I’m going to make a new rule for myself… don’t believe anything anyone tells me while out on my photo hikes. Last week I was duped into thinking I’d get to see snakes and this week, it was a gator. Liars!
I had high hopes this time. I already had one gator sighting where I went – St. Andrew’s State Park, Panama City – so I believed! I’ve also photographed a gator while hiking at Blackwater River State Park, but I really wanted to see this one. You know, shake things up a bit. It was not to be.
I think that all the people out on Saturday, pissed off the little lizard (several people said she was only about four feet), and she swam away. Oh, bother. I did get to see a cormorant sunning himself and a juvenile heron. Not as dramatic as a gator, but it’ll have to do for this week.
Before I headed out on my hike, I sent out a call for help deciding where to go… beach or woods. It was split, so I did both. For the first time I opted to visit the beach at St. Andrews and not just the gator pond. I’m glad I did, because I discovered a fishing pier there I’d never seen before. Then, I hiked a nature trail near Deer Lake at Sandestin.
(Photos shot with a Nikon D60, using an 18-55mm, 55-200mm, 20mm f/2.8 wide-angle, 50mm f/1.8 prime lens, Nikon CoolPix S205 and/or iPhone4)
For more photos, please visit my Flickr photostream.
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Thin spiral notebook 
Gorgeous pics — looks like it was worth both the trips!
🙂
Traci
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A gator….I’m not so keen to see one, thank you.
But your seashore/sea shots are always interesting and out of this world…or my world anyway! 🙂
Had my first school day today – now I’m so ready to relax…so many new words, rules etc. but I like it!
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Beautiful pics! The second to last one looks like a landscape painting!
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The pictures are all beautiful. Love the headshot of the bird. Recently, we visited a bird sanctuary with a lake around it – and fancy our fright when we saw a croc just gliding past our boat! Later, as we circled the lake, we saw quite a few sunning themselves on the rocks.
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You’re braver than I am. I would never go looking for a gator. I’m happy enough to see a few birds and insects.
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As usual, your post do not disappoint. Gators, eh? A few weeks ago, a large monster gator was caught in a canal near my childhood home. In the past, we had small babies in that area. This guy was humongous. I do not need that type of thrill.
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Love your pictures. The cormorant with its spreading wings is beautiful. It is almost as though the birds were posing today.
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That’s exactly how it felt to me. The cormorant would preen and walk for me, and the heron actually turned slightly towards me after several other hikers left, as if to say, “I’ll pose for you, but not them.”
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i answered beach too
beautiful pictures
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I love the fishing pier… it needs a couple of young lovers on the end kissing don’t you think?
Mollyxxx
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A young couple did set up a hammock under the pier. They looked very cozy there..
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I love the bird who is just looking right into the camera there.
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He (I think it’s a ‘he’) was standing on a sign at the edge of the pond, and stayed there, motionless, the entire time I was hiking around… about 30 minutes. The sign was a warning about alligators in the pond. Never got to see the gator though.
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