A Bit Snappy

So, this little croc doesn’t seem imposing and that’s what I thought too, but boy was I in for a surprise.

 The Location

Two words, ‘Fogg Dam’ is my happy place, and if you anyone whom I have spoken to in depth about Australia or photography, you would probably have heard me mention this place plenty of times before.

Originally built to make rice paddies this recreation reserve is about an hour’s drive from Darwin City on the way to Kakadu. Fogg Dam is now a stunning out of town trip into the wetlands, with forest, bush, and wetland boardwalks with lookouts over stunning views over some of the most stunning wetlands in Australia if not the world (not that I have a bias or anything).

To give you a quick overview of Fogg Dam, you are surrounded by trees as you drive enter before the trees stop and the wetlands open up before you. This is not your typical dam, there is no massive structure holding back massive amounts of water with a huge drop on one side. It is more like a dirt weir with a road built on top of it. The dam wall/roadway starches out just under a mile and has water running over it in a small section for most of the year.

The story

So, the thing about Fogg Dam is that every time you go there, it is a new and different experience, and this was defiantly a different experience. I had already been up to the far end lookout and was driving back out when I spotted something just on the water’s edge. It looked very much like a snappy log, so I grabbed my camera and went for a closer look.

Now this croc wasn’t much, it would have only been about a meter long. To give you an idea of the situation, in the past, I had seen crocs sunbaking on or beside the road and they would retreat back to the water when I got to within about 5 meters of them. And they weren’t particularly small, some were about two and a half to three meters. So, as I got closer, I expected similar outcomes, not very bright of me hey.

I got in position and took a few photos, it didn’t move, so I got closer and took some more. I moved around to a position directly in front of the croc and… yep you guessed it, I moved in closer. By now I was crouching in the dirt only a meter or so away from it. To say I was wondering why it wasn’t retreating is an overestimation of my intolerance until it did exactly the opposite and launched at me. It was me who tried to retreat but, in my haste, my feet slipped on the loose dirt at the roadside and ended up on my backside.

Now this is the part where you would come to your senses and call it a day and just back away right? Well, my friends, I am just not that sharp. And surely it was just a one off anomaly, right? Rong! As again I got too close and again it launched at me. Once again, I ended up on my backside, however, this croc was now sitting between my legs. It was about this time that by coincidence I started to wise up ever so slightly. It was well and truly time to call it a day.

I have added these other photos to show how small the croc was as well as its starting and ending positions.

The irony in all this is that I had a 150mm zoom lens on the camera and as you can see below, I wasn’t even at full zoom and the croc was taking up most of the frame. I don’t know for sure, but it may have been a female that was nesting nearby as it was that time of year, but I cannot confirm that. As you can see it is no maneater, however, I still would not fancy being on the receiving end of a bite from a croc even this small… or any other size for that matter.

The shot

Camera:                                 Olympus E-410

Exposure:                              1/500

ISO:                                       200

Aperture:                                f/5.5

Lens:                                      Zuiko 40-150mm

Focal Length:                        137mm

Other:                                    None