This is hopefully an ongoing diary of sightings and observations in and along the canal in the linear park, officially known as the "Town N Country Greenway", near my home in Tampa, Florida.

I've been walking and biking in the park on a fairly regular basis for several years, now, and have seen a variety of flora and fauna; but my sighting of a pair of full grown manatees there in August, 2000 was so unexpected and so awe inspiring as to prompt me to begin taking notes with a view to publishing this diary.

Use your browser's BACK button to return to this page from any of the photos that follow ... Click Here to see my diagram of the section of the park between Webb and Hanley roads; it's only 130 pixels high, but you may need to scroll to see its full 1385 pixel width. Click Here to see a view along the canal from a spot near "The Bridge" on the Hanley to Webb section ... Click Here to have a look at the Town N Country Home Owners Civic Association web site, which has many beautiful photographs of the park and its environs.

09Dec2007: Here is a little slow-motion movie of the type of hawk that I often see in the neighborhood and that I have described here on several previous occasions.

Joyce discovered this particular specimen sitting in a tall pine tree in our own back yard, only a quarter mile north of the linear park, and I hurried to get my camera in hopes of recording its distinctive call and getting a picture or two. The hawk hung around for over a half hour, calling loudly and occasionally receiving an answering call from somewhere not too far away; but the audio recording was not to be: the camera's audio circuitry failed to work and the only sound I got with my 60 megabytes of movies was a little scratchy static.

19Nov2007 2:37am: The big gator across from "the bridge" on the Hanley-Webb section of the linear ... the first time I've seen it in ages.

I walk the dogs by this spot several times a week, but this time I happened to be alone on my bike so I hurried home to get my camera and returned a few minutes later to take this photo. I hung around over an hour hoping to get a movie of the beast swimming away, but no luck ... it lifted its front leg a few times, as if to stretch a bit, that that was about it. When I returned with the dogs at 4:30 it still hadn't moved; that movie will just have to wait 'til next time.

06Mar2007 2:41pm - A gator in the canal between the Old Memorial and Waters Trailheads of the Upper Tampa Bay Trail.

I was on my bike, having just come from the Old Memorial Trailhead, and my attention was drawn by another biker several blocks ahead of me who had stopped to look toward the canal. The biker had moved on by the time I got to where I had first noticed him, but when I looked in the direction I supposed he had been looking, there was the gator, near the opposite bank of the canal, swimming leisurely toward the Waters Trailhead. The spot was about half way between Alonso High School and the Waters Trailhead, and the gator looked to be at least a ten-footer.

26Nov2006 1:41pm - A gator in the canal near the Old Memorial Trailhead of the Upper Tampa Bay Trail.

I was just returning to the trailhead with the dogs after a stroll down Old Memorial, and my attention was drawn to the gator by a couple of guys who were studying it closely with a pair of binoculars. The gator was in the weeds on the west side of the canal, perhaps twenty yards south of the footbridge near the trailhead, and it seemed to be mostly visible above the weeds and water. My naked eye assessment it its size: about seven feet long.

21Nov2006 11:52am - A medium sized gator in the small triangular pond near Alonso High School.

The pond is across Montague Street from the Upper Tampa Bay Trail, a little southwest of the southwest road into Alonso from Montague and about three or four blocks northeast of the Old Memorial Trailhead; and the gator might as well have been there posing - it was completely out of the water, lying parallel to the left bank a few feet from the water, and facing toward the street. From the sidewalk only sixty or so feet away, it was easy to see the whole gator and to estimate it to be about seven feet long.

16Nov2006 1:08pm - The previous evening's heavy rains helped a gator sighting on the linear ... but where did the horses come from?

The gator was a small one, about 2-1/2 feet long, and I found it in near the southeast corner of the first small lake east of Sheldon on the linear, a place that has been pretty dry and weedy for a long time. But today there was shallow open water in the spot, and the gator was lying there more or less facing the trail, just a few feet from shore, maybe 12 feet from the fence. It watched me watching it for a half minute of so and then abrupty about-faced and disappeared into the lake.

In my experience, horses on the Hanley/Webb section of the linear are about as rare as manatees in the canal, so the two horses and riders I saw today were quite a surprise. They were walking west, about a quarter mile from Webb Road, so I suppose that they had come from the ranch at the east end of the linear and were just making a longer than usual jaunt.

14Nov2006 [early afternoon] - Three alligators near the Upper Tampa Bay Trail and a small hawk a half mile from my home.

The first gator was in Rocky Creek just north of the Waters Avenue bridge, in almost exactly the same place I had spotted a similar-sized gator on October 29th. This time its entire length seemed to be visible above the dense vegetation, and I estimated that it was 7 or 8 feet long.

The second gator was on the far shore of the third small pond north of Linebaugh on the Upper Tampa Bay Trail, about a quarter of the way north from the south end of the pond. I'd seen big gators near this spot many times in the last few years, but this was appearance was unique in that the gator was parallel to, and right up against the shore, as if it was a chunk of drift wood driven by a strong wind. Only about 6 feet of its body was visible because its head, neck, and tail were mostly obscured by weeds, but based on what I could see, I'd say the gator was something like 10 feet long.

After stopping to look at the second gator, I continue my bike ride north to Sheldon road and then doubled back. The second gator hadn't moved when I returned to the spot twenty five minutes later, but just after that I saw the third gator, in the south end of the next small pond to the south. This gator was mostly submerted, with only tip of its nose and the back of its head visible above the water, but it was only a dozen or so feet away from me and I was very sure I was looking a the head of a large gator of the 10 foot or longer variety.

The hawk was sitting on a telephone line alongside Pat Blvd, about halfway between Waters and Woodbridge, and it remained remained there silently for a half a minute while I examined it from about 12 feet away. I guess this was just another of the same sort of hawk I've often seen around here in the past few years, but I'm still having trouble pinning the species down; the front of this one's body was a dirty white color with small tan spots, the spots sparse toward the head and becoming even sparser toward the tail.

06Nov2006 8:30am - And now for something completely different: an abandoned car on the linear park, a quarter mile east of Webb Road.

Here is a December 2004 picture of area where it happened, and here is a picture of what was there when I walked by with the dogs this morning. And with all four of its wheels removed, it was going to be there long enough for lots of other people to see it too.

29Oct2006 2:51pm - A gator in Rocky Creek just south of the bridge on the Sheldon end of the linear park.

It was swimming slowly toward the bridge when I first saw it, coming more or less up the center of the creek. It continued on for perhaps twenty seconds, heading toward a point almost directly below where I was standing on the bridge; and then it apparently saw me and turned toward the concrete drainage pipe off to my right. It stopped about 10 feet from the pipe, in a place where its head was out of my view behind overhanging tree branches, but its back and part of its tail were still visible.

A few minutes later it moved again, this time stopping just at the mouth of the drainage pipe, as if it was ready to swim right in; and then its body dropped below the surface and only the top of its snout and the back of its head remained visible. I watched for several minutes to see what would happen next, but then my attention wandered briefly to a noisy anhinga on the opposite bank and I when looked back toward the pipe, the gator had vanished.

As to the gator's size, when I first saw it swimming toward me I'd guessed that it was at least 10 feet long. And as to whether of not I'd seen this particular specimen before, 10 feet long would make it rather large to be one of gators I'd seen near the drainage pipe. But it seemed to to know about the drainage pipe; maybe it had simply grown a lot since I'd last seen it. And come to think of it, maybe it was also the very same gator I'd seen in the creek near Waters Avenue two days earlier.

27Oct2006 10:56am - A gator in Rocky Creek just north of the Waters Avenue bridge.

I was on my bike headed for the Upper Tampa Bay Trail where it crosses Sheldon just a few blocks away, and I spotted the gator when I glanced down at the creek from the sidewalk along the Waters bridge. The gator was about ten yards north of the bridge, floating in dense vegetation on the west side the of creek, and although it was the first gator I had seen in this particular location, it was definitely not one of the more massive gators that I'd seen before in the general area. But it wasn't tiny, either ... the part that was clearly visible was at least five feet long, and I'd guess that the part of its tail obscured by the weeds and water was at least another foot and a half long.

27Sep2006 3:07pm - Two big gators in the third little lake north of Linebaugh on the Upper Tampa Bay Trail.

When I saw the first gator it was about three quarters out of the water on the far bank of the lake, lying perpendicular the shoreline so that a good part of its tail was obscured by weeds and water and its head was considerably up the sloping bank. From my tail-on point of view, the front of its snout was also obscured, I suppose because its neck was bent slightly down.

I stood and watched, and after a minute or so the gator flexed all four legs but didn't really change position; so I followed the shoreline to my right until I got to a point here I had a better view. I could could see the gator well enough from my new vantage point to estimate that it was nine or more feet long and guess that it was probably one of the pair of large gators I'd seen in the same location several months earlier. And, from my new vantage point I could see a black spot moving suspiciously about in the water near the first alligator. I was about ready to conclude that the black spot was actually the head of a second alligator when the first alligator abrupty turned toward the lake and jumped in with a large and noisy splash.

