Everglades Chronicles
The American Alligator (Alligator mississipiensis)
She is the only North American reptile known to give parental care. There has been considerable variation in accounts given on the extent that female alligators go to protect their nest against intrusion. Rarely, she may protect her nest with fervor; more typically, she may not protect it at all.
Another biologist and myself inventoried alligator nests and eggs in the Everglades. Although we always approached each nest cautiously, it was only occasionally that a female would even appear. If she did, her presence was usually first detected by the sound of her movement through the sawgrass, adjacent to the nest. I have not seen a female on the nest during my approach to the area, but it is a good bet that she is nearby.......and alligators have well-developed hearing and eyesight. Our initial procedure was for one person, from an elevated position in the airboat, to keep watch for an approaching female, while the other person cautiously approached the nest, removed the top vegetation, counted the eggs and replaced the vegetation. Occasionally the person on the boat couldn’t resist rustling the sawgrass with a long stick or by tossing something, which would always terrify the person near the nest......just because of the thought that it would be impossible to beat the alligator back to the boat. That was a lot of fun and boy did we scare the hell out of each other.
During our field work, when a protective female did appear, she might stay at a considerable distance and watch our movements. Less often she would gradually swim to a position that was rather close to the nest. In her apparent anxiety she moved to different locations in the water, while watching our activities.
Just once I saw a female suddenly appear, rapidly rush out of the water, up and onto the nest, jaws agape. This is that female. She remained on the nest, not attacking. She probably feared me as I feared her. I stayed far enough away during the photography to assure that she could not reach me if she tried. I visited her on several occasions and each time she exhibited the same determination but caution.
And as for her eggs – they are very different than any others you may have seen. If you took two of them and very lightly tapped them together, so as not to damage them, they would actually make a clinking sound. Yes, you read this correctly.....CLINK!.....Just as if they were ceramic in physical nature.
I have an already-completed book on the Everglades and am planning on providing it as an E-Book that can be purchased on this site. I am sure you will be fascinated with my book on the Everglades. There has never been one written like it. If you are a naturalist type you will agree after reading just a short ways into it.....this book is packed with exciting field encounters and full of Everglades Savvy. In fact, that is one of the chapter titles. But the most interesting section of all is the one on the American Alligator. When you begin to learn the Alligator’s life history and the remarkable adaptations of all the Crocodilians worldwide, you will not be able to put the book down. It is that interesting. It’s coming.
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Another biologist and myself inventoried alligator nests and eggs in the Everglades. Although we always approached each nest cautiously, it was only occasionally that a female would even appear. If she did, her presence was usually first detected by the sound of her movement through the sawgrass, adjacent to the nest. I have not seen a female on the nest during my approach to the area, but it is a good bet that she is nearby.......and alligators have well-developed hearing and eyesight. Our initial procedure was for one person, from an elevated position in the airboat, to keep watch for an approaching female, while the other person cautiously approached the nest, removed the top vegetation, counted the eggs and replaced the vegetation. Occasionally the person on the boat couldn’t resist rustling the sawgrass with a long stick or by tossing something, which would always terrify the person near the nest......just because of the thought that it would be impossible to beat the alligator back to the boat. That was a lot of fun and boy did we scare the hell out of each other.
During our field work, when a protective female did appear, she might stay at a considerable distance and watch our movements. Less often she would gradually swim to a position that was rather close to the nest. In her apparent anxiety she moved to different locations in the water, while watching our activities.
Just once I saw a female suddenly appear, rapidly rush out of the water, up and onto the nest, jaws agape. This is that female. She remained on the nest, not attacking. She probably feared me as I feared her. I stayed far enough away during the photography to assure that she could not reach me if she tried. I visited her on several occasions and each time she exhibited the same determination but caution.
And as for her eggs – they are very different than any others you may have seen. If you took two of them and very lightly tapped them together, so as not to damage them, they would actually make a clinking sound. Yes, you read this correctly.....CLINK!.....Just as if they were ceramic in physical nature.
