Possible intimidation behavior experienced while shining for alligators in Ormond Beach witnessed in Volusia County, Florida

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BFRO, My friend and I, were 'spotting' gators one night in Ormond Beach, FL when we had an encounter with something, well...unknown. We were near a lake when we heard something large in the woods behind us. When we shined our lights into the woods to see what was making the noises, we heard a series of blunt beating noises, about a second to two seconds apart. The sound was like that of a wood baseball bat hitting a tree. This went on from about 30 seconds to a minute before the tree fell. As we heard the crackling of the falling tree we ran back towards the nearest safe place to us. At this same time we heard in the woods to our left, something almost stalking our every move. Once we got to "civilization" and realized we were out of