Florida Everglades Tours

Hello, Adventurers!

Out here in the swamp, we’re celebrating the holidays—and we’re as happy as turtles on a river log ‘cause Greta the Great Blue Heron flew in this morning with a big piece of news.  We hear 2013 is going to be the Year of the Snake!  That’s good news for us, ‘cause we have more than our fair share of those guys to show you out here in the Glades.

We also tickled to death that it’s cooled down enough for us gator families to start congregating out in the open again (see that great picture of my aunts and cousins taken by a nice fellow named Dick DeCosta From Canada when he came out here on his tour), and most folks don’t know that we gators are social creatures, and we do like to lay up on each other while we’re out getting our daily dose of sun warmth.  You can see my cousin Smiles right there with her head on Aunt Toothy’s tail.  Very cute. But remember, like the sign says:  Don’t Feed Alligators!

We hope to see y’all real soon when you come out for your full day adventure.

Til then, gator friend!

Everglades Adventure guides field trip!

Howdy, there, Adventurers!

Well, the wet season has ended and we’re into the dry season now, which means that birds GALORE are showing up in our neck of the ecohood for the easy hunting of winter.  The white pelicans have come down from the north, and so have the winter snowbird humans!

Now is a great time to visit the Everglades ‘cause the humidity is low, it’s still kinda warm in the afternoon, and the swamp angels (what you call mosquitoes) are done persecuting the locals.  You better call quick ‘cause I heard the tours are booking up fast now that so much wildlife is back for viewing, and you know with Everglades Adventure that you can visit two animal sanctuaries and hold some critters, too!

Last week, my favorite people—the Everglades Adventure Crew—came down to the Big Cypress Preserve for a swamp walk to pay ol’Gator Gil a visit, and I took this photograph of them hiking in the cypress dome.   Now, you won’t have to hike in the swamp on your tour, but I think it’s mighty neat that your guides come down and learn more and more—even on their day off!  They love it here, and they can’t wait to share that love with you!

Come see me!  Til then, gator friend!

Eastern diamondback rattlesnake

Well howdy-do, Adventurers!

Look, you’re not even going to believe the excitement we had out here in the Everglades just a few days ago!

Our good friends from Canada and Minnesota were getting ready to attend the alligator show when suddenly, out of the blue, we noticed a big 3 ½ foot eastern diamondback rattlesnake in the side yard out at Wooten’s heading for the water!  Most people don’t know rattlesnakes are wonderful swimmers, but they are, and not at all as aggressive as folks think.  Now, that does not mean you should ever go trying to capture one or heaven forbid you try to hug one, ‘cause that ends up in bad business, let me tell you!

So it got real exciting when the professional animal handler came out and captured that rattler for the visitors and taught them all he could about the snake—they were just snappin’ pictures and ooohing and ahhhing and videoing that wildlife moment on all their shiny square thingies.   We see our rattlesnake cousins all the time and get a big kick out of them, but most humans hardly ever see one that isn’t in a cage.  It was a real special day.  You can see in the picture our Canadian friend Kim with Gator John, the handler who caught the diamondback and is also giving you guys one heck of a gator show when you come out for your Everglades adventure.

Hope to see you soon.   Man, it is wild out here, and you don’t ever know what’s gonna happen!

Til then, gator friends!

Ochopee’s Pink Post Office!

Hello, Adventurers!

Man, have we been having a big time down here in the Everglades ecohood for the last few months of rainy season. The alligator babies started a-hatchin’ in September, so we have a lot of busy gatormoms keeping an eye on those younguns—and believe me, they never get too far away from her! And, listen, Adventurers, a word of advice: don’t go messing around with baby gators ‘cause gatormoms are real ferocious. They don’t even take a joke well, and I know that from experience!

I also thought I’d report that the kind folks in Ochopee, where the smallest Post Office in the United States is located, have gone all out and painted up that thing in the brightest pink I’ve ever seen—it looks like a roseate spoonbill! They told me they were honoring Breast Cancer Awareness Month, but I know these folks, and that good ol’P.O. may just stay pink. Get on a full day tour, and you can come see it!

The visitors coming out with Gator D,  Anne and Marlowe sure are having a ball watching the gators taking it easy in the deep waters, and every time they bring folks out here we get to see some humans who are scared of little ol’snakes and gators get brave and take a-hold of ‘em for their Facebook pictures! We had one lady from Yorkshire, England yesterday who screwed up every bit of courage she had and jumped in that pen with Little Bitty Gertie Gator and had her picture made. “I can’t believe I did that!” she said, but she sure did.

Come on out and see us, Adventurers!

Our new guide Anne!

Howdy, Adventurers!

Have we got some big news for you! The Everglades Adventure team is welcoming a brand new guide, Anne Falcone, to the Everglades family. We are so happy to see her driving the big van out here full of new people and getting them all excited about our marvelous world o’wonders.

Anne sure knows her stuff, too. She has a degree in biology and she’s certified Florida Master Naturalist! She was born up in some place called Massychooseits, so she talks funny, but I’m sure we’ll get her sayin’ y’all and darlin in no time! Anne is a great guide and Gator D and Marlowe are pretty durn excited to have another person to share their love of the Everglades. Welcome, Anne!

