Campground Wildlife

As I mentioned in an earlier post, we have seen the Gopher Tortoise while parked at Thousand Trails near Orlando FL.  We have returned to Orlando after two weeks farther south and are parked next to an active Gopher Tortoise burrow.  We have been fortunate to witness their mating ritual which is a fairly active show.  Unfortunately I did not capture it on video.






Above is the female in the burrow today.


The Gopher Tortoise is one of only a few species that digs burrows which may be as long as 40 feet and as deep as 10 feet, but only as wide as the tortoise doing the digging.  The front claws are adapted to the task.  In addition to providing a home for the tortoise the burrows are also used by a range of other creatures including the indigo snake, Florida mouse, gopher frog and burrowing owl.



The male, seen above, approached the female and went through a lot of head bobbing and rushes toward her while she forced him to back away.  When she was ready for him, she entered the burrow head first and he raced in behind to complete the union!  We saw this twice over a ten day span, so we're not sure if it didn't take the first time or if they were just making sure!  Today she is back in the burrow on alert as seen at left.  She was not happy as I approached to take her picture.

And lastly for this time I share a sunset we enjoyed while were at the Peace River Preserve near the small town of Wauchula FL.  While neither there nor here in Orlando is close to the Ocean or the Gulf we have seen some nice evening skies.