I have an already-completed book on the Everglades and am planning on providing it as an E-Book that can be purchased on this site. I am sure you will be fascinated with my book on the Everglades. There has never been one written like it. If you are a naturalist type you will agree after reading just a short ways into it.....this book is packed with exciting field encounters and full of Everglades Savvy. In fact, that is one of the chapter titles. But the most interesting section of all is the one on the American Alligator. When you begin to learn the Alligator’s life history and the remarkable adaptations of all the Crocodilians worldwide, you will not be able to put the book down. It is that interesting. It’s coming.
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Cottonmouth Encounter (not confrontation!)
I was wading in shallow Everglades waters when I was thrilled to suddenly encounter this animal, the largest living Florida Cottonmouth (Agkistrodon piscivorus) I have seen to date, at a distance of about 10 feet.
 _For a long time I had wanted the opportunity for this photo. Now here it was, right in front of me and I had my camera, lens and monopod with me! This was what I was hoping to find that day because the temperature was about right for this opportunity: It was a cool but sunny Fall afternoon and I knew where to look for one of these big specimens.
Snakes are "cold-blooded" creatures, because of their relatively low metabolic rates. They are ectothermic. Of Greek origin, "ecto" means outside and "thermós" hot. It refers to organisms that control body temperature through external means. Snakes are dependent on environmental heat sources to maintain comfort and movement. They move around in their environment to keep their body temperature in a comfort zone. The most obvious example of this is the enjoyment that snakes get from basking in the sun on cool days. But snakes will take just as much care to stay out of hot temperatures because then they will overheat and collapse. I had seen that happen one day when, in my attempt to do photographic retakes of a Cottonmouth, I repeatedly used my monopod to pull it back onto the Everglades levee it was trying to cross. It was a hot, sunny day and at the time I had not yet seen a snake persist to remove itself from an area that was too hot for it. After repeatedly pulling this snake back to the levee surface it collapsed! I quickly picked it up with my monopod, move it into the brushy shade and it immediately recovered. I thought about the incident. Unlike almost every other Cottonmouth I confronted, this snake did not go into its typical defensive posture. It was because it had to remove itself from the direct sunlight on the bright levee surface. So on this cool Fall day, without the radiant energy of direct sunlight, I was not going to see any snakes. But because the sun was out........I had a real good chance. Through many days on the marsh, I had learned that on hot Summer days (because it is too hot and they are under cover, AVOIDING the Sun) or a cold, overcast, Winter day (during a cloudy South Florida cold front).........I could not find a single Cottonmouth anywhere on the marsh surface. They are still there, but under cover, out of sight, and largely incapable of even moving. Basking in the Sun's radiant energy, the temps were just right for this big snake to relish life on a cool Fall day. Cottonmouths simply dread humans........probably because most humans within the Cottonmouth's range will kill this animal on sight. And so, no matter how much I wanted it to stay and kidded myself that it might.........this one wasn't going to stick around for any photo shoot. And if I pressed it at all it would go into a defensive posture: the head flung back and the mouth widely gaping. That had happened many times in previous encounters.......and I did not want to portray the snake as being nasty-temperamented and aggressive. I wanted the relatively calm subject............just as you see it here and just as I believed it would happen one day. To get the above photograph I knew to keep my distance and move very slowly, so as not to trigger its defensive posture. One trait common to all the species of water snakes and the alligators is that they use water as escape cover. Upon my encounter with this snake, we both became motionless, staring at each other. But after a few moments it began making its escape to the safety of the water......but the only water was BEHIND me. I was uneasy because I feared that it might move directly toward me, forcing me to move out of its way. I thought, at best it would try to flank me to reach the water. And then it did just that: It began slowly making its way around me to escape to the water. I was so relieved to see that this really big Cottonmouth wanted nothing to do with me at all. So I could stick to my game plan - remain at a distance where the snake did not feel pressed.........but still block its path to the water.........and do it very slowly. I hoped that if I continued to move slowly and continued to block its escape path that it would again stop and remain motionless. So each time the snake moved to get around me, I moved slowly and laterally to block its path to the water. When it moved to its right toward my left flank, I moved laterally to my left....and then when it switched directions to get around my right flank I slowly moved to my right to temporarily block its path.......and so on. |