In glades news, we got us a mess of babies springing out all over the place, and if you come out quick as you can, you might be able to see a few on the airboat ride! They are as cute as can be and only about eight inches long. They are sticking close to mama for the time being, and she is being awfully careful with her newborns.

Come out and take a tour with Anne and see if you can catch a glimpse of our next batch of younguns!

Til then, gator friend!

Hello there, Adventurers!

As my mama says, it’s hotter here than the devil’s frying pan! But you know what? Our loyal visitors from some far off places called North Dakota and Manitoba (which is a hard word to say when you don’t have any lips, I might add) sure have been forging ahead and having a good old time out here in the Everglades.

We are happy to report that there have been quite a few sightings of some of our bigger gators out on the nature drive and also hanging around at Corey Billie’s Airboat Rides. In fact, when our friends from Manitoba sat on the edge of their seats in front of the open van door during the nature drive, they looked so curious to an 12-foot alligator that he slid into the water and swam over to get a better look! You can imagine they won’t forget their Everglades Adventure! It’s not every day that you get to see a 60-year-old reptile swimming to the riverbank to put an eyeball on ya! They got some great photographs, and that gator now has proof that there are humans called Canadians.

Well, ol’Gator Gil has to visit some family over on the Miami side of the ‘glades for our yearly reunion around Shark River. I’ll be back in a few weeks to fill you in on more neighborhood gossip.

Til then, gator friends!

Howdy, Adventurers!

Hope you all are staying cool. We gators sure are. Thank goodness for the low mangrove branches where we can find some shade and cool water to sit out the heat of the day.

Now I been getting a lot of questions recently about what gators eat. I hate to disappoint you, but human beings are not on our diet! However, sometimes you guys go swimming in our rivers, and we don’t know no better, and we might bite an arm or leg ‘cause they look like big swimming fish to us. I personally ain’t never tasted a human before, but rumor has it y’all taste exactly like mudfish! No offense, but we prefer blue crabs and alligator gar, but we gators’ll eat just about anything we can get our mouths on. Turtles, raccoons, possums, small deer, dead stuff floating in the water, fish of all kinds…heck, I had a cousin tried to eat a shoe once, and wasn’t that embarrassing!

I had some human friends send me this video they got when they came out on their full day Everglades Adventure tour of my buddy Handsome (I know, how do you get a name like that?) eating his favorite meal—a blue crab! They rode up on their airboat as a crab went swimming by, and you’ll see in the video that he didn’t swim for very long. I hope you enjoy this clip—maybe you’ll get so see such exciting stuff when you come for your visit! click this link: Alligator feeds on a blue crab

We hope to see you soon.

See you later, allig8r.

Howdy, Friends!

Do you remember what I told you a few weeks ago about some buns in the oven over at the Skunk Ape Research Center? Well, guess what? The baby Burmese pythons are here!

And wouldn’t you know it, one of the tour groups for the full day tour was there the very moment those little buggers started slitting open their eggs with their egg tooth—a special tooth on the tip of their snouts that cuts open the leathery shell so they can make their debut in the world! Man, you want to talk about a special day! You just never know what you’re gonna see when you come out on your Everglades Adventure.

Now those babies are a few days old and feisty as all get out. They’re about a foot long (these Burmese pythons are even BORN big!) and just as pretty as their mama. We took a few pictures so you could see the little snapping bundles of joy.

Hope to see you soon!

One of our guides, Marlowe Moore

Well hello Adventurers!

Wondering what’s going on out in the Everglades these days? You should come down and see. We’ve had a heck of a rainstorm which made us gators skedaddle right beforehand to find some shelter to ride it out, but now the sun’s out so we’ll scoot on over to our basking spots and sit a spell.

Word has it that the Burmese python eggs are about to hatch over at the animal exhibit, and if you hurry up and book your full day tour you just might get to see those little buggers coming out of the eggs. Folks say they’re surprised when they look at the eggs. Apparently people have a much different idea about what python eggs are supposed to look like. Folks say, “they look like deflated softballs!” but I don’t know what a softball is, so I can’t speak to the accuracy of that comparison.

We’re all on pins and needles waiting for our young’uns to hatch, too. Should be soon that we hear the tiny grunt grunt of hatchlings calling out for their mamas all over the glades.

I’ll keep you posted and let you know when the first of the hatchlings arrive!

See you soon!

Zebra Longwing - Florida State butterfly

Howdy there, Adventurers!

Life is grand down here in the Everglades, and we have been so happy to see so many visitors braving the summer months to pay us a visit. Nature abounds, and the tour groups are having a blast seeing us swimming in the Turner River and congregating for some social time. Most people don’t realize us gators are social animals, but we are. We all have our own personalities and temperaments like you folks, we’re not lazy lizards like some people believe! And boy, let me tell you, we are quick, too. We’ve been having some hefty rain storms blow in, and one biggun came down and knocked my friend Sunshine the Giant Swallowtail butterfly right to the ground. The good news is, the Everglades Adventure Tour van came along later that afternoon and found her on the road during their nature drive. All those folks got to take a good long look at that big, beautiful black and yellow butterfly and admire how much detail goes into even the smaller creatures out here.

We hope to see you soon!