For all those of you pining away for more images of Angel the newborn manatee I’ve finally completed a short slideshow that tells the story of his first morning of life!  As you may know being able to photograph an infant manatee, just a few hours old, in the wild is a quite remarkable accomplishment (in fact “quite remarkable” are just the words the foremost manatee field researcher Bob Bonde used when I sent him photos of this event I witnessed on 29 Feb 08, Leap Day!)

Please note -- frankly if you know any underwater photographers they usually only display their “best” images.  I try to do the same but sometimes to tell a story like Angel’s here I have decided to use almost 60 images taken over a period just over an hour as this event was of limited duration (and that is good for the little one because I don’t know if he could have endured too much more “action” during his first few hours of life!)

So the photos in this slideshow are presented in sequence over a period lasting just over an hour and where I was the only one around for over 45 minutes that very cold and early am at Crystal River.  Again top right arrow for higher quality playback.

I hope you find it interesting as it is an extremely rare thing to record in photographs.  Best, Carol

If you have missed some of the data on “Angel” here are a couple of links to visit:

Rare Photographs Of Newborn Manatee by Carol

Here is also a post on the underwater photography forum WetPixel and you can follow a discussion about him:

Angel the Newborn Manatee on WP