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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