Chicken Turtle and American Alligator

Note to my followers: I must apologize for getting out of my normal routine of posting one photo a day. I've been not feeling well, and terribly busy these past couple weeks.


This Chicken Turtle certainly isn't living up to his name as he sits atop an American Alligator's head. He must know that Alligators go into a semi-hibernation in the winter months and don't eat during this time. They go without food for approximately 4 months, living off their body fat.

This image was photographed Christmas day at Busch Gardens in Tampa, FL. I took my grandson to the park as part of his Christmas gift. We got off to a late start because it was raining in the morning, so we waiting for it to clear up. We still had a great time and stayed until closing.

Chicken Turtles can be found in shallows and fresh water, while American Alligators can be found in ponds, rivers, swamps, both fresh and brackish marshes, mangroves, canals and oceans (rarely) throughout Florida and the southern states.

This image was captured with my Canon 40D, Canon 55-250mm lens at 131mm, in late afternoon on a cloudy day. I used 400 ISO, in Aperture priority mode and partial metering off the turtle at 1/20 and F5.6.

Southern Screamer

Since I've been too sick to go out and shoot, I decided to go back through some old files.

I made this shot of this Southern Screamer at Busch Gardens as he was chasing another bird. It seems he's very territorial and didn't want the other bird in his area. He was pretty mad.

I never heard his call and judging by his name, I'm glad I didn't.

Gorilla

I went to Busch Gardens again; this time in pursuit of a Chimpanzee photo that one of my stock agencies was looking for. Unfortunately for me, the Chimp never struck the pose the art director was looking for (head and shoulders profile with hand on chin, like he was thinking).

I did get some great shots anyway--especially of this magnificent Gorilla. I was standing next to 3 other female photographers and this Gorilla posed for us for a good 15 minutes or so. As you can see, he was looking right at the camera and kept changing positions as if he was modeling. I swear any minute, his keeper was going to ask us for a modeling fee.

Once he got tired of showing off, he moved to the side of his habitat where he's separated from the people by some thick glass. I'm sooooo glad that glass was thick! Someone in the crowd ticked him off--big time. Just as we were trying to inch our way up front for more shots of this amazingly powerful Gorilla, he spotted something in the crowd he didn't like. He walked back a few steps, then charged at the glass. I was so glad that glass held him because he wasn't a very happy camper. Get a look at those forearms!

Chimpanzee

Sunday, I went to Busch Gardens with a couple of friends and had a great time. It's been taking a while to go through all the photos I took--especially since I've been playing around with Lightroom 2 and trying to make up my mind if I want to stick with Lightroom and give up ACDSee Pro 2 for organizing and quick editing of my photos.

It's a tough decision, since I've been using ACDSee Pro for years so I'm comfortable with it, and I'm new to Lightroom, so it's a bit more difficult to use for me, and I'm not sure of the organizing, so it's really slowing me down.

Enough about my problems with my software. This Chimpanzee looked so sad sitting against that tree. I can't help wondering what was making him look that way. They're so cute. I think he's a little older than most of the ones we usually see.