Is it a snake or alligator? Nope, it’s a croc!

By Norma Wall, unskilled photographer

My photo skills are not nearly as good as my camera.

Always playing catch-up to the rest of the world, I set out on Sunday morning to take some shots of the water feature at a nearby community.

I did my normal walk-and-shoot method around the outside of the pond, and soon decided that was as good as it was going to get, no matter how many times the camera clicked (short of PhotoShop). As I was leaving, I made a half-hearted effort to get a close up shot of some uncooperative ducks on the opposite bank, but they squawked off before I could zoom in on them.

As I was making the short walk back to my car I noticed a beautiful stand of reeds on the other side of the road at the mouth of a culvert. This might be a habitat for some form of wildlife, having just failed with those fat ducks.

So I crossed the road and teetered on the culvert, looking carefully for signs of life. Nothing. I wanted to capture my digital wildlife masterpiece. Even a grasshopper or dragon fly would be nice.

That’s when I saw it.

Something was floating on the water about 50 feet away, in between the reeds. It did not move. It looked like a coiled up snake. Maybe there was a submerged log below the snake – the perfect perch for a morning sunbath. It was too far away. I couldn’t tell.

The 10x zoom on my camera would be a quick and easy way to capture the snake, and still give me plenty of time to get out of Dodge in case he didn’t like paparazzi. When I looked through the camera, the snake looked more like a small alligator. I’ve heard of people tossing out baby alligators when they get too big.

Click, click, click – I still did not know if it was a snake or an alligator, but now it was recorded on the ScanDisk of my camera (and why is there always a spider web between me and my escape route?)

Once safely back home I rushed to download my prize wildlife photo.

Now I can share it with the world. Is it a snake or alligator? Nope, it’s a croc!

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