Spirit of the Swamp Airboat Tours

As promised, here are some more beautiful photos taken by Mary, earlier this week from the airboat. I just love this one, we often see little alligators sunning on logs, but rarely do we see one this big crawl so exposed on a log – I guess he’s interested in getting as much sun as possible.

Look at the head of this huge gator. I mean HUGE.  You can tell he’s a monster just by looking at his jowls.  Healthy boy, huh?

Here’s two Sandhill Cranes looking for love. See how the male is trying to impress her with his mating dance?

Lastly, here’s a breathtaking photo of the sun shining through the Spanish Moss…

Thanks to our guest photographer of the week – Mary!

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a photo like this before, have you?  I mean it’s stunning, amazing, breathtaking… I could go on and on.  It should be on the cover of a nature magazine!

Two Gators Close Up

This photo was taken yesterday by Mary – she graduated from high school with Captain Harold! Mary and her husband Karl (who also graduated with Captain Harold) and their son were in Florida visiting and went out for a ride on the airboat with us.

Fortunately it was an absolutely perfect day, and we saw some amazing alligators.

I could not believe my eyes when I saw these two gators snuggled up - it’s something you just don’t ever see! The smaller gator is the female; the large gator is a male. It’s not gator mating season yet (March), so I guess these two are in a courtship phase. Or perhaps he’s convinced her it’s March already?

Is it March Yet?

Mary took so many fantastic photos and lucky me, they stopped by our house before we all went out to dinner, so I got to download them ALL right to my laptop!

Here’s a picture of the high school buddies - Captain Harold and Karl, Hemphill High School, Hemphill, Texas:

More high school buddies, plus me:

Captain Harold, Mary and Karl - Hemphill High School

I’ll have some more incredible photos to share with you tomorrow!

“Mama Mia” lives on the beautiful Dead River and we see her and her offspring on our FLORIDA CRACKER airboat tours.  She picked out a beautiful place to nest last year, and she’ll probably be nesting in the same general area this year as well.

This breathtaking area in the swamp is home to her babies from last year and the year before.  Baby gators grow about a foot per year, and the babies we see in this area are one and two feet in length. 

“Mama Mia” will sometimes allow our passengers a stunning photo of her as she lays up on the bank of the Dead River.  More than likely, however, she’ll be hiding under some tree roots in a little hidey hole - we can see her, but I guess she thinks she’s managed to hide from us. 

Right now it seems as though she has at least one bull (male) gator hanging around wanting to start up a relationship.  She’s obviously a very good mother based on the survival rate of her last two years clutches of babies… so I’m sure we’ll see even more bull gators hanging around her soon!