Even before the sun rises, a different sound can be found among the baby birds and gators at Gatorland.

"The birds are very active. They are going out to feed, they are coming back in to feed their babies,” said Tim Williams, the “Dean of Gator Wresting” and spokesman for Gatorland.

“WOW! I almost got hit by that one," he said with a grin as a bird flies past our TV camera, just inches from his face.

Like the birds, shutterbugs flock to Gatorland each spring to get in early, with the Photography Pass plan.

"You can see this in the wild, but it's hard to get to if you don't know where to go,” Williams said.

Gatorland’s central man-made lagoon was dredged in 1991 and is now home to hundreds of nesting birds and their babies. Some of the babies appear as white fuzz balls. Others, have yet to hatch from green eggs. Many of the nests are so close, photographers on the boardwalk don’t need a telephoto lens.

"The reason birds are coming in here, is they know, instinctively, alligators will afford them protection to their nests,” Williams explained, sharing that raccoons and snakes have a hard time bypassing the swamp's alligator population of 130.

"They feel like they have some safety in the fact that their eggs and their chicks and their nests are going to be safe."

Photographers like Kathy Reeves are always ready with lens in hand.

"I think that's two alligators fighting. Look at that big one!” Reeves exclaimed as one large gator thrashes around with a smaller alligator, ending in white water waves. "Pretty soon, something like that will happen, as long as you have patience.”

You don't need to be a professional photographer or have fancy equipment to enjoy a morning at Gatorland. In fact, Reeves said all you really need is a camera with a good zoom lens.

"You need to be able to get far enough away from the animal to where they can go about their business. without any regard to you," Reeves said.

And all this posing can made you tired.

"He's just yawning!” Williams concluded as a gator opens his mouth wide, before settling back into the muck of the swamp.

Tankful on Television
You can catch Florida on a Tankful stories each Thursday through Sunday on News 13 and Bay News 9. Florida on a Tankful debuts during Your Morning News starting at 6 a.m. and plays traditionally through 5 p.m.