There was a brief thrashing-about in the water, but things soon calmed down and then there were two gators in full view, swimming lazily around each other as if they were playing some sort of game. But I soon realized that they were doing something else too: intentionally or not, they were slowly getting closer to where I was standing. When they got within about 35 feet of me, half the distance from where the first one had entered the water, I decided it was time for me to move on.

25Sep2006 7:27am: A hawk up close and personal near the Wilsky Trailhead of the Upper Tampa Bay Trail.

I've seen and mentioned hawks like this one before (e.g. March 2005), about a foot high and about a 2-1/2 foot wing span, but this one was sitting in plain sight on a tree branch just 20 feet from me, and it was screeching from the time I first noticed it to the time it flew away a few minutes later.

The screeching was what was most interesting; I noted down its call as a very definitely two syllable "eeeh aaah", repeated perhaps every three seconds, and that just doesn't jibe with my earlier guess that it was a Broad Winged Hawk. After reviewing all the candidates in my Audubon Field Guide to Florida, my new guess is that it is one of what the Guide calls a "smaller, very pale, washed out race" of Red Shouldered Hawks that inhabits south Florida. The problem with that, though, is that the underside markings on the hawks I've seen are brown-on-tan, whereas the underside markings on the specimen in the Guide photo are more like white-on-tan.

18Aug2006 7:27am: An alligator near the Old Memorial Trailhead of the Upper Tampa Bay Trail.

The dogs and I had just arrived for our morning walk, and I decided to go out to the middle of the new foot bridge to see what we could see before we got started. I happened to look to the south first, and there, forty feet in front of us, was an alligator. Just its head was visible at first, but after a few minutes, its back broke the surface of the water and we could vaguely see its tail under the water as it began swimming slowly forward. We remained quiet and had a good view as it passed under the bridge several feet to our right, and then we hurried across to the other side of the bridge to watch it re-emerge and continue on toward Alonso high school.

17Aug2006: One of those big grasshoppers that we see on the trail shows up in my front courtyard.

I've been seeing these things occasionally on the linear park and on the Upper Tampa Bay Trail for several months now, but this one caught me by surprise when I found it looking back at me from a plant I was watering this afternoon. Like the specimens on the trail, this one was quite placid, stretching its legs occasionally but not really moving very much, and so I was able to get close with a ruler and record its actual size: 2-3/8 inches from its eyes to the end of its body.

09Aug2006, noon-ish: A gator in the canal behind the water treatment plant at Sheldon and Waters.

I saw this one from the bridge over the canal on Sheldon between Waters Ave and the Upper Tampa Bay Trail just to the north. It was pretty far away, perhaps 100 feet, but it was definitely a good-sized alligator, it was swimming in my direction, and I hadn't seen another gator in over a month; so I stopped to watch. After a short time, though, the gator changed course to head diagonally into shore by the water treatment plant, and very soon it disappeared from view behind the large elevated pipes just beyond the bridge. I waited awhile to see if it would reappear, but there was still no sign of it after several minutes and so I went on my way.

09Aug2006 8:28am: Another small armadillo, one that I suspect must have had very bad eyesight.

The dogs and I had just crossed the street in front the Old Memorial Trailhead on the Upper Tampa Bay Trail, intending to head northwest along the sidewalk and take advantage of the shade for our morning walk, when something caught Trixie's attention and she walked a few feet down the steep ditch to sniff and look around. Meanwhile, I had spotted the armadillo at the bottom of the ditch about a dozen feet to our left, and I was keeping quiet to see if and when the dogs would notice it too. What actually happened, though, was that armadillo scurried toward Trixie, stopped no more than two feet directly in front of her, stood straight up on its two hind legs, and stood peering at her. In an instant both dogs finally noticed the stranger in their midst and began howling and barking ... and the armadillo quickly retreated down the ditch and into the woods.

08Aug2006 10:30am: Manatees in the canal near the Old Memorial Trailhead of the Upper Tampa Bay Trail!

I was riding my bike from the Old Memorial Trailhead toward the Waters Trailhead when I noticed the manatees about a block southwest of Alonso High School. There was pair swimming together in my side of the canal, and a single manatee or perhaps a second pair closer to the opposite side of the canal and perhaps a block behind the first pair, all moving leasurely in the direction of the Old Memorial Trailhead. They were completely under the water and out of view most of the time; but every few minutes they would glide to the surface, nose first and looking somewhat like an alligator, and after a few seconds they would resume their undulating progress, the head disappearing, then the back briefly appearing, then the tail briefly appearing, and then they would be lost from view again.

After watching for a few minutes, I got on the bike and rode in the direction the manatees were heading and after a couple of blocks when I was sure I was ahead of then I found a clear spot in the weeds a stopped to wait at the edge of the canal. Amazingly, within a minute, one of the manatees came into shore, or more accurately, into the mass of floating vegetation directly in front of me, stopped no more than fifteen feet from where I was standing, and began munching. I couldn't really see very much then, just a few square feet of smooth black skin. but I could hear the munching and see the vegetation being jerked around. After a few minutes, the manatee dropped below the water and departed without surfacing.

I tried the getting-ahead-of-them trick a few more times, but I was hampered by a park ranger cutting the grass nearby and so I finally decided to go all the way down to the new bridge over the canal at the Old Memorial Trailhead and wait there. This turned out to be a good plan ... the pair that had been on my side of the canal soon approached, and at 10:40 the first one passed directly under where I was standing on the bridge. I couldn't really see it very distinctly as it under me, but I hurried to the other side of the bridge and was rewarded with a nice view of its whole body gliding past, to the end of its fan-shaped horizontal tail.

I got back to the other side of the bridge just in time to see the second manatee heading for a point several feet to my left, and I was able to adjust my position in time to watch it glide directly under me, and then get back to the other side again to see it re-emerge, just as the first had done.

08Aug2006 9:47am: A hatchling turtle on the Upper Tampa Bay Trail.

I found the turtle making its way slowly across the paved trail, about halfway between the Waters Trailhead the Old Memorial Trailhead, and I picked it up to have a better look. Its shell was about 1-1/4 inches long, with crisp markings in various shades of green and yellow; but what really caught my attention was a small, flat, yellow structure attached to the bottom shell ... roughly diamond shaped, about a quarter of the length and width of the shell, containing a bright red circular marking (or perhaps opening) of about two millimeters in diameter, and soft (like skin) to the touch. I had never seen anything like this before.

Later, a little research revealed that 1) the turtle was probably a hatchling Florida Cooter; 2) the yellow structure was the remains of a yolk sac, which had probably been roughly the size of the turtle itself at when it hatched and would soon disappear completely; and 3) the turtle had probably probably hatched less than a week earlier, based on the condition of the yolk sac.

05Aug2006 8:31am: A deer less than a mile from the Old Memorial Trailhead of the Upper Tampa Bay Trail!

I was walking the dogs, as usual for this time of the morning, having started from the Old Memorial Trailhead and headed northwest along Old Memorial Hwy. The dogs were being quiet for a change, and we were almost to Pond Shadow Lane, the last street before Countryway Blvd, when the deer emerged from the woods on the south side of Old Memorial, not more than 60 feet in front of use, and calmly walked across the street and into the woods on the north side of the street. I estimated that it stood about five feet high to the top if its head, and it had no horns; I don't remember any distinctive markings, just varying shades of brown and grey.

I don't think the dogs saw the deer, and I don't think the deer saw us, but it was definitely a special moment for me; in the twenty seven years I've lived here, this was the first deer I've seen in the wild anywhere near Tampa, and the spot was only about 2-1/2 miles from my house.

23June2006 9:01am: An armadillo on on the Upper Tampa Bay Trail.

Now armadillos can't be very rare around here ... we come across the remains of armadillos that have been hit by cars every month of two; but this is the first time I've seen an armadillo on the Upper Tampa Bay Trail. And unlike the usual situation where I spot the new creature first, the credit for this particular discovery goes mainly to Trixie, our beagle.

We had just passed the picnic table and trash barrel north of Gardner Road on our way to Gunn Highway when we heard a bit of noise coming the trees to the west of the trail. It sounded like just another lizard to me, but Trixie seemed to know better and began howling. So we had a look, and soon we were watching a small armadillo, about the size of a ten pound cat, snuffling along, minding its own business, and seemingly oblivious to our attentions. Oddly, the dogs pretty much lost interest once they had a good look at the critter, and they made no further protests when we left the scene and resumed our walk.

23June2006 8:38am: A surprise appearance by a small gator near the Linebaugh trailhead of the Upper Tampa Bay Trail.

The surprise was that this gator was in the small pond on the northeast corner of Linebaugh, and Wilsky, and the dogs and I saw it from the car(!) on our way home from exploring the woods very near the pond but on the Upper Tampa Bay Trail side of the fence. An interesting sidelight: just weeks earlier, the pond had been completely dry, but the several inches of rain we had during the past week was enough to make the water in the pond appear as full as ever.

The head was all we could really see of this gator head, but we were pretty close and there was a plastic bottle floating nearby for scale. From that evidence, I'd say the gator was about 4 feet long.

17June2006 1:19pm: A big gator in Rocky Creek near the suspension bridge on the Upper Tampa Bay Trail just south of the Linebaugh landfill.

