Gator Nation

Our younger son had not been to St. Marks in a while, so we made a trip down there after church.

It was sunny and cool and it is a good place to see alligators. We saw several sunning themselves. But the highlight of the trip was the grand finale, when we stopped in the visitor's center on the way out. We went out on their little deck above the pond and there was a little gator.

While I was taking pictures of this one, our son spotted a mama gator and her babies nearby. There are three babies in the picture below.

Her babies were much smaller than the other. They still had their baby stripes. They were about a foot long. Some of them were making their little squeaking calls.

We counted a dozen baby gators of at least two hatches, since they were two sizes.

Mama appeared to be dozing as her babies practiced feeding themselves on minnows. In this picture below, one was on her nose and one was eating algae off her back.