Reportedly, there are more than 200 different species of birds, 60 species of amphibians, 34 different species of fish, 40 species of mammals and 50 species of reptiles who call the Okefenokee home. I think I may have encountered 30 of them in my two days there. So here I will briefly look at some of the animals I saw and a few that I didn't but wished I would have!
Animals I saw.
American Alligator: Gotta start with this one! This famous resident of the swamp came off the endangered species list in 1987 as there were gazillions of them out there! Of course, southeast Georgia has suffered from a severe drought for the past year and a half so the water level in the swamp was really low. When this happens all the alligators become concentrated in the remaining pockets of water. I suspect I encountered more than one normally would. From this, we can guess that there are a lot of other critters roaming around the swamp as alligators are apex predators, top of the heap, king of the hill -- ain't nothin' gonna eat an alligator ... except people. Hey, they have even been know to eat black bears! (And a few too curious people) To support so many large predators this high up the food web, there have got to be lots of little creatures, providing lots of energy that they, in turn, gathered from lots of plants.
Like all reptiles, alligators lay hard shelled eggs, though in this case, rather large hard-shelled eggs. The eggs are laid in a nest of rotting vegetation the female builds near the water. The rotting vegetation keeps the eggs warm, as the female does not hang around. As in other reptiles the temperature of the egg will determine the gender of the baby alligator; temperatures in teh low 90's (F) will produce males while temperatures in the low 80's (F) will produce females. Pretty cool, huh. (Our Diamondback Terrapin eggs are the same!)
(For still more on the American Alligator, see the post on Harris Neck NWR:
http://kurtswinterwetlands.blogspot.com/2010/12/harris-neck-nwr-georgia.html)
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| My escort... |
Great Blue Heron: We know this bird locally as the Johnnie Crane. A common year-round resident in the Chesapeake it is equally common in the Okefenokee. Standing about 4 feet high the Great Blue Heron waits patiently in the shallows for an unsuspecting fish to swim by. Snatching the fish with a quick snap of its long beak, the heron deftly gives it a flip and swallows it whole. I wonder how they keep alligators from doing the same thing to them? As I canoed I was escorted by a couple of herons who kept flying ahead of me, landing, then flying away again when I caught up to them. Along the way there were tons of alligators, but I suppose the herons know well how to avoid them, and truly the alligators seemed too lazy to care. Alas.
Belted Kingfisher: Another common bird of the Chesapeake also preceded me as I canoed along. Clacking as it went, and never going too far ahead of the canoe before landing it led me for about 4 miles down the canoe trail.
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| Killdeer |
River Otter: I only saw one kind of mammal and only saw it once; as I paddled silently along I came upon an otter resting on a log under the branches along the edge of the water. As I reached to turn on my camera, it looked up and silently slipped off the log and into the water. I followed the bubbles it left behind but did not see mim again. This was a cool encounter as we both seemed to see each other at the same time, regarded each other with mutual curiosity and then both went on our way. What was really cool is he was only about 5 feet from me!
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| Basking Cooter |
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| Green Heron |
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| Red-Bellied Turtle |
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