This gator was in about the same place as the ones I had seen in November 2004 and earlier, but it appeared to be very much larger than the earlier ones. I discussed this with another fellow who arrived while I was taking notes, and we mutually speculated that this gator might be one of the big fellows we had frequently seen in the third little lake north of Linebaugh along the Trail, perhaps a quarter of a mile from where we were saw this one today.

11June2006 8:13am: An appearance by the big gator on the Hanley-Webb section of the linear.

As I came up to "the bridge", I saw Joe Grano standing there gazing across the canal and so I stopped to see what he was looking at ... and there was the big gator we had both been keeping tabs on for the past several months. Neither of us had a camera along that day, but here is a nice photo that Joe took back in March, showing the beast swimming down the canal at about the same spot.

23May2006 4:34pm - A toddler sized gator in the second pond from the Sheldon end of the linear.

This was probably the same juvenile gator that I saw and reported here a couple of times in mid-March, in almost the same place as before, but this time it looked a bit larger, perhaps 2 feet long, and this time it had some markings I hadn't noticed before.

12May2006 12:51am - Something fishy under the bridge on the at the Sheldon end of the linear.

Perfect lighting and a low water level due to the near-drought weather made it a spectacular time to view the fish and turtles from the bridge, so I fetched my camera and took some pictures and a few movies. This photo of a fish tending its nest was taken looking almost directly down from the bridge; this little movie clip (700 KB) shows the same fish in motion.

05Apr2005 4:35pm - A three-legged gator just a few yards from the trail on the Webb-to-Sheldon section of the linear.

I had just come from Sheldon on my bike and was about a quarter block from the rest area before the bridge when an odd dragging noise attracted my attention; I looked to my right, and there was the gator, just outside the wire fence and walking unhurriedly back toward the west. I quickly stopped and backed up to have a better look, and within a few seconds the gator saw me, too, and stopped and stood motionless.

Since the gator was behind the fence and I could get within 5 feet from it without much danger, I had to study it for awhile before moving on. In a few minutes other people started coming by and stopping to join me, and one man had even had time to fetch his camera and get a couple of pictures before the gator lumbered away into the woods.

The apparently missing right front leg was on the side toward us, and the left front leg as well as both back legs and the webbing on the both back feet were very easy to see; but I happened to be glancing away at the instant that the gator departed and so I am not 100 percent sure that the right front was really missing. All 5 adults present agreed that the leg seemed to be missing and that the stub must have long since healed over, however, and when I get my promised copy of the pictures, I'll post them here so you can judge for yourself.

With regard to the gator's size, I had time to make a rough sketch of the way the gator was stretched out behind the wire fence, and I later calculated the gator's length at about 6 feet 4 inches, given the number of fence wires in the sketch and the measured distance between two adjacent wires.

30Mar2006 9:20am - Another small gator near Sheldon, and another sighting of the familiar big gator on the Hanley-to-Webb section of the linear.

The small gator was about a 2-1/2 footer, and I found it in the first pond just east of Sheldon, perhaps 25 feet from the trail. It was perched on patch of weeds, completely out of the water as far as I could tell, but still about half obscured by the weeds. It scrambled down and disappeared after a few seconds, but for an instant I could see its full length and could tell that is was definitely larger than the juvenile I've seen in the next pond to the east.

The big gator, the one mentioned on Feb. 20th and photographed on Feb. 26th (see below), was on the north bank of the canal this time, about a block east of the bridge, and just about directly across from the telephone pole that stands across the canal at that point. The place I saw him today seems to be where he spends most of his time; he has been seem there many time during the past several weeks, and on a few occasions, swimming between there and his other favorite spot, on the other side of the canal near the black drainage pipe.

27Mar2006 9:45am - A big gator high-and-dry near the Upper Tampa Bay Trail.

The gator was on the far bank of the third little lake north of Linebaugh, and it was a good five feet away from the water, up the moderately sloping bank. With its full 9-1/2 or 10 feet stretched out parallel to the water line and with its top tilted a bit toward us because of the slope of the bank, it made a nice tableau as seen from our vantage point directly across the lake.

I should point out, though, that I was somewhat off the paved trail for this sighting because the dogs and I had taken the shortcut around the large stand of trees between the trail and most of the lake. While the path we were on was clear and well maintained, it would be a little soft for anything but pedestrians and so I guess the folks on skates or pushing baby carriages will never get quite the same view.

22Mar2006 3:29pm - Another look at the juvenile gator from a few days ago, this time with a better view of its tail.

It was very near the place on the Sheldon end of the linear where I had seen it on March 19th, but this time it was facing diagonally away from me and I could clearly see vertical yellow markings, about 1/4 inch wide and 1-1/4 inch apart, over the last 8 or so inches of its tail. I also got the impression that the gator's tail was somehow divided into two parts just at the point where the markings began, the back section being more sharply vertical than the front section; and looking back, I get the same sense from my photo of the big gator from February 26th.

19Mar2006 3:00pm - The first juvenile gator I've seen for a long time.

It was a few feet from the northwest corner of the second little pond on the Sheldon end of the linear, and I had just passed by twice, looking right at it and thinking it must be a small tree limb with bark still attached. When I finally stopped to have a closer look, I could plainly see the 18 or 20 inch long gator, mostly above the water and completely clear of the floating green muck that surrounded its little patch of open water.

This gator didn't have any of the yellow markings that I had seen on other young gators over the past few years, but he did exhibit one distinctly un-adult behavior: after calming watching me while I watched him, he make an abrupt, very noisy jump-turn and disappeared below the water the second I started to leave.

16Mar2006 9:43am - A better view of the small gator under the bridge on the the Sheldon end of the linear, and a fox (!) near the ballfields.

The gator was probably the same one I saw in the same place a couple of weeks earier, but this time it was facing into the drainage pipe and this time it was fairly easy to make out. Since I had my bike with me, I hustled home to get my camera and returned to take this picture just a few minutes later. The raw photo turned out to be nearly useless, though; I did quite a bit of editing - including toning down the clutter around the gator's head - before I got something that seemed a decent representation of what I had actually been able to see.

Less than a half hour after taking the gator photo, I came across the fox just east of the ballfields and luckily I still had the camera in my pocket. The fox was perhaps 50 yards north of the trail, just trotting along, when I first spotted it, but it soon saw me, too, and broke into a full run, heading across the trail toward the canal. I stopped immediately and managed to get the camera out and turned on in time to get a fuzzy photo of the fox streaked along; and then it paused at the canal bank for a few seconds and I got a second fuzzy photo before it disappeared over the edge.

04Mar2006 2:08pm - the massive gator reappears very near the spot on the Hanley-to-Webb section of the linear where I had photographed it week earlier.

It was on the south shore of the canal, about 150 yards west of the rest area on the Hanley end, and this time it was facing northeast, with its tail curled as in last week's photo and just the tip of its snout under the water. In this posture it looked even larger than it did in the photo, and today I thought it might be as much as 12 feet long.

28Feb2006 - The dogs finally flush out something ... probably not one of Carl Hiaasen's blue tongued voles, but something like it.

Over the past several months, Riley and Trixie have spent dozens of hours rooting through the tall grass in the linear park and Upper Tampa Bay Trail, Trixie often pausing in mid-snuffle to raise her head and howl her frustration at not actually catching anything. Today I finally got a clue as to what they find so facinating about the tall grass.

We were at the Waters trailhead of the Upper Tampa Bay Trail, a block or two east of the main building and near the horse trail on the north edge of the park. The dogs had already been snuffling around and howling for almost an hour when the vole (or whatever) scurried away from us, across the horse path, and into the weeds on the other side. This happened so fast that the dogs didn't even notice; all I saw was a fuzzy blur that I guessed was about 5 inches long and 1-1/2 inches wide. I remember that I did not notice a tail, though, and I guess that makes it more likely that the thing actually was a vole and not a rat.

27Feb2006 - A couple of not-too-exciting gator sightings and a black snake on the Sheldon end of the linear.

The first gator was probably the same one I reported seening in the weeds near the bend on Rocky Creek two days before; this time, though, it was more obscured by weeds and bit more difficult to see. I could see enough to tell that it was clearly much smaller than the beast I photographed yesterday, however.

The second gator was so hard to see that I would hesitate to claim it was a gator at all if I hadn't seen a small gator in the exact spot on July 21st 2004 (reported below), or if today's gator hadn't disappeared from the spot between the time I found it and the time I returned to the scene 15 minutes later. Anyway, what there was to be seen extended out of the concrete drainage pipe shown in this photo taken from bridge in December of 2004, and lighting conditions were no better today than they are in the photo. Only about seven inches of his snout, from his eyes forward, were visible above the water, and the vague shape of his back could barely be seen below the water, extending backward into the pipe.

The snake was a just common black snake, perhaps four feet long, and it slithered off the pavement rapidly when it saw me approching. The most interesting thing is where it was: almost exactly across from the spot where I photographed the big gator yesterday.

26Feb2006 - Two more big gators, and this time I got a picture!

