A Florida woman got the surprise of her life when a knock on her door turned out to come from a seven-foot long alligator.
“I heard a knock at the door and then nothing else,” Nathalie Gaines, who lives in Lake Mary, Florida, told Fox 35 in Orlando. “I waited a while and then I hear it again.”
After she looked at the camera, she realized, “There was a full-blown alligator sitting at our front door.” Her door cam video afforded a good look at the beast outside her red double entrance doors.
It appears the knocking alligator phenomenon is part of a mating behavior and may not be as rare as some might think. YouTube has several other similar gator calls, including this short also posted from Florida five days ago.
This is the height of alligator mating season, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission.
Courtship and breeding take place from mid-April through May, naturalists say. Male alligators, like males of other species, have been known to cruise areas looking for females. A gator looking for love can end up in or around homes near his natural habitat.
Gaines’s scaly visitor waited at the door for a while before it finally decided to leave and head back to the water near Gaines’s central Florida home north of Orlando.
“We always see wildlife, but not this up close, knocking on the door,” Gaines added.
Lowell Cauffiel has dodged alligators while researching a book near Orlando. He is the best-selling author of Below the Line and nine other crime novels and nonfiction titles. See lowellcauffiel.com for more.
