There’s a tiny little island at Huntington Beach State Park in South Carolina where I’ve photographed alligators, snowy egrets, great egrets, little blue herons, and least terns. On this occasion last summer, I just wanted a snapshot of the island itself since I knew it might be my last visit to the park.

I had focused on the animals when the light was nice early in the morning, so when the light was less nice I took a bunch of pictures to stitch together to create a panorama of the island – and as a bonus, there were a handful of alligators on the island, larger ones on the left and youngsters on the right, plus a snowy egret to top it all off.

I used a telephoto lens for this picture close to the shoreline of the marsh at Huntington Beach State Park, which is a good thing, as an alligator can move very quickly over short distances.

I’ve never seen the alligators be aggressive towards humans there, but it only takes once …