It was 10:35am and I was walking the dogs on the Upper Tampa Bay Trail when I spotted the first gator in the near side of the Channel "A" canal, almost directly across from Alonso High School's main entrance on Montague Street. The gator was about 40 feet from our vantage point near the top of the canal bank, in fairly heavy vegetation and facing away from us; its head and much of its tail were clearly visible but its back was obscured and it was difficult to judge its size.

I saw the second gator at 1:47pm while I was out biking, very near the spot on the Hanley Road end of the linear where I had seen another (the same?) gator only six days earlier. Since I was only about a mile from home, I hurried back to get the camera and took this photo; it gives you some idea what it looked like, but it somehow fails to convey my strongest impression at the time, which was that this gator was massive in its midsection.

25Feb2006 4:22pm - Two big alligators in Rocky Creek west of the bridge on the Sheldon Road end of the linear park.

I noticed the first gator as I was riding my bike just west of the rest area on the west side of the bridge; it was swimming slowly west down the middle of the creek, quite easily visible, and looked to be easily eight or nine feet long. When I stopped on the trail to have a better look and make notes, it stopped swimming and submerged a bit, but after a few minutes it resumed swimming in the direction that it had been going. That brought it out of view behind of the trees and vegetation to my left, so I got back on the bike and went ahead a half block or so to wait. The gator failed to re-appear after a few minutes, though, so I assumed it had completely submerged and I had lost it.

I moved another half block west to the next good vantage point, and there, lo and behold, I saw another large gator, this one nosed into the thick floating vegetation on the far side of the creek. Actually, at first I thought that what I was seeing was the first gator, which I supposed must have arrived ahead of me; but after another minute or so the first gator appeared on my right, swimming west down the center of the creek as before. I noted the time as 4:51pm as I watched the gator pass in front of me and proceed to follow the bend of the creek to the north and away from the trail.

With the second gator showing no signs of moving, I resumed my exercise ride, and when I returned to the spot 15 minutes later, the gator was still there just as I had left it: 2-1/2 or 3 feet of its back visible, but its tail (presumably) toward me and invisible under the water, and its head toward the far shore and completely obscured by the floating vegetation.

20Feb2006 9:51am - a big gator in a familiar spot, after almost a year's absence.

The gator was near the south shore of the canal, west of the rest area on the Hanley end, in almost exactly the same place as the gator in my photo of December 20, 2004 (see below). This time the drainage pipe in the upper right hand corner of the photo was obscured by weeds, but otherwise it was an familiar scene; as on previous occasions, the gator was mostly visible above the water, and this time I estimated that it was about 10 feet long.

18Feb2006 5:30pm - an unusual snake near the bridge on the Sheldon end of the linear park.

The snake was lying in a loose coil on the pavement when I rode up, and it remained motionless when I stopped very close to it and made a crude sketch and a jotted few notes before getting off the bike. But when I got down have a look at the markings on its sides and bottom, it finally reacted and slithered off into the weeds on the Rocky Creek side of the trail.

Back at home, I was surprised to discover that I couldn't find a matching picture in my Audubon field guide or in the usual places on the internet, but eventually I found this photo by Tom Spinker identifying the specimen a Florida Green Water Snake; it is used here with his permission.

In spite of the fact that most photos of Florida green water snakes are notably green, my observation matched the photo above well in both coloration and markings. I surmised that my snake (which I estimated to be only about 22 incles long) was a juvenile and would probably change to adult coloration later in its life.

07Feb2006 9:51am - a gator in the Channel "A" canal near the Upper Tampa Bay Trail, not far from Alonso High School.

The gator was at the near bank of the canal, just a couple of blocks southwest of the pedestrial traffic light at the Waters trailhead of the Upper Tampa Bay Trail. The trail is very close to the canal at that point and the bank is steep but fairly low, so I had a great view ... the gator was almost straight down, less than 20 feet away, and almost entirely visible above the water. I don't think I've ever been closer to an alligator in the wild!

I was just returning from a long walk with the dogs when I spotted the gator, and as usual, the dogs showed no interest whatever. I pointed the gator out to the first person who walked by, though, and between the two of us we decided that the gator was about 8 or 8-1/2 feet long.

16Nov2005 10:36am - a man and woman walking their dogs point out a gator in Rocky Creek for me.

The gator was in shallow water near the far bank of the creek, about half way between Sheldon and the bridge on the Sheldon end of the linear park. Its back was clearly visible, black and reminiscent of a truck tire tread, but is head was difficult to make out and the end of its tail was apparently below the water. Judging from what we could see, we supposed him to be about 6 or 7 feet long.

13Sep2005 11:35am - A gator up by the landfill.

He was in the center of the first small pond north of Linebaugh on the Upper Tampa Bay Trail, and he was submerged except for the back part of his head and the tip of his snout. I estimated that the visible part of his head from the eyes backwards was about 4 inches long, and that the whole span from the tip of his snout to back of his head was about twelve inches; I guess this would make him 5-1/2 or 6 feet long.

20Aug2005 7:36pm - My first gator sighting in a long time, and in an unusual place: near the bridge on the Webb-to-Sheldon section of the linear.

He was in shallow water on the east side of the bridge near the north shore, about 8 feet from the bridge and facing directly toward it. His head and perhaps half of his back were clearly visible, and judging from these I supposed he was fairly young and probably no more 7 feet in length.

05Jun2005 10:44am - I had just returned from St. Paul, where I did my jogging on the spectacular Big Rivers trail overlooking the confluence the Minnesota and Mississippi rivers, so I was especially pleased to see two alligators on my first outing in a month on our own Linear park.

The first gator was an old familiar, the big fellow in his usual haunt by the Shimberg ballfields, but the second was a newcomer, a juvenile only about four feet long, resting in shallow water about 20 yards west of the bridge at eastern end of the trail. It turned out to be a good day for horses, too; on the way over I saw a party of five horses and riders poking along just east of the ballparks, and when I crossed the bridge I saw a single horse grazing peacefully there in the open field.

28Apr2005 9:12am - A pair of juvenile black snakes (?) near the Linebaugh Upper Tampa Bay Trail trailhead.

One of the snakes was about 3 feet long and the other was about 2-1/2 feet long, and both were about an inch in diameter at their thickest. The longer one presently slithered leasurely away, affording me a good view of the regular, vertical pale orange spots marking its sides; but I could see no markings on the shorter one who remained motionless even as we went on our way.

27Apr2005 10:00am - The gator by the ballfields frolics and roars.

I was still a half block away when I first spotted him, and this time my first impression was that I was looking at a large truck tire floating vertically and bobbing slowly up and down, the top almost complete submerging and then rising almost a foot above the water. By the time I got directly across from him his head was clearly visable too, emerging from the water about three feet beyond his bobbing mid-section and nosed up at a 45 degree angle.

22Apr2005 10:00am - Another appearance of the gator by the ballfields, and this time I got a decent picture.

He was just a short distance from where I saw him three days earlier, but this time there were no weeds in the way and lighting was more favorable for a photo. My first impression was that he was big, probably at least 10 feet long; I imagine he might even be the same gator that used to turn up on the other side of Hanley but that I haven't seen in months.

19Apr2005 3:30pm - A hawk sitting on a birdhouse, a gator by the ballfields, a horse on the loose, and a snake on the trail.

The hawk was a small one, just like the ones I saw on March 9th, and this time it was perched on the last birdhouse on the side-trail that goes to the confluence of Rocky Creek and the canal east Sheldon. I think I've seen it in the same place once before, so I suppose it's taken up residence nearby and will be a common site around here for a while.

The gator was in the canal, of course, almost exactly across from the water stop just west of the ballfields near Morgan Woods school. He was pretty much out of the water but was a bit difficult to see because of a bunch of twiggy weeds sticking out of the canal just in front of him.

The horse, which was wearing a black halter with blue figuring, was calmly grazing beside the southeast end of the bridge at the eastern end of the Linear. It seemed not the least interested in my presence 15 feet away from it, but when I can back to the spot 15 minutes later it was gone.

The snake was on the trail just east of the ballfields, but it moved quickly away when I approached so I didn't get a very good look. My impressions was that it was a common black snake, perhaps 4 feet long and an inch and a half across at its widest; but I also thought I saw indistinct markings running most of its length on the sides, so I'm not sure.

10Apr2005 2:00pm - An easy gator sighting for the Sunday throng on the Upper Tampa Bay Trail.

He was about an 8 or 10-footer, sitting in shallow water near the suspension bridge just south of Linebaugh, close to the spot where Joyce and I had seen a similar sized gator back in November. He had moved only a few feet in the ten or so minutes between the time I saw him on my way north and the time I saw him on my way back south, so I guess he didn't mind the attention of all the passers-by.

19Mar2005 2:57pm - A gator in the pond just southeast of the Sheldon end of the linear park.

It was the largest gator I'd seen yet in the scruffy pond, but I suppose it was just the same gator I'd seen several times earlier, just grown larger and bolder since my last sighting. This time, I was passing by on my bike when I glanced over, not expecting much, but there it was in front of the cement pipe, mostly above the water and appearing to be about six feet long. I braked to a stop and returned to the spot, but by the time I got there it was submerging and soon only its eyes were visible. I glanced around for a piece of paper to take notes on and when I looked back it had vanished entirely.

