When You’re Mom To A Wildlife Photographer

You get to see really cool things. :)

My daughter and I visited the Alligator River Wildlife Refuge last week and got to see alligators, bears, and one very amazing barred owl. I love owls and have never had this kind of wild, close encounter. It was  amazing.

My photos are from my phone and simply snapshots of a few moments as we explored the refuge. When my daughter sends me some of hers, I’ll share her very beautiful work.

The refuge is a huge area and has many fields of soybeans and corn planted within it, which the black bears love to eat. A large part of our time was spent driving these gravel roads “tracking” the movement of  a few of the bears as they headed to the fields, always keeping a respectful distance. Periodically this bear would stop and turn to look at us. He really wanted to use the road, and he was fine as long as we stayed back this far. When another car came up behind us, though, he cut into the woods and took the shrubby route. It was fascinating to see the signs of bears moving around inside the refuge - flat swathes of grass left by bears leaving the road to cut through the woods, piles of bear scat, etc. We got many glimpses of mama bears with cubs, single bears like this one, and the very cool sight of bears bobbing through the fields from a distance - akin to a dolphin coming up and going down again in the ocean. 

I would never have seen this alligator were it not for the keen eyes of my daughter. We were driving slowly along the gravel road, adjacent to this waterway, when my daughter quietly said, “Can you stop and back up? I think I saw some eyes.” Back we went, and she was right. An alligator was resting with face barely above the water. Can you spot it here? I took the photo not quite believing it was even an alligator, but her close-up photos revealed its eyes. He was still there when we came back by an hour or so later. 

This next moment was from my favorite time of the day. Again, my daughter said, “Can you back up? There’s an owl.” I was expecting an owl way up in the top of a tree, but this one was very close to the ground and we stopped and hung out with him for quite a while. He was so curious, watching us, watching the many butterflies that were out, and keeping his eyes on the perimeter for, I guess, a meal. It was a gray rainy day with some wind, and the branch he sat on moved when it gusted up. He sat and sat. 

While we were watching the owl, this critter was watching us. I’m glad it’s in the refuge and not on November Hill!