ALLIGATOR BEHAVIOR page 5i: BABY ALLIGATORS --page 9 Alligator nests and babies page 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 10 11 12
This page was born 05/30/2022.  Rickubis designed it.   Last update: 12/09/2022
Images and contents on this page copyright ©2022 Richard M. Dashnau    

  Most of these were posted on the RICKUBISCAM page first, then moved here.

From Brazos Bend State Park on 11/06/2022   It took a while for me to find the gator mom near the Observation tower. She'd moved away from the culvert by the tower.
She was in a clear spot next to a partially-uprooted plant.  Another alligator was also visible about 10 yards behind her. It remained there for a few hours, then moved under the plants.
   

I wasn't sure that I'd found the mother until babies gators started to appear. I stayed in this area for most the the day, and tried to point out the babies to passing park visitors. As time passed
more babies appeared, and climbed out of the water.
   

Anyone with binoculars or a camera that could reach out was treated to a better view, but the babies were visible without aid--just really small. . 
   
                     
My last effort was to shoot a line of images so I could stitch them together.  I didn't find out how many baby gators were there until after I'd examined those images. There were at least 19
baby gators out there!  I've numbered them in the second image below.  Or at least most of them. Mom gator is in front of the roots.  Over the last few weeks, I've seen various Great Blue Herons
and American Bitterns hunting in that area. I watched the mother chase off a bird two separate times (didn't catch on film). This is the largest number of babies in this pod that I've seen since I
started watching for them. I had thought that the 4 or 5 at a time that I'd been seeing were the only survivors of various attacks by the bird. I was happy to be wrong. There was some exciting stuff
that happened soon after, documented on other pages.
 


From Brazos Bend State Park on 09/18/2022   On  8/28 and 9/04, I could see the mother alligator with babies near her nest on the Spillway Trail. I couldn't find them on
the next weekend. On  9/18/2022, I found her again (at least I'm pretty sure it's her). She had moved about 70 yards to the West of the nest. It was about 9:00 am, so the air wasn't too hot.
The babies were pretty active, so I shot some video and some pictures.  I'm sharing some of them here.  I've edited the video into this file.
   

   

   

   

The baby gators foraged in the water, and on land (in the video, one walked out of the plants with something in its jaws, entered the water, and ate whatever it had caught.). Some of the
babies foraged *on their mother*. I've seen other baby gators picking at objects on their mother's skin many times.  But I've never really gotten a good look at what they were picking at. Baby
 alligators move very quickly while they're hunting and feeding. That, plus the minuscule size of the prey, make it very difficult to discover what they've caught.  On a few occasions in the past
it seemed that the baby gators were pulling on leeches (or at least something "stretchy") that were attached to the mother's skin.  In one of the clips I filmed on 9/18, I've captured one of the
 babies pulling at something that flexed, stretched, and snapped back when the gator lost its grip. This looks like a leech to me--specifically the flat, non-swimming type. *A "turtle leech"
possibly a Placobdella sp.(?)).  I've tried to crop some frame grabs, and I'm attaching some those among the others here.  Alligators are often hosts for various species of leeches. I've
frequently seen them attached to alligators.  Sometimes they are clustered on wounds. Other times, they are attached inside an alligator's mouth. They can be anywhere. The "free-swimming"
 species are visible (to me, at least). What surprised me was the discovery that species of "turtle leech" also ride alligators. Those leeches don't swim very often, and are very well-camouflaged.
 I would guess that alligators carry at least a few leeches all the time.
   
   
   

From Brazos Bend State Park on 08/28/2022   Over the last week, around 5 inches of rain fell on Brazos Bend State Park. While that wasn't enough to restore a lot, that
water made a big difference in 40 Acre Lake, Pilant Lake, and the North Side of the Spillway Trail (that's all I know about, because that's where I went).  I had just gotten to the gator nest on
the Spillway, just before a local hiking group arrived there. As I described the nest to the group (it was hard to make out, especially after the denser greenery caused by the rain) I noticed
something white on the nest, but couldn't tell if it was an eggshell fragment, or fungus. The nest also appeared "flatter", but the rain might have done that.  While I was describing various
facts about the nest, and pointing out the head of an alligator in the water in front of it (YES! WATER!), one of the group members said they saw movement.  I took a close look around
the alligator and found baby alligators near her!  Wonderful!  After the group left, I spend  more time trying to photograph the mom gator and her babies. Some of the photos are below.
There is a video edited from materials I filmed today, and you can see video here.  
    

This was about 9am, and the sun was off to the right (East). I did the best I could. I didn't see a huge pile of babies, and I couldn't see them well, even with magnification.  For the "end on" log
view, I moved further to the right, and shot through a gap in the branches and leaves.  
    