09Mar2005 9:06am - The big gator and a couple of hawks welcome me back from Nigeria.

I had returned from a 25 day working trip to Lagos the night before, and first thing in the morning the dogs practically put on their own leashes in their rush to get some exercise. They weren't pleased when I insisted that we pause to look over the canal at the gator's usual haunt, but there he was, lounging by the black drainage pipe, just as we had left him a month earlier.

We saw the hawks flitting between trees, not soaring as might have been expected. They were about a foot tall and had brown-on-tan checkered markings on their breasts; the closest picture in my Audubon Field Guide was of the Broad Winged Hawk, although these specimens were a bit small for the description given in the text.

04Feb2005 9:06am - The big gator last seen on January 21st is back in the same old haunt.

The temperature was in the low 50's, thick clouds remained from the early morning rains, and an intermittent breeze contributing to the chill. This time, the gator was facing directly across the canal with only the end of his nose and his eyes out of the water, but with his head, his back, and the top of his hind legs easily visible below the surface.

23Jan2005 2:00pm - A flock of robins pauses on the linear on its way south.

They were on the Hanley end of the Hanley-to-Webb section of the linear park, by the holding pond, and they covered the trees and raised a chatter that you could hear from a block away. I guessed that there there were several hundred of them, which was a pretty big deal for me; before today, I had probably seen fewer than a couple dozen robins during the entire 25 years we've lived in Tampa.

Followup: I've seen lots of robins around the neighborhood during the several days following January 23rd, although no more large flocks such as described above. Could this have something to do with global warming?

21Jan2005 8:44am - My first gator sighting of 2005, in the same spot as my last gator sighting of 2004, and at almost exactly the same time of day.

This time I was walking the dogs by myself, enjoying the light fog that had rolled in an hour earlier and was now dissipating, and checking the usual places for gators as we went. Sure enough, there it was, near shore and parallel to the shoreline with nearly all of its length visible, looking a bit longer than it had before but otherwise very familiar.

A brief side note: part of the reason we were down on the linear this morning was to avoid the commotion of the the county road crews, who were amassed to finish repaving my and several adjacent streets for the first time in lots of years.

20Dec2004 8:47am - A gator on the Hanley-to-Webb section of the linear, shown in this photo taken with our new digital camera.

It was a bright, cool morning and the dogs insisted on going for a walk, so Joyce took Trixie, I took Riley, and we set out to explore the linear. We spotted the gator near the south shore of the canal, about 150 yards west of the rest area on the Hanley end, just below the old black drainage pipe that extends out above the water.

When I returned with the camera a half hour later, the gator had turned to face across the canal but otherwise had not moved. I set the camera to max resolution, took the shot at full zoom, and later edited and cropped the result to produce the picture included here.

27Nov2004 10:43am - An alligator in Rocky Creek, near the fancy suspension bridge just south of Linebaugh on the Upper Tampa Bay Trail.

He was about an eight-footer, situated in shallow water about 30 yards east of the bridge with his whole length visible. Several passing walkers, skaters, and bikers soon stopped to see what we were looking at (it being a pleasant Saturday morning), and after a few minutes we moved on to help ease the growing traffic jam.

28Sep2004 5:11pm - Yet another baby alligator on the Webb-to-Sheldon section of the linear park.

He was in the last little pond on the south side of the Sheldon end of the trail, in shallow water about 4 feet from the north east corner, near where I'd seen a toddler-size gator several times earlier. I estimated that he was about 15 inches long, and I noted that unlike the other baby gator I've reported recently, this one had no yellow stripes visible on the side of his midsection or tail.

24Sep2004 10:19am - A black racer on the Upper Tampa Bay Trail.

This one was a nice specimen, perhaps 4-1/2 feet long and noticably fat; he was lounging in the middle of the trail about three blocks south of the Waters trailhead, in an area where I've previously seen only the occasional rabbit or stray cat.

04Sep2004 04:57pm - The baby gator was back atop the concrete drainage pipe again ...

... and I saw him there again about three days later, although my notes as to the exact time were lost in the hurricane rigamarole. Both of these sightings were just like earlier ones; see the August 21st through August 29th entries for details.

03Sep2004 6:33pm - A black racer on the Webb-to-Sheldon section of the linear park.

It was about 3-1/2 feet long, and when I first spotted it, it was lazily crossing the trail, about a block west of the first rest area west of the bridge on the Sheldon end of the trail. By the time I got close, it had accelerating to racing speed and soon disappeared into the weeds.

OK, I admit that a black racer isn't very newsworthy, but it was the first snake I'd seen on the Webb-to-Sheldon section of the park, and it brought to mind the only other snake I'd seen in the area: the time was circa 1987, long before the linear park was built, and the snake was the first rattlesnake I'd ever seen in the wild.

29Aug2004 [early afternoon] - The baby gator was perched atop the concrete drainage pipe again today - just as he was two days before.

27Aug2004 1:30pm - The smaller baby gator or perhaps a sibling reappears on the Webb-to-Sheldon section of the linear park.

He was back on top of the concrete drainage pipe below the bridge at the Sheldon end of the trail, the vertical yellow stripes along his tail were very still evident, and he was scuttling around a bit so you could tell he was for real. The only odd thing was that this time I estimated that he was about 15 inches long where as just six days before I had estimated that he was only 11 or 12 inches long. Is it possible that he grew three inches in six days?

26Aug2004 10:02am - Another glimpse of the small gator near Sheldon Road - this time an appearance as well as a disappearance.

This time around I estimated that the distance from the tip of gator's snout to the back of his eye protuberances was only about 6, which leads me to think he was closer to 4 feet long than the 5 or 6 feet that I had originally thought.

26Aug2004 ~9:30am - A gator on the north side of the trail on the Hanley-to-Webb section of the linear? Maybe not. (Revised 27Aug2004)

What I thought I saw was the head of a large alligator and, floating nearby, a log that looked a bit like the front part of another alligator but was obviously not. The location was the north-south ditch on the north side of the "bridge", a few feet out into the water from the left bank.

When I returned the next morning to have a look at the spot , what I saw was that the log had moved to an almost symmetrical position on the right side of the ditch, and that there was now a chunk of wood or something, roughly the size of the "gator head" from the day before but looking nothing like an gator head, in the corresponding symmetrical position near the log. On this evidence, my best guess is that I was dead wrong to start with, and what I was looking initially at was just two pieces of wood.

21Aug2004 1:56pm Another baby alligator on the Webb-to-Sheldon section of the linear park.

He was sitting on top of the concrete drainage pipe below the bridge at the Sheldon end of the trail, maybe 50 feet away from my vantage point, and the first thing I noticed was that he had prominent vertical yellow stripes along his tail. After he move around a bit, basically starting to climb down the side of the pipe water in my direction, I could see his whole lenght and I estimated he was only about 11 or 12 inches long.

Since adult gators and even the other baby gator that I've been keeping an eye on don't have prominent yellow stripes, I watched for several minutes to convince myself that what I was seeing was really a gator. After a while he turned his head to give me a full side view, and his profile was very gator-ish indeed. A few minutes later he climbed down into the water, swam about five feet into a patch of floating vegetation, and snapped up a couple of tidbits of food, minnows perhaps, all the time looking very gator-ish. Finally, the description of alligator young in the Audubon Field Guide To Florida clinched it: "... black with bold yellowish white bands".

19Aug2004 The baby gator and one of the adult gators reappear in the same spots as yesterday.

9:58am - The baby gator was in almost exactly the same place he was yesterday, this time with this tail more or less straight instead of being curved into a "J". He showed no movement in the few minutes that I stood watching.

10:06am - The adult gator was up near the Upper Tampa Bay Trail's Waters trailhead, about 7 feet from the near shore of the canal, and about 10 yards to the right of where I had seen him yesterday.

18Aug2004 Two familiar gators on the linear park and a new one on the Upper Tampa Bay Trail.

9:29am - The first gator was on the north side of the bridge on the Webb-to-Sheldon section of the linear, swimming diagonally away from me in open water as I approached. Within a few seconds he was under a mass of floating vegetation on the far side of the canal, perhaps 50 feet from where I was standing, but he soon reemerged into clear water and paused for a few seconds before disappearing for good. A pretty brief observation, admittedly, but he did appear to be about 6 or 7 feet long, so I think it's likely that he was the same gator that I'd recently seen near the drainage pipe on the other side of the bridge.

9:35am - After failing to appear yesterday, the baby gator was back in the second pond from the Sheldon end of the linear, in exactly the same place where I'd seem him two days before. This time he had his tail curved into a wide "J" shape and he appeared to me to be closer to the 20 inch side of my original 18-to-20 inch length estimate.

10:06am - The third gator was in the canal a couple of blocks northeast of the Upper Tampa Bay Trail's Waters Ave trailhead, about 20 yards before the "water levels" information sign, and about 3 or 4 yards from shore and another 30 yards from the trail. He was floating in open water, with his head and the center part of his back visible, and from what I could see I'd guess he was about 9 feet long.

