Lying Eye Level with an Alligator
It’s been several months since I’ve been to Brazos Bend State Park so I got up last Sunday morning and decided to head that direction to check out the local wildlife. It was very dead from a bird perspective. The weeds growing in 40 acre lake have killed most of the action along the trail on the north side of the lake . Luckily found this alligator lying along the trail.
Took the first shot from a standing position with my tripod to give the perspective of him near the trail but thought that it was a boring photo. Got closer and took my camera off of the tripod and went down on one knee for a little lower shot. Didn’t like that one either so ended up lying on the trail to get the second shot, handholding my camera/500mm lens. Only minor cropping to panoramic format. Needed elbow pads for that one.
The gator looked pretty calm so I walked past him on the left side of the trail. He didn’t move his body but raised his toes up off of the ground as I walked by, which was interesting. Got to the other side and laid down on the trail again for the last photo.
Getting down low works great for gators as well as birds, as long as they are well fed….
Aperture priority, 1/1000 sec @ F 4.5, ISO 1600, evaluative metering, 500mm
Aperture priority, 1/1600 sec @ F 5, ISO 1600, evaluative metering, 500mm
Aperture priority, 1/640 sec @ F 10, ISO 1600, evaluative metering, 500mm
Love Bite Gator Style
One of my goals while taking photos of the baby alligators at Brazos Bend State Park this year was to get a shot of a baby sitting on momma’s head. Ended up having to settle for one on her nose instead. This youngster was showing momma some affection with a little love bite to her eye. Momma didn’t seem to mind and only collapsed her eye lid on the last photo. The baby then looked like he was going to crawl up her head when someone walking up the trail stopped too close to them and she dove to her left into the water. I’m sure that the baby went flying. Wish that I had gotten that shot.
Taken with Canon 7D and Canon 500mm F4 IS II lens with 1.4x III teleconverter mounted on tripod with Wimberley II head
1/640 sec @ F9, ISO 800, evaluative metering, +1/3 exposure compensation, 700mm
1/500 sec @ F11, ISO 800, evaluative metering, +1 exposure compensation, 700mm
1/400 sec @ F11, ISO 800, evaluative metering, +1 exposure compensation, 700mm
1/500 sec @ F11, ISO 800, evaluative metering, +1 exposure compensation, 700mm
You Want a Piece of Me??
This baby Alligator was holding his ground doing his best to try to intimidate the guy taking his photo. Wasn’t too scared by this little guy but always had to keep an eye out for his mother. This shot helps to demonstrate the narrow depth of field with a close-up shot using a 500mm lens with a 1.4x teleconverter. Had to use F16 just to get his head in focus.
Taken with Canon 7D and Canon 500mm F4 IS II lens with 1.4x III teleconverter mounted on tripod with Wimberley II head
1/200 sec @ F16, ISO 800, evaluative metering, 700mm
Gator Crossing
Why did the gator cross the road? In this case, the mother alligator was heading to check on her babies that were on the other side of the trail after the Great Blue Heron picked one of them off. Normally when gators cross the trail, they end up lying down and resting along the way as it takes lots of energy for them to walk on land. Not this time. Momma was hiking with a vengeance and didn’t stop to smell the roses as she quickly walked from one side to the other. It only took her about 10 seconds to make the trip based on my photos. She only stayed about 10 minutes and came back to the other side. She also looked much larger and intimidating out of the water.
About 1/2 hr later, one of the little ones crossed the trail. Saw him coming up the bank and ended up taking my camera off of the tripod and laid down on the trail to get a series of photos of the crossing. I’m usually leery of laying down at BBSP around alligators but couldn’t resist this shot. Love the markings on the young gator. He was also tagged, with what looks like green fishing line, as described by one of the park rangers. A second one was also going to cross but got scared away by someone on a bicycle. He ended up coming back to momma’s side of the trail about 45 minutes later. Sometimes the grass isn’t greener on the other side…
Also, here’s a tip on how to identify a female alligator in the wild…check to see if the gator is wearing high heels 🙂 (see photo below)
Taken with Canon 7D and Canon 500mm F4 IS II lens
1/200 sec @ F7.1, ISO 1600, evaluative metering
1/320 sec @ F9, ISO 1600, evaluative metering
1/640 sec @ F9, ISO 1600, evaluative metering
Gator Pile
Baby alligators like to sun themselves and they are determined to climb over one another to do it. Hense, the “gator pile” syndrome. Unfortunately, the pile can only hold so many and one usually shows up to spoil the fun for the rest of them, which results in the “falling gator pile” syndrome. The babies that we spotted at Brazos Bend State Park were keeping near the weeds but eventually came out to warm up on the small log. One of them would climb on the log and the others would then pile on.
Taken with Canon 7D and Canon 500mm F4 IS II mounted on tripod with Wimberley II head.
1/160 sec @ F9, ISO 1600, evaluative metering, 500mm, no flash
1/80 sec @ F9, ISO 800, evaluative metering, 500mm, no flash
Baby Alligators
Didn’t have high expectations from a photography perspective last weekend with cloudy weather but sometimes mother nature comes through with a few surprises. Headed to Brazos Bend State Park and eagle eye Doug ended up spotting a baby gator swimming near the 40 acre lake trail. Jackpot! We ended up spending a couple of hours on Sat and again on Sunday sitting on the bank with one eye on the babies and the other on momma. We ended up seeing about 16 small gators, which were around 8 to 12 inches long and +/- 9 months old as they typically hatch in August. We were hoping for a “baby on momma’s head” shot but no luck. Got some of those shots a few years ago and it would be fun to see it again.
The conditions posed a few challenges. As a general rule, I don’t typically shoot over ISO 500 due to the 7D noise. Didn’t have much choice on Saturday as I forgot to bring my off-camera flash cord, so no flash for me. Therefore, got to play with ISO 1600 and ISO 800, which turned out not to be the disaster that I was anticipating. The noise cleaned up nicely with Noise Ninja. I’m really glad that I couldn’t use flash on Sat as I didn’t like my flash shots as much on Sunday.
The little buggers were very cute and fun to watch and photograph. Luckily there was a small log in the water near them and they would climb up on it to sun themselves. I was very happy with the IS performance of my 500mm lens as the second shot was at only 1/30 sec. I’ll post some of the group “pile-on” photos later.
Taken with Canon 7D and Canon 500mm F4 IS II mounted on tripod with Wimberley II head
1/400 sec @ F5, ISO 800, evaluative metering, 500mm, no flash
1/30 sec @ F4, ISO 1600, evaluative metering, 500mm, no flash
1/500 sec @ F11, ISO 800, evaluative metering, -2/3 exposure compensation, 500mm, no flash
Tim Timmis Photography 