Life in Florida brings one adventure after another, and sometimes we don’t even need to leave the comfort of our own home to experience encounters with wildlife that is more expected in a river or lake.
This beautiful young alligator paid us a visit. It was very small, certainly less than 4 feet long, and still had the stripey baby gator tail that I love so much. It arrived late one afternoon and was gone by the next evening. It allowed us to get within about 10 feet, but would then slip into the depths of our pool to avoid us.
In the days following this encounter, an alligator attacked a small dog and was pulled away by the dog’s owner (you can see it here). Lola, as we named “our” gator, was a bit smaller than the one pictured in the video, but we have a dog much smaller than the dog in the video. So, as much as we loved sharing the pool deck with an alligator, we’re glad Lola found a better home. We were considering catching her in a box and taking her to Lake Eustis, where we’ve seen other small gators, but all in all I’m glad we did not have to do that, especially after watching what a fierce fight the gator in the video put up!