ALLIGATOR
BEHAVIOR page 5l: BABY
ALLIGATORS --page
12 Alligator nests and babies page 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
This
page
was born 02/14/2024. Rickubis designed
it. Last
update: 02/15/2024
Images
and
contents on this page copyright ©2024 Richard M. Dashnau
Most of these were
posted on the RICKUBISCAM
page first, then moved here. Unlike most of my other pages,
the entries on this page
will be shown in chronological order from top to bottom
(since this makes following the progression of events easier), so
scroll to the
bottom
to see the latest posts. This may require a lot of scrolling,
depending
on how often I've recorded events--but I hope that you'll
enjoy the journey.
01/21/2024
It was cold again at BBSP. When I checked the
temperature at the
Forty Acre Parking Lot, it was 39.2°F, almost the same as the previous
weekend. But the air on this
day was very damp. This damp air, when moving, can draw the heat right
out of me. It's always colder down near
the Observation Tower, mostly
because of the wind blowing off of
Pilant Lake. The morning was overcast, and the air was hazy--which is
further indication of hold cold it would feel.
While
heading back West on the Spillway Trail I found the mother alligator
(as far as I know) where I'd last seen her, on the South side of the
trail. No sign of any babies.
The
history of this pod up to
this day is shown on
this page.
01/28/2024
Good
news! We got some water at Brazos Bend State Park. We almost got
too much, since the Brazos River got close to flood stage at
the river gage at Rosharon (about 45 feet).
Big Creek rose enough to overflow into Hale Lake and fill that very
nicely (though I didn't go look, since it that area of the park
was
still flooded.) But that water didn't really go much further
into
the park. Instead, the direct rain that fell on Pilant Lake and Elm
Lake brought up the water levels there,
and along Pilant Slough. I observed that myself. So, here are
a few images from that wonderful sunny day.
It was cold (44.7°F)
up at the 40Acre Parking lot. Although it's usually colder down on the
trails, I was also hoping that the sunny day would warm things a bit.
Through
the past months, I've been stopping just East of the
Observation Tower and taking pictures across Pilant Lake. It looked
great today!
One might be asking, "What about
the alligators? How did they cope with the added water? I found the mother
gator that had the pod just East of the Spillway as I was
moving towards Elm Lake near 10am. She was still
South of the
trail, but I didn't see any babies at first. When I returned to the
spot about 2:30pm I saw a few of the
babies. I
could hear some chirping from cover, and found a few hidden among the
weeds by using binoculars. A few of them came out of the plants, and
came out into
the open.
I estimate that the water level in Elm Like
may have come up 2 or 3 feet. The "shelf" directly across from the
trail end was under water again. There was a large alligator on
the bank on our side, and I stayed near it for a few hours.
Air temperature was about 55°F when I got there, but the
sunshine felt warm. It was a great day!
I
stayed near the large alligator at Elm Lake because it was the first
opportunity I had to monitor a large alligator basking close enough to
use my thermal imager. So,
from 10:40am to 2:10pm I shot images
when I thought about it (meanwhile, I was also watching other
alligators and wildlife, and interpreting for park visitors). The
images
below
are screen shots of data I got from the images by using their
proprietary software. Although the alligator did warm up during the
day,
I was hoping to see its temperature
change at a different rate than
the surrounding area. Looking at it this way may not give me
the
results I expected, since I can only see external temperature.
Of
course
its skin and external surfaces would get warmer from the
sun, and if the alligator is exchanging cooler internal blood for
warmed external blood, the rate of flow wouldn't
show me much
difference from the environment. What I probably need to do
is
monitor the opposite condition--watching a warm alligator as the area
around it gets cooler.
I would expect an alligator to cool down
slower (or not at all) relative to the surfaces around it.
This
depends on the size and mass of the alligator, and whatever it is
lying
upon.
Oh, well...I'll try again later.
02/04/2024
An
update on the mom gator and her pod that I've been watching on the
Spillway Trail since last August (2023). The
higher water combined
with the warmer day to bring out more babies. Her story from last year
can be found mostly
on this page. When I
passed by her spot about
9:00am, I could hear few
babies
chirping, and could find a few near her. One is near her head
in
the first 3 images below. When I returned about
12:50pm
there was a pile of babies on a floating
log while the mom was basking on the floating vegetation behind them.