17Aug2004 8:33am - Another glimpse of the small gator near Sheldon Road.

Another point of interest: this time I noticed that there was a concrete structure - probably a drainage pipe - protruding into the pond just in line with where the gator had been; the setup was very similar to the place few blocks to the east where I'd observed a small gator a couple of times before.

16Aug2004 8:54am - A baby gator on the Webb-to-Sheldon extension - and the first baby gator I've seen up close and personal anywhere.

The little guy was in the second pond from the Sheldon end of the linear, on the south side of the trail, near the two wooden fence rails at the east/west center of the pond, about six feet from shore and about 15 feet from the fence; he was facing diagonally toward the trail, with everything but the tip of its tail clearly visible, and he appeared to be about 18 or 20 inches long. I watched for twenty minutes, but all he did was blink his eyes a couple of times and so I moved on, hoping to run across his mama.

15Aug2004 (about) 9:00am - My first gator sighting on the Upper Tampa Bay Trail.

OK, I'll grant that the Upper Tampa Bay Trail isn't part of or even connected to the TnC linear park, but for bike riders in particular, the 1-1/4 miles of sidewalk between the western terminus of the linear park and the Waters trailhead of the Upper Tampa Bay Trail is a small inconvenience compared to the attraction of the Upper Tampa Bay Trail's underpasses, bridges, and miles of scenery and unobstructed views of the water.

Back to the gator: it was in the large pond just northeast of the point where the Upper Tampa Bay Trail passes under Linebaugh Avenue near the entrance to the county landfill facility, and as in the last few sightings, all that I really saw was the alligator's head. But it was in open water, less than 50 feet from shore, and clearly visible. Judging by the size of the head, I'd say that the gator itself was 8 or 9 feet long.

10Aug2004 10:01am - Another appearance by the big gator.

06Aug2004 8:28am - The 6-footer again (perhaps), less than a block from Sheldon Road.

21Jul2004 The rain stops after a five day deluge, and two gators come out to be admired.

The first gator was the little guy I saw a month ago on the Webb-to-Sheldon section of the linear park, and in almost the same place: near the concrete drainage pipe that protrudes from the west shore of the canal on the south side of the bridge. The time was 10:22am, and I was on my way to the Waters Trailhead of the Upper Tampa Bay Trail for a bike ride, so I watched for only a few minutes before continuing on my way. Forty minutes later, on my way home, I stopped to see if the gator was still there, and lo and behold, now he was inside the drainage pipe, facing out into the canal, with only about 2/3 of his head visible. After a few minutes, he turned his head sharply to the side and snapped at something, causing him to disappear from view, but seconds later a single tree leaf came floating out of the pipe, the gator's head reappeared, and he resumed his vigil.

I saw the second gator just a little later, and he was probably the big guy I saw on July 1st. He was in the Hanley-to-Webb section of canal, as before, and this time he was about half way between the "bridge" and the rest area on the Hanley end of the park, right up against the the south shore, situated in a large patch of vegetation that completely hid his head and the end of his tail. What looked like about eight feet of his mid-section was clearly visible, however, so it was easy to see that he was pretty good sized.

01Jul2004 10:17am - A glimpse of a big gator.

I was riding my bike this morning when I noticed it on the south side of the canal, perhaps 130 yards west of the rest area on the Hanley end of the park. It was in fairly deep water, about eight feet from the shore, and everything but its head was submerged; but from the size of the head I could see that it was clearly a large specimen. I stopped and watched for a minute or so, hoping it would move so I could see it more clearly, but it remained motionless; so I took out a pencil and piece of paper to take notes, and when I looked up again, the gator was gone.

22Jun2004 12:05pm - A gator on the west linear park extension.

I hadn't see much of interest on the Hanley-to-Webb section of the park in quite a while, perhaps because of the commotion caused by the Webb Road bridge replacement project, so I thought I'd ride my bike to the bridge on the new Webb-to-Sheldon extension and have a good look at the canal from that vantage point. The first thing I noticed when I got there was a croaking sound that I guessed was an anhinga, but when I started looking for the anhinga, the first thing I saw as a smallish gator. It was about 50 feet away, in shallow water near the west shore on the south side of the bridge, and was facing almost directly in my direction; I estimated that it was about 6 or 6-1/2 feet long.

There was an anhinga nearby too, incidentally; it was about 20 feet up in the tree that overhung the canal just where the gator was situated.

23Apr2004 4:48pm - A new walking companion, and big gator, and fish.

My new walking companion is Trixie, a young beagle that had been abandoned somewhere near Crestwood Elementary and is in our charge until she finds a new home. Trixie thankfully doesn't share Riley's compulsion to examine every pile of doggie poop she sees, but on the negative side, Trixie does tend to howl piteously when restrained from chasing rabbits.

The gator we saw today was quite possibly the same one I saw back in February. He was a couple of hundred yards east of the "bridge" on the south side of the canal, sitting motionless with his head and back clearly visible but his tail mostly obscured by the weeds. Judging by what I could see, he was definitely on the large-ish side.

In the few minutes that we were watching the gator, we saw perhaps a dozen fish and a couple of large turtles swim by; the angle of the sun, the mild overcast, and dead-calm wind combined to made it unusually easy to see below the surface of the water just then. Most of the fish were of the smaller variety that appear to have prominent yellow lips, but there were also a couple of the long, narrow variety that look to me like miniature sharks.

18Feb2004 4:26pm - A big gator, my first for 2004.

It was bright and cool-ish, with temperatures in the low 60s and a light blustery breeze, and the gator was sitting in shallow water on the south side of the canal taking in the sun, half way between the "bridge" and the holding-pond. He was clearly visible for the most part, but his head was in a patch of green muck and tip of his tail was obscured by weeds; from what I could see, I estimated that he was about ten feet long.

The county Parks Department deserves some credit for this gator sighting, too, because it was only through their recent efforts to radically cut back the overgrown foliage along the canal that was possible to see much of anything across the canal in that area.

19Dec2003 02:44pm - Still no gators, so we settle for a snake.

I was walking the dog again, pausing every minute or two to investigate a pile of old dog poop, when I noticed what looked like a piece of black coax sticking out from under the bushes on the south side of the trail. It disappeared when we walked over to have a closer look, but it didn't go far; I could see through the bushes that it was about three feet long, was perhaps an inch in diameter at the head end, and had no noticable color besides black.

03Oct2003 05:25pm - The Huntress sees her first gator ... maybe.

I was walking my daughter's dog when I saw the alligator across the canal from the "bridge", all ten or so feet of him out of the water, and so of course I pointed him out to the dog. But did the dog come to attention and stare keenly as she does when she sees another dog at a similar distance? Nooo, she gave the gator about as much notice as she might give an airplane above the far horizon.

In fairness, the dog herself is a newcomer to the linear park scene; we've only been doing these walks for a couple of weeks, and when we started she'd never even notice the rabbits we saw every day. Here's her fifteen seconds of fame: her name is Riley Diana Edwards, and she is a two year old shelty/shepherd mix; her "Huntress" moniker and her middle name stem from her habit of snuffling the ground so much of the time, not from her prowess in the chase.

10Sept2003 07:47am - End of the drought?

Drought of alligators in the canal, that is; there's been a PLENTY of water over the dam this summer, but this was the first gator I'd seen for months. He was in the old familiar position place across the canal from the "bridge", pointed diagonally in to the shore; judging from the size of his head and upper back, I'd guess he was at least a 10 footer.

16July2003 12:32pm - A bigger gator, perhaps the one that saw on May first.

I was back on the bike doing laps to keep my knee limber, and I saw him six times over about a 45 minute period as I passed by. The first time by he was out in open water across the canal from the "bridge", not really moving and semi-submerged, so all I could tell from quick look was that he was not the little guy from a couple of weeks ago. The rest of the time he was nosed diagonally into the shore near his initial position; his head and midsection were visible but his back end was entirely under water, so I never got a good estimate of his size.

28June2003 06:02pm - A little guy that other people have reported seeing for a couple of weeks now, but my first alligator sighting in almost two months.

I was riding by on my bike when I saw a gator that I guessed to be about 6 feet long swimming slowly east to west near the south canal shore, perhaps 100 yards west of eastern rest area (about the 770 yard point on my diagram). When I stopped to have a better look, he stopped swimming and sank into the water with just his head visible, so I didn't get a better estimate of his actual size.

01May2003 01:05pm - He's back!

The big gator was back in his spot across the canal from the "bridge" as I was doing my laps today, making this the first time I'd seen him in eleven days. Although the water was definitely up from its level a few weeks ago - evidenced by the fact that the big drainage pipe was no longer visible - the gator was situated mainly above the water, all of him but the tip of his tail clearly visible.

22April2003 A six day wrap-up.

The three days leading up to Easter were like the four days just before them: the gator was patrolling the area across from the "bridge" at the various times of day that I did my bicycle laps. Oddly, he seemed a bit smaller than before, though, and it crossed my mind that this might be a younger brother; but that was probably only because he was out in the water each time and so it was difficult to see his whole length.

