we just see that? Yup, Skidaway. And what were they? Yup, crabolas! And here are another ton of them, and they haven't spotted the looming photographer yet!


One of the pretty, long pools.

And one of my pretty pets, cruising along in the pool...

This gal/fellow was cruising along so fast, I had to keep moving the truck to keep up. Kind of a pain, because in order to get a photo, I had to be taller than the reeds, which meant climbing almost on top of the truck for the photos (or just walk over and climb through them... Hmm... Which do you think you'd do?). So it was stop, park, get out, climb, photograph, get down, get in, drive forward, stop, park,...

This was a different "person" that Bill spotted. I love the reed reflections with him/her. He/she is just barely disturbing the water, not going anywhere too fast.

Across the way (not in the NWR), were fields of water hyacinth.

So there you have it. Hope you've enjoyed all the alligators (and aren't just happy that part's over with!). I sure did. Was always a definite highlight of this trip for me!!!

And so glad to have had the long lens...