September on Sanibel is very hot.  The tourists have left after the summer, but they will start to turn back up for the winter in October.  It is a lazy time when even some of the restaurants close for a week or two.  I'll blame my laziness of not posting photos as I took them on the lazy days of September.  (It's my story and I'm sticking to it!)

I'll start with a couple of photos that are a good example of the food chain.  The lizard below caught this butterfly for dinner.  The snake was looking up at the lizard, seeming to hope that the lizard would get fat on the butterfly and fall off the pool cage.  I watched the standoff for about 30 minutes, then the snake gave up and went on his way.

The young gator paid us another visit behind our house.  It's amazing that he is only about 4 feet long, but in the photos he appears to be much bigger!  He has the same fierce "I'll eat you" look that a 10 foot gator would have.

We took a drive through the Ding Darling Refuge during low tide.  Even though the winter birds aren't around, there's always something to see!

These two had a bit of a disagreement!

I was fascinated with these tiny little crabs.  There were so many of them and they blended in with the ground cover near the water.  They were about 2 inches across.  The purple coloring and the markings on their back are what caught my attention, plus the one big claw!  The markings on their back look like a drawing of a crab!

A trip to the newly refurbished Sanibel fishing pier didn't produce any pictures of fish, but I did get some bird pics there.

These guys below just cannot believe that the fisherman only pulled in one tiny fish when he cast his net!  They were hungry, so they needed for him to just work a bit harder!

I realize the Sanibel fishing pier was old and needed repair, but the old rusty hand water pump had a lot more character than the new modern water hose!!  I'm so glad that I had gotten a photo of the old one before it was removed!