St Augustine Alligator Farm - The Gators

Posted on Friday, July 20, 2007 at 6:15 PM - Post Comment

No blog entry about a visit to the St. Augustine Alligator Farm would be complete without saying a little something about the gators.  Even though it was the nesting birds that lured me there, it was hard not to be impressed by the gators!

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We got there early in the day and was fortunate to be treated to the 'morning roaring' of the gators.  I have never seen anything like this in my life!  First, we heard the noise - not unlike lions roaring.  Then we noticed people heading over to the largest gator pen - filled with at least 20 of the great big boys!

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We followed the crowd and ended up on a little bridge near the edge of the pen.  We stopped to watch....and it was totally amazing!  The gators were ROARING!  All of them!  And it was loud!

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They flex their heads....

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....and their tails out of the water - then they sorta hum...and then ROAR!  When there are 20-25 gators doing that all at the same time, it's a little scary!

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When we first walked onto the little bridge, I didn't realize there was a gator underneath us.  The bridge started to rumble - I thought it was an earthquake!  Then came the loud roar!  The whole bridge shook!!!  After he did it a couple of time, my fear eased....the bridge was not going to collapse and I was not going to be gator food!!  It really was great! 

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The roaring was reall cool....but it was the humming I found interesting!  You can see in the picture above the ripples in the water caused by the humming!  Their whole throats seemed to vibrate!

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And after all the humming and vibrating came the body-jarring roar!  Your whole body seemed to shake from the sound of the roar!

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It was quite an event to be able to witness and I hope to be able to see it again when I visit again next year!  Really quite impressive!!!

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This ends my pictures from the St. Augustine Alligator Farm!  If you should happen to find yourself in St. Augustine, FL, I highly recommend a visit to the Farm.  You'll see some wonderful faces!

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What beasts!

Posted by Anonymous on Friday, July 20, 2007 at 7:12 PM - Link

Well, who would have thought gators made a noise. You described it so well and the shots show so much of the movement.
A trip to Florida to see the park sounds like a good idea.
Sandra from Oz