I took Sunday off so I don't know if the gator was out, but I saw no sign of him when I resumed my routine on Monday and Tuesday. There were a couple of non-gator items of note, however: the anhinga seemes to have moved residence across the canal and a few hundred yards to the east; and the black racer made two more appearances near the west end of the holding pond, once dangling four feet above the ground from a tall, dry weed!

16April2003 2:43pm - the afternoon, too.

Same cast and location, different time of day: the gator was already on station this afternoon when I started my first lap, was still there when I started my second lap, an had disappeared for the duration by the start of my third lap.

15April2003 9:42am - the morning routine.

Today the gator appeared across the canal from the "bridge" sometime during my first lap, and by the end of my 4th lap he was swimming slowly away toward the east, a fellow bicyclist standing and watching him go. By the end of my 5th lap he was long gone.

14April2003 9:32am - a morning appearance and a minor Aha!.

I was back in my icing-and-biking routine, doing laps around the linear, Hanley, Elm, and Webb, and the gator appeared across the canal from the "bridge" sometime during my 3th lap. He maneuvered around a bit, but he was still there 25 minutes later after I had finished my exercise and stopped to take notes.

The Aha! came when I finally realized what the oddly striped object on the bottom of the canal just at the middle of the "bridge" on the trail side must be: the corrugated drainage pipe that several people had told me about, but that I had never 'seen' before. For the record: its top surface was about a foot under water, it looked to be about 3-1/2 or 4 feet in diameter, and it extended about 4 feet into the canal.

13April2003 6:45pm - a supper time viewing.

I was on my bike making a couple of lazy laps around the linear/Hanley/Elm/Webb while the lasagne baked, and I didn't stop to look carefully, but it was clear what the small gathering of people on the "bridge" were looking at and discussing: the big gator was directly across the canal, his full length visible above the water, seemingly posing for the assemblage.

07April2003 9:45am - the snake, the anhinga, and the gator. (Quiz: which popular author's book titles does that bring to mind?)

My new icing-and-biking knee therapy regimen gave me six opportunities to survey the canal this morning, affording views of the resident gator patrolling in the area of the "bridge", the anhinga sitting his tree below the "bridge", and three foot black snake sunning itself in the middle of the path near the western end of the holding pond. The gator and the anhinga were the usual suspects in the usual places, but I don't know about the snake; my best guess (judging from the pictures in my Audubon field guide) is that it was a "racer". In any case, I got to see it only because I was moving pretty fast; it was already at the edge of the path and moving rapidly away as I came abreast.

04April2003 5:50pm - it looks as if the big guy from last week has moved in for the summer.

What was most probably the same gator that I saw last week ago was back at almost the same spot across the canal from the "bridge", and once again situated in such a way that you could easily see his whole length. This time I deliberately walked to a point directly in his forward line of vision and he immediately responded by slipping into the water, UN-curling, heading generally toward me but somewhat to my left, and becoming motionless. I walked along be bank until I was again again directly in his line of vision, but he remained motionless. But there was a bonus: still looking the gator's direction, I glanced down and saw the old familiar anhinga perched on a tree branch on my side of the canal, perhaps six feet above the water.

29March2003 4:15pm - My first for sure sighting for 2003: a ten foot gator just across the canal from the "bridge", almost entirely out of the water, and situated in such a way that you could easily see his whole length. Several people walked by and got a good look, during which time the gator turned to face directly toward us before settling down to (presumably) wait until everyone was gone before continuing on his way.

21March2003 6:19pm - Maybe my first sighting for 2003: about 10 yards east of where the trail straightens out again after curving around the "bridge", on the far side of the canal, I spotted what looked like a gator with just his head visible above the water. He didn't move for ten minutes or so while I watched, so I can't be sure; but when I checked the spot a few days later the same plastic cups and bottles were there and there was no sign of the gator.

02Oct2002 7:40am - the summer's oppressive heat finally seems to be waning, the clockwork regularity of the afternoon rains is sputtering, and I've seen a gator in the canal for the first time in over two months.

I had just paused in my morning walk and was gazing out over the canal from the bridge, not expecting to see much, because I hadn't seen much at this time of morning for weeks. First I noticed a medium sized turtle sticking his head out of the water, a little to my right and half way across the canal; then I noticed an anhinga perched on a tree branch just in front of me and perhaps 10 feet down toward the water; and then I saw the gator, directly across the canal and motionless in a large patch of floating vegetation near the shore. I judged his head and body, mostly above the water, to be about 5 feet long; I supposed his tail, mainly invisible under the water, would add another 2 or 3 feet to his overall length.

As soon as I noticed the alligator, I noticed two medium sized wading birds just 4 or 5 feet directly in front of him, and then I noticed a third medium size bird perched on a branch almost directly above him. I waited to see if these creatures might figure in the gator's breakfast plans, but he had not stirred after a few minutes and so I continued on my way.

22July2002 6:07pm - another early afternoon rain, more rabbits, and the big gator again.

Conditions were like they were yesterday, and this time I spotted the gator at about the 600 yard point on the map, submerged near the south bank of the canal with just his head showing. He remained motionless while I made several circuits back and forth between Hanley and Webb, but the last time I looked he had disappeared without a trace.

The one o'clock rain today brought the temperature down at least 15 degrees, and while it was still cool I took my bicycle for quick tour of the linear park. There were lots of brown rabbits about, as usual after a rain, but the main attraction was a large-ish gator.

I spotted him swimming in open water near the east rest area (about the 880 yard point on the map) but he apparent spotted me too and almost immediately stopped and submerged everything but his head. I watched him for a few minutes and then I pedaled to the Hanley end of the park and circled back to see if he'd move as soon as I was out of sight; when I returned a few minutes later he was about 50 yards further west, motionless with just the back of his head and his snout visible above the water.

Today I was treated to an extended observation of what was probably the same gator that I saw two days ago, and this time I saw enough of it to confidently estimate that it is probably closer to 10 feet long than the 8-9 feet reported earlier. When I first spotted it, if was near the south bank of the canal, perhaps 250 yards from the Webb Rd end, with its head above the water; and the head, interestingly, was surrounded by a few-inches-wide edging of white foam. After a while, it made a fast lunge toward the bank, apparently to grab a bird or small animal a few feet up the bank, because it then proceeded to throw back its head a few times in what appeared to be a gobbling maneuver; and while it was 'gobbling' it arched its back and tail, making its true size more apparent.

After watching as the gator eventually swam away to the east, I came across another interesting phenomenon near the Webb Rd end of the canal: a great deal of swirling water and a rapidly expanding bloom of tan color within the dark and generally clear canal water. The coloration appeared to emanate from a four or five foot diameter circular swirl that remained stationary about seven feet from the south bank and perhaps 15 feet east of a mostly submerged drainage pipe protruding from the south bank; but there was no evidence of water movement near the drainage pipe itself. I eventually concluded that the water must have been coming from the smaller north/south canal just beyond the bank, probably through a second submerged pipe.

It was only my second jaunt along the linear park after nearly a month in St. Paul, so I was especially pleased to spot a 8-9 foot gator on a day when gusty winds and a liberal sprinkling of dark clouds made it hard to see anything in the water. According to the new "bike computer" that I just got from my brother Kent, the gator was about 0.6 km east of Webb Rd, on the south side of the canal. He remained motionless for 10 minutes while I watched, then slowly swam toward Hanley Rd.

I was having a last perusal of the canal before taking off for a few weeks in St. Paul; heavy rains over the past few days had washed away lots the vegetation that had been clogging the canal, and the accompanying cold front was still holding the temperature 15 degrees below what it had been for weeks, and I was expecting to see something unusual.

The first gator was about a 7 footer, not very heavy looking, its skin very black and having that characteristic "truck tire" sort of appearance. It was lying on the far bank, about half way between Webb and Hanley, perhaps ten yards west of a large black drainage pipe extending into the canal near the water line.

The second gator was on the east side of Hanley, just across the canal from the little fenced-in section, perhaps three quarters of the way from Hanley to the baseball fields. It looked like a 5 or 6 footer, but its head was hidden from view, making it difficult to judge size.

I had stopped on the wooden bridge to watch the fish and turtles for a few minutes and I was about to move on when I heard a low growl, like the warning growl of a medium-to-large dog, coming from the direction of the water somewhere to my right. Not seeing anything in the water or on the opposite bank, I walked around the east end of the fence to get a view straight down into the water, and there he was, a 6 foot gator nosed into the mat of floating vegetation near the shore, his back and his tail clearly visible. After a few minutes he swung his head out into the water as if to swim away, but apparently saw me watching him and just stopped. I watched for a few more minutes, then continued on my way.

It was a cool, crisp morning, one of the few we've had so far this fall, and I had just paused at the wooden bridge when a 6-1/2 foot gator came swimming down the center of the canal toward me from the east, ho-hum, not a care in the world. He saw me when he was perhaps twenty five yards from where I was standing, and he came to a stop, just looking at me. After remaining motionless a few minutes, he continued slowly along, still in the center of the canal as he passed directly in from of me, and then headed to a point perhaps fifteen yards further west on the far side of the canal and stopped. He remained motionless while I watched him for another five minutes or so, and then I left him to himself and continued my constitutional.

