Later Gator!

Yesterday Jordan and I spent some time in the fresh air at Brazos Bend State Park. We went on a 1.7 mile walk around Elm Lake and saw 23 alligators! (We almost felt like we were in Sunny South Florida!)


We also saw about 20 baby alligators! (No, they were not baby crocodiles or baby teradactyls!) The mom was RIGHT THERE watching the whole time! A park volunteer said that a few minutes before we got there, there was a big crowd, and the mom swam a little closer to the bank, opened her mouth, raised her head, and slapped it on the water. It's called a head slap, and her intention with that head slap was, "Hey, buster, you're a bit too close for comfort; back off!!!"


In the picture below, the one on the far left and the one on the right are both about one and a half years old. The one in the middle is about 6 months old.


Jordan really liked how this one looked when it was walking. It kind of looked like it was waddling on tip-toes!


Lots of the baby alligators were sun-bathing on the log, but there are lots more in this picture, too. I see about 16 babies in all in this picture. They blend in pretty well.


The bird that is flying the highest in this picture is an ibis, and it was pretty cool to see. But the deeper story about this picture is about a white bird that's kind of hard to see. It's on the ground in the center of the picture, (it's the white spot), and it had a fish in its mouth. Now look at the other five birds flying around the white bird. They wouldn't let him eat his fish! The white bird did all that work to catch the fish, and he wasn't able to eat it because he had to defend himself from all of these other guys just wanting an easy meal! The white bird would fly a few feet and land somewhere, and all the other birds would swoop around it and try to get the fish. So the white bird would fly a few more feet and land, but the other birds just kept trying to get that fish from him. We couldn't see the end, so I don't know which bird got the fish!


Here's a long gator! (See the tail?!)

We saw a number of little turtles sun-bathing on logs, but this was definitely the biggest turtle we spotted!


This bird let us get closer and closer to it, so we got a pretty good picture of it!


Here's Jordan up close with a gator!

We had a great time seeing all of those alligators! Afterwards, Jordan taught me how to swing a golf club. (That might have been his favorite part of the day; I'm not sure!) We hit some balls towards different trees and tree stumps, and, although I wouldn't say that I'm very good at all, I will say that I improved some from my first swing to my last swing!