Then the mother showed more of her back and head, and she began bellowing. She did a "bout", of 8 bellows in a row. Then stopped. After 3 minutes, she did another bout of 6 bellows;
and a minute after that, a third bout of 6! I listened (and I sure she was, too) for answering bellows.  After the 2nd bout, another alligator bellowed a bit further East, on the other side of the
Spillway Trail. I couldn't find it. The mom gator answered right away, and bellowed six more times. Later, some visitors coming from the West told me they'd heard alligators bellowing in
40-Acre Lake, a little before they heard the ones near me.   I watched the baby gators, and they didn't seem to react at all during the bellowing. But, standing still could have been the reaction-
not moving and letting their striped camouflage work.  Three images show the area between two bellows--and the babies haven't moved much. It had been a very interesting morning; but
mom gator had a few more things to do.
   

   

About 15 minutes after she answered the other gator's bellow, mom gator started moving East. She moved slowly, but without pause. There aren't any images of this, because of the thick
new plants obscuring her progress.  She stopped about 70 yards away (I paced it off as 70 big steps), and moved up the bank. As gators often do (at least the ones I've seen) it stopped at
the edge of the trail. Then, it lifted its hips (at first glance this might appear to be preparation for a quick run--but it isn't) and...pooped. This also happens fairly often. I've witnessed it, and
tracks in the dirt where alligators have crossed will show little gator-sculpture trail markers.  The first image below left shows this activity. Then, the gator crossed the trail. It moved into the
 thick plants with difficulty. It turned right (turning West again) and started pushing back in that direction. During talking with visitors, and other distractions--I lost track of her in the weeds.
I did see movements there that might have been her, but I left.
Here is an example of a female alligator leaving hatchlings alone while she carries out gator business. The babies have to rely on their location(shaded, covered area) and behavior
(hide, be still) to help them keep alive while their mother is gone.  One of our many species of wading birds or raptors; or other predators like otters, raccoons, etc. could eat them--but
 it would have to find the babies first.   If you missed the link above, again--you can see video here.
   

From Brazos Bend State Park on 08/14/2022   For this update, first, two pictures taken on August 14, 2022, showing the alligator nest that was near
the Spillway Trail.  On this page, there are also two sets of pictures taken earlier (July 3rd, August 7th) that show conditions around the nest. Arrows in the first picture show
the nest and the mother alligator. The second picture is a zoomed view, taken a few steps to the right. Alligators usually hatch around  the end of August (possibly
a week or so either way), so I wondered how the hatching would turn out.
  

From Brazos Bend State Park on 08/07/2022 (mostly)   The lack of rain has had effects felt through the all of Texas.  Brazos Bend State park has not been exempt from
this. All of the lakes in the park are usually fed by rainfall--unless a flood comes and inundates everything. Therefore, water levels in all the lakes have been going down. Pilant Lake had the
additional problem of water lost while unavoidable drainage repairs were completed. The relatively rapid changes in Pilant Lake has inspired many kinds of animal behavior, and I have
collected many observations--which I'm trying to arrange into use able narratives. This update is a short one.  
There is an alligator nest a little East of the middle of the Spillway Trail. This is the section of trail that connects the 40 Acre Lake Trail (starting at the Tower) and the Elm Lake Trail. It's
about 50 paces East of nesting box #21, North of the trail. As I've mentioned before, the entire North side of the Spillway Trail is usually irrigated by Pilant Lake. With Pilant Lake drying up,
the water along the way has gone, too. The water had already receded a lot by the time I saw the nest on July 3rd and took a few pictures. Those are the first two images below. The next
two image, taken  August 7th, show how much it has dried.
   
                             July 03, 2022                                                             July 03, 2022                                                        August 07, 2022                                                           August 07, 2022
There is another difference between  the two sets of images.  It's a bit hard to see in the two images from August 7th above. The images below will make it clearer. That's most likely
the female that owns the nest! I was very surprised to see her there. Even though it was about 9:30 am, it was already hot (mid 80's F I think), and there was NO water visible nearby. She was
gone by the time I returned later in the day. Over the 20 years I've been at BBSP, I've seen it this dry before, and have watched a pod of babies in a puddle in that area as it shrunk to nothing
over a period of weeks.  Some time later, the rain returned, and the water...and some babies appeared in the puddle!  Where had they gone? It's probable that the mother gator had dug
a den in the vicinity--and they had sheltered in it.

   
                       August 07, 2022                                                           August 07, 2022                                                        August 07, 2022                                                           August 07, 2022

 04/24/2022  Last, here is some bad news. Around 4:00 I was at the West side of Pilant Lake, and I'd found the really large mother alligator there. I could identify her by the babies that
were moving around and on her. That's not the bad news.  The bad news is the pink mass of snail eggs that I saw right next to her.  I've heard other reports of snail eggs at other spots in the
 park; but this is the first time I've seen them. There may be another small mass of them in the upper left background of picture 03 (I didn't notice them when I took the picture, so I don't know).
 Otherwise, we can enjoy seeing the mother alligator and her babies.  At least one of the babies near her seemed to be much larger, so they were probably a year older than the others. I shot
 a few video clips as well, and here's a short film (2 min) showing the babies and their mom. (Added video 4/29/2022)
        
      


And, this page shows alligators at the park, on land, near various landmarks at the park.

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