Many
people have seen programs on television showing crocodiles
attacking
large
animals like deer and cattle. While this is amazing, and
sometimes
horrifying,
those
creatures are not alligators. Crocodiles' jaws are
a bit different than alligators' jaws, and are used differently.
Alligators favor prey
items that will fit inside their head.
That
is, if they can swallow it
whole, then they will normally attack it. Alligators sometimes
eat deer
in the park, but the larger ones were probably found
carcasses,
but small fawns might have been live captures. Alligators
have eaten large nutria (as I've shown on this website). But,
most of
the time, they will
eat things like small fish,
frogs, and crayfish. Snakes and turtles are
also pursued, with alligators seeming to be especially
well-adapted for
eating turtles. A study done in Texas examined
the stomach contents
of about 50 alligators (which were unharmed). Research
showed
that only
one of these alligators had eaten a bird (which couldn't be
identified,
it might have already been carrion when taken), and the rest had
stomach
full of small fish and shellfish. I've seen 11-foot
alligators going
after prey that was no larger
than their largest teeth (very small frogs
and fish).
From BBSP on 06/05/2022 Due to trail
construction,
lack of rain, and the heat, the water level
in Pilant Lake has dropped dramatically over the last month
or so.
The
first picture, taken near the Observation Tower, shows how
far the
water has lowered, and the small channel made by drainage.
This morning
I noticed two things:
1) I had only seen a few alligators
along the way, and 2) there were a LOT of wading birds
gathered about
400 yards(maybe more) to the North.
When
I looked through
binoculars, I saw the birds and many MANY dark
forms among them. They were alligators! I reached
out with
the camera, and tried to document this amazing sight
with the
pictures and video clips that I show here. These were the best
I could
get, and I've stitched some of the images together to
give
some
idea of the scale of this event.
At my distance, I couldn't see
much detail, so I moved on after capturing the images/video.
But there
was a lot of really cool things going on there. The edited
video is here.
I
have
seen this situation at BBSP before, but usually during drought
conditions developed over a longer period of time. In this
case, the
water level has dropped much faster.
As the volume of water got
smaller, the amount of living space available to various
animals living
there also got smaller. That concentrated a lot of prey
in
smaller ponds, and the
shallow water made it easier to catch
that prey. So, there's a big party for the predators! I
don't
know how the alligators find out about those parties--but
they
always show up.
While looked through my equipment and panned
across, I estimated that there could easily be 100 alligators
out
there.
But
what
else is visible? All those alligators were feeding, and moving
AMONG the wading birds. Wading birds were hunting,
alligators
were hunting--but the alligators weren't
hunting the birds.
and
there were all those alligators, swimming, jumping on prey,
moving
close together--and none of them were fighting over food.
I have
seen this before, and I guess that there was such a
large quantity
of prey, that the predators' attention was on catching it,
instead of
chasing others away from it, or fighting over territory.
Amazing
sight--and another example of one of those
"ephemeral events" at
BBSP that I can see, if I'm at the right place at the right
time. The
"resource sharing" seems to be in contrast to the behavior of
the
alligators that were in the smaller,
shallower puddles nearer the trail. Alligators in the smaller
puddles were
competitive, and chased each other and wading birds away.
There was
even fighting! I've already posted a series
of pictures showing 2 alligators that were fighting last week.
In
one
of my merged panorama pictures, I could count about 80. That
image
is just below, and I made it by taking frames from one of the
videos I
made panning across the scene
and then stitching them together.
I shrank the original stitched images (they were huge
files),
I
compromised to a size that allows them to remain clear if they
are
expanded
for viewing. And, just below that
picture,
there is a copy where I placed numbers near the alligators. I
numbered
up to 88...but closer inspection showed me that I may have
missed
2--but
I didn't want to renumber the image, or put the highest
numbers among
the other. Oh, well. Still...more than 80 gators in that
spot!
WOW!
For
a little perspective...according to one source (Responses of
American
Alligators ( Alligator mississippiensis ) to Environmental
Conditions:
Implications for Population and
Ecosystem Monitoring (2015) by
Eversole, Ballard, Wester, Powell.) , Pilant Lake covers
115.5
hectares (285 acre) with the "open" center about 29.1ha
(71acre)
According to Google Maps, the trail distance from
the Hoots bank of Pilant Lake to the ending at Elm
Lake is
4,298
ft (.8mi or 1.31km). I've seen that Pilant Lake hydrates
the
North side
of those trails. When water in the lake recedes, various
puddles form
along the entire length, and many animals appear there.
Today,
the party seemed to break up sometime in the afternoon. While
moving
West along the Spillway Trail around 2pm, I saw 2 alligators
cross the
trail at different times, too far ahead of
me to get pictures.
When I reached the tower, some visitors there told me they'd
seen
another gator cross even further West. All of them were moving
South--away from Pilant Lake.
These two images, taken about 10
yards west of the Tower, show a lot of the gator traffic--all
those
drag marks and footprints! The lake beyond was quiet. The
party was
over for the day.
Once again, the edited video is here.
And, this page shows alligators at the park, on land, near various landmarks at the park.
Go back to my main alligator page, Alligators
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back to my home page, Welcome
to rickubis.com
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