Alligator Diet Observations

The question of what alligators eat has mostly been addressed through stomach content analysis. A sample of dead alligators, often harvested by hunters, have their stomachs opened, and all the prey items contained within are identified. Another approach involves capturing live alligators and removing their stomach contents through pumping or the Hose-Heimlich technique. This avoids […]

Dry Season Everglades

Before moving to Florida, I wasn’t aware of how distinct the wet and dry seasons were here, and the profound effect this has on the landscape and wildlife. The wet season is summer, and the dry season is the rest of the year. It still rains in the dry season, but substantially less than in […]

Rescuing a Florida softshell turtle from an abandoned swimming pool

It is springtime in north central Florida and that means female turtles are moving about on land looking for nesting sites, and alligators are active. A week ago, I was walking along the edge of a lake, past a long-ago shuttered hotel. Out of curiosity, I took a look in the abandoned and partially filled […]

National Wildlife Federation Photo Contest

The National Wildlife Federation describes itself as “America’s largest and most trusted wildlife conservation and education organization.” They hold an annual wildlife photography competition that is in its 54th iteration. This year I decided to enter. Below are the 30 photos I selected and the required information for each photo. I entered a few of […]

Osprey at Kirkpatrick Dam

Dams act as barriers to the natural flow of rivers. As a result, fish often congregate below dams. This, in turn, tends to attract fish-eating animals. Dams can therefore be good focal points to observe and photograph wildlife. I was reminded of this when, this past weekend, I visited Kirkpatrick Dam on the Ocklawaha River, […]

World Animal Coins

What coins depict – people, animals, plants, events, places, achievements, symbols – tell the story of civilizations and what they value. The world’s oldest known coin was produced in the kingdom of Lydia (modern day Turkey) over 2,500 years ago. It depicts a lion. Coins depicting animals have been a common theme in subsequent centuries, […]

Crystal River: Home of the Manatee

Crystal River is a town on Florida’s Gulf coast and self-titled manatee capital of the world. I visited this past weekend, in the middle of winter, as this is the best time to see the manatees for which the town is famous. What makes Crystal River attractive to manatees? Crystal River is at the edge […]

Manatees in Florida Springs

Florida is the spring capital of the world. The state contains 700 natural springs. 33 of these are first-magnitude springs, or those that discharge at least 100 cubic feet per second (which amounts to at least 64.6 million gallons of water daily). This is more first-magnitude springs than any other state in the United States, […]

Blue-tailed Lizards

Recently, while looking through some of my old wildlife photos I came upon one of a blue-tailed lizard that I photographed in Mozambique in 2010. What really struck me is how similar this lizard, the Blue-tailed sandveld lizard, looks to a species I recently photographed in Maryland and Florida, the American five-lined skink. They both […]

Warning: Alligators and Snakes

I recently contributed a set of ‘Readers’ Wildlife Photos’ to a website I follow. I chose alligator photos because that’s what I have been photographing lately. One of the comments on this set of photos really struck me: “Alligators are kind of fascinating to me because they are (I think) the only potentially deadly predators […]