While this was all happening I busily assembled the camera equipment that I would need for this shot. These snakes possess a toxin that is extremely destructive to tissue and Cottonmouths are also likely to carry a group of highly infectious microbes in their mouths. This might be because, unlike the other Crotalids, Cottonmouths eat carrion, usually in the form of dead fish. I was alone and many miles from a hospital: I had to be very careful. But I knew from many encounters with these snakes that avoiding the danger would be simple.......just stay out of range of the snake and do not provoke it. These snakes are very dangerous, but simply not aggressive. There is a big difference between those two traits. Virtually 100% of snake bites are caused by the person provoking the snake by teasing it or trying to capture it. So to stay WELL out of range of any potential strike I chose the 300mm lens. The camera/lens went atop a monopod to dampen camera movement. After what seemed to be about two minutes, the snake stopped and remained motionless – staring at me. By the time the big snake stopped.....I was ready for the shoot! Working quickly I placed my left hand atop the lens, draping it around the lens to dampen movement, weighting the lens down through the axis of the stiff monopod and into the ground. Then I focused on the serpent’s eyes or snout and began hand-cranking off shots as fast as possible, but being careful to squeeze (not punch or jab) the shutter release button, and bracketing exposures to assure that I got one perfect exposure on the Kodachrome 64 film (image captured in late 1980's....before digital cameras). Following the “Sunny 16” rule, I varied exposures around the base exposure of f16 @ 1/60 second. I insisted on f16 for maximum depth of field so I would have a sharp image from front to back. This image was taken with a manually focusing 300 f4.5 attached to the camera body, all atop a Bogen pro monopod (since archived). Years later, using a Coolscan scanner, I digitized the Kodachrome slide. It all worked....... together.......all of which hinged foremost on confronting this animal in such a delicate manner so to get it to stop for the portrait, while not triggering its defensive mechanisms. Finally, as I stepped out of its way, this huge Cottonmouth peacefully moved past me and disappeared into Everglades marsh waters. Could we call this mutualism ? ......because the snake did get something out of it. Ok, so I ruined its day at the beach. But it also brought you, the reader and naturalist, closer to an understanding of the TRUE nature of this long-maligned animal. Yes, Cottonmouths do have a reputation for being easily provoked into a defensive posture and they often “stand their ground” when pressed. If I had pressed this snake just a little bit it would have thrown its head back and gaped open its mouth in typical Cottonmouth defensive or warning posture. But this encounter showed what I already knew to be true...and now you do too: Cottonmouths are not aggressive. If these snakes are aggressive, as most Good Ole Boys would still insist.....why did this jumbo-sized Cottonmouth not go after me? Or why didn’t it just “barge” right through to the water? From all my encounters with these snakes I have come to believe that WE BOTH FEAR EACH OTHER. I am sure that behavior varies among individual animals. Some Cottonmouth's defensive posture is triggered just upon seeing a human. And it is likely that there are other factors affecting the animal's behavior. Who among researchers could identify all factors that affect this species' behavior when encountered by a human? Maybe on this particular day the snake I have pictured here was feeling real good. I like to think so. What I know for certain is that the Eastern Cottonmouth or Florida Cottonmouth (Agkistrodon piscivorus) is the most maligned snake in the great American Southeast. And In and around the Everglades that I worked in (above Tamiami Trail), it is routine for folks to carry a gun (a handgun in the hunting off season) on their airboat or pick-up as they travel the Glades.......so most encounters with this snake end in the snake being shot to death. But I think that people are beginning to come around to the truth: None of our North American snakes are aggressive. |