Soon after returning to my daily rounds of the linear park, I had what was probably my closest ever observation of a bald eagle in the wild. It appeared first on the north side of the canal, circling in from beyond the houses; it made a couple of passes very near me, intently scanning the ground, before its search pattern eventually carried it out of sight to the south.

For the past ten months or so I've been working in Miami and commuting to Tampa for the weekends via Alligator Alley. Talk about alligators! At certain times of the year, I'd often see hundreds of gators during single crossing, and often just as many tourists stopping to look and take pictures.

I saw the first gator on the south side of the canal about 3 blocks east of Webb Rd; it was quite easy to spot floating mostly above a mass of vegetation when I first approached, but within seconds it partially submerged so that only its head and part of its tail remained visible. I estimate that it was perhaps 6 feet long - bigger than the small one that I've seen recently but not nearly as broad as the larger one.

I saw the second gator, which probably was the large one that I've reported recently, just below the wooden bridge on the north side of the canal, floating with its head and back above the water. It too partially submerged a few seconds after I arrived, but my vantage point almost directly above and no more than 25 feet away made it easy to see its see the massive head and body even under water.

The temperature was in the mid 50's at daybreak this morning, but by noon the steady sunshine had warmed it to near 80 degrees; it was just the kind of day that always seems conducive to finding alligators sunning at the edge of the water.

The big gator is back! I first saw it swimming slowly east on the north side of the canal, perhaps 75 years east of where I was standing on the wooden bridge. When I got close enough to have a good look it apparently spotted me; it crossed to the south side of the canal and just remained stationary, I guess waiting for me to go away.

I judged this alligator to be close to 7 feet long, although it was probably the same one I saw in mid October and judged to be more like 6 or 6-1/2 feet long at that time. The thing that was most striking this time was how large its head was - easily twice as wide and long as the head on the little gator that I reported last week.

Snake? As the last daylight faded, Joyce and I had just crossed the wooden bridge heading east when we came upon what looked like a snake lying motionless on the asphalt. It was a dull orange color, perhaps an inch in diameter, and about 4 feet long; no distinctive markings were apparent in the darkness, the only illumination now being from the half-full moon. As we paused to watch before continuing on, and a couple of other people also stopped to look; nobody was sure what it was, but everybody maintained a health distance.

When we reached home perhaps 15 minutes later, I set off with my bicycle and a flashlight to have a better look, but when I got back to the spot the snake was gone.

This morning the small alligator was in the main canal, just floating in the water below the wooden bridge as I walked up. After eyeing me for a while, it swam lazily out the the middle of the canal and headed east.

The weather this morning was cool, sunny, and calm, with a fair amount of mist visible on the canal; quite different from the semi-dark at 7:30 in the morning last week, before we changed from daylight savings back to standard time.

Sighted the small alligator in the holding pond again, not more than 10 feet from where it was yesterday. If anything, it looked even smaller than before.

Sighted an alligator - the first in a long time - in the deep end of the holding pond just north of the canal near Hanley Road. I don't think I've seen this one before; most of its body was visible above the water and I guessed that it was only about 5 feet long.

A sighting in the holding pond was quite unexpected because 1) most of the pond had gone stone dry within the last several days, and 2) the deep end has been completely covered with floating vegetation for months. The people that maintain the linear park probably wouldn't be surprised, though; the holding pond sports the only "Please Do Not Molest The Alligator" sign I've ever seen in Town N Country.

Manatees! Sighted the two adult manatees again. The first was busily eating the floating vegetation on the north side of the canal just below the wooden bridge as I walked up; after a couple of minutes it swam out the the center of the canal and headed west, at which time I spotted the second manatee, who was eating vegetation on the south side of the canal 30 yards to the west, in the general direction that the first was headed.

When the first manatee swam by, the second turned and followed it down the canal going west. As on the day before, I tracked their progress all the way to the Webb Rd bridge, then picked up their trail on the other side. Also as on the day before, I last saw them perhaps 80 yards west of Webb as they presumably continued to swim away.

Manatees again! Sighted two adult manatees, probably the same pair as before. This time I had paused on the wooden bridge and noticed a lot of bubbles rising; as I watched, the surface of the water churned mildly but over a good deal of area, and after a minute or so one of the manatees became clearly visible a few feet below the surface of the water. Since it appeared to be moving west, I ran down the trail a couple of hundred yards to the next point where I could get a clear view of the canal without fighting the weeds, and waited. Perhaps 5 minutes later the pair appeared in front of me, swimming slowly and preceded by patches of churning water and occasional bunches of bubbles. I could see both animals clearly as they broke the surface in their characteristic sinusoidal path, and it looked to me that the first one actually spouted a thin spray of water on its closest appearance, although I have never seen this before and have indeed never known that manatees had the apparatus to do this.

Since the manatees were moving so slowly, I followed them all the way to Webb Rd, easily keeping pace at a walk. At Webb, I crossed the bridge and watched; I last saw them perhaps 80 yards west of Webb, their large horizontal tails appearing and disappearing last as them continued west.

Weather note: it was a cool, overcast morning with only a very light breeze.

Nothing big to report today, but a few interesting things nonetheless: the first fish I've seen in weeks, a large assortment of turtles, and several small birds that I believe were wrens.

There are about four major varieties of fish in the canal, and today's specimens were all of the most common variety: about 14 inches long, medium girth to length ratio, lacking prominent fins, and having decidedly yellow lips.

Saw what was probably yesterday's alligator again, on the north side of the canal, sitting mostly submerged in floating vegetation just below the wooden bridge. This time another man had spotted him first and was pointing him out to a small boy as I approached; we chatted a bit and he told me that he had seen an otter (!) the day before near where I had seen the alligator, but that he himself had not seen the alligator that day.

The sky was completely clear and there was only a slight breeze, making the surface of the water smooth and transparent; in addition to the gator, I spotted several turtles, including three with shells a foot or more in length.

Sighted an alligator sitting immobile in a mass of floating vegetation on the south side of the canal, perhaps 130 yards east of Webb Rd. The top part of most of its body was visible, and it appeared to be 6 or 6-1/2 long.

The weather was mostly sunny with a light breeze, the temperature perhaps in the low 80's.

Sighted two adult manatees again, perhaps 75 yards east of Webb Rd and one third of the way from the north side of the canal (where I was standing). I had just walked to the edge of the canal, and first saw a strong "bow wave" about 10 yards to the east, with just an indistinguishable dark patch at its center; a few seconds later, the first manatee appeared almost directly in front of me, but with only the back 3/4 or so of the animal clearly visible. As in my previous sighting (08Aug2000), the second manatee appeared just after the first, but only its tail section was clearly visible. This time, the creatures did NOT reappear another 10 yards in the direction that they appeared to be heading, and I never saw them again.

Weather note: there was a light wind at the time, causing the surface of the water to be pretty much covered with small, jagged waves, thereby obscuring vision of any fine detail in the water. The sky was largely overcast, but but it was still fairly bright.

Sighted an alligator, probably the 6-1/2 or 7 foot one, on the north side of the canal, perhaps 70 yards east of the wooden bridge; only the top of the head and the end of the snout above water. It was maybe 20 yards from me when I first spotted it; I got a couple more views through the weeds as I moved to a point directly above it, but when I arrived there it had submerged, leaving a small swirl of mud and a large number of tiny air bubbles. I watched for several minutes for it to resurface, but never saw it again.

Sighted two adult manatees in the canal, swimming east-to-west at perhaps 4 miles per hour. From my position perhaps 50 yards east of the wooden bridge (which is about 1/4 mile east of Webb Rd), first noticed a strong "bow wave" perhaps another hundred yards further to the east, and guessed it might be an alligator approaching. It soon became evident that the "bow wave" was intermittent, disappearing and reappearing every 4 seconds or so, which would have been very strange indeed for an alligator. After several seconds, the center of one of the visible parts of the wave appeared just 10 yards or so east of me, and I could clearly see that its cause was a large manatee, the shallow vertical sinusoidal path resulting from the creature's method of propelling itself with its large horizontal tail.

The next appearance at the surface was almost directly below my position, and this time I could see almost the entire animal clearly. Perhaps a half second after the first animal, a second one appeared slightly behind (east) and beyond (further away from me) the first. The sighting of the second creature was less clear than the first, due to the surface disturbance from the first, but I could see its tail clearly and thought that its general size was probably about the same as the first.

The third appearance as another ten yards to the west; the animals were evidently just cruising along undisturbed. As in the first appearance, only the first manatee was clearly visible.

A few seconds after the third appearance, I walked out of the weeds near the canal to the blacktopped "trail", and came upon a young man who happened to be jogging by. I told him what I had just seen, and then I ran perhaps a hundred yards further west on the trail and turned through the weeds back to the edge of the canal, arriving just in time to see the animals again in another three appearances similar to the first three, but with a poorer view of the second manatee. The jogger had followed me, but I'm not sure what he saw; we exchanged only a few more words before he resumed his exercises.

Weather note: the wind was calm at the time, and the surface of the water was quite smooth. The sun was almost due east, illuminating the east/west canal quite fully.