This was South of the Spillway Trail.
I
spent a few hours near the pod. Most of the babies stayed on the log,
although the configuration of the pile changed as the babies on the
bottom tried to get on top, or
as new ones left the water to add to
the pile. Park visitors often ask how many there are, and it's always
hard to count them in a situation like this--even with binoculars.
Another
question I've heard often since last year is if all of those babies
"belong" to that mother gator. It is most likely that they
are,
although-as the summer progressed,
and the mother and pod occupied the only
open
puddle within a few hundred yard-I considered that other small gators
might have followed the water and been adopted
by
that mother gator. It was still most likely that they were hers, from
possibly 3 different hatchings (a year apart). BUT--that changed
sometime late November, 2023 when
5 babies that were hatched in our
Nature Center were released to join this pod. So, if nothing has
happened to them, 5 of those babies are certainly NOT hers.
Oh,
and to get the best count of a pile of alligators, I have to take a
clear image, then go home and try to count their heads. The
first
2 images below demonstrate this.
In the second I've marked twenty-four
(24)
babies! I certainly couldn't see all of them while
I was out there!
There are various reasons and sources for the baby gators that are
hatched in the Nature Center. Whatever the circumstances, the
babies hatched in there are protected
better than the wild babies for at least a year, before they are
released. If the release is to a mother alligator, I see are two
amazing
things. First, is that the mother-guided
by
the particular sounds of the chirps-is immediately protective of the
new babies and guides them to her. But I'm more surprised by
the
babies accepting the mother.
They have never been outside for
their entire year of life; yet they recognize the mother alligator,
chirp for her, and swim towards her! How do they recognize her
as
protection, and not as a predator to be feared? Another
interesting sight was on the North side of the Spillway Trail, where
the babies had been sheltering for a few
months last summer.
The first two images below are thermal views of the mom gator
and pod.
The last
image below
was taken on this
day 02/04/2024. An alligator was basking near
the remnants of the nest, while everything else is submerged.
At the beginning of the summer, an alligator had built a nest
there. At the end, the pod had been living near the nest
(because
of the water in front of it) until they moved
across to where they
are now. The series of images below show the nest in June,
and
then the area a various times through the year.
The
water shrunk to a puddle, then to nothing. I'm sure the mother was
digging under the tree at the farther side. I'd really thought that
she'd stay there. But when
the water started to come back, the
mother and the pod moved across the trail to the South side of the
trail--into Pilant Slough. The arrow in each picture shows
the
nest.
02/25/2024
Brazos
Bend State Park A beautiful day, where there
were many things to see (as usual). This post will briefly
cover some of the items
I went East along the
Spillway trail, where I saw a Great Blue Heron (Ardea
herodias) catch a small Lesser Siren (Siren
intermedia).
But it lost the Siren when it dropped the
amphibian to stab it again.
The siren must have slid
into the plant mat, because the Heron struggled to pull it out, but
failed. When I got to the mother alligator and pod,
another large
alligator was basking on the trail about 10 yards from her. At
one point, I counted 14 baby alligators on that stump, and 10 or more
moving among the plants
on the mat past the mother, as well as about 3
on a small stick to the left.
I stayed near the pod for about 4
hours.
The babies moved in and out of cover, while the mother
eventually
moved onto the floating mat. The gator on the trail started
gaping--probably
a "thermal gape" and I expected it to return to the water. But, while
it did move closer to the water, it didn't go in while I was still
there. At 10am, some
visitors that had just left me shouted
"EAGLE" and a Bald Eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) was flying right
above me! I'd been there at least 90 minutes when I noticed a
darker mass in the snarled vegetation in front of me. An
American Bittern (Botaurus
lentiginosus) was resting in the cover! How long had that
been
there? It slowly moved
off into thicker brush.
And,
this
page shows
alligators at the park, on land, near various landmarks at the park.
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main alligator page, Alligators
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