Courting Pair of Florida Alligators

Mother Nature never ceases to amaze.

When we were new Florida residents, we were like kids at an amusement park as we explored nature in this state. As time has gone by, we have become more used to the Florida environment and creatures. Then…

Last evening we visited a local rookery about two miles from our house (a rookery is a place where breeding birds gather). As we were watching the birds fly in for the night, we noticed an alligator swimming around the end of the little island.

We have often observed gators in this pond, so that was not a big deal. Then, we saw the alligator swim very close to the bank and tossing his head back and forth. The evening light was fading and even with binoculars we could not make out what the gator was doing. Perhaps he had some sort of food that he was wrestling with; we could not tell what it could be.

Even thought the light was not ideal, I tool several photographs through a telephoto lens with the camera was mounted on a sturdy tripod. I really could not make out what the gator was doing through the lens.

At home, I opened the photographs on the computer and was stunned to see that what we witnessed was a pair of alligators courting before mating. Gators have an interesting mating ritual, the often bump and rub their bodies together, make grunting noises and even blow bubbles in the water before mating. We were about 200 feet away from this pair and really could not get a good look at what they were doing. We could see that there was a bit of splashing in the water. Some of the later photos show that they did indeed mate.

This certainly is not the best photograph of a pair of alligators and if it were not such a rare occurrence for me I would not have shared it here. I had to do a good bit of correction in Photoshop to make it this presentable. In the photo above, you can see the snout of the second gator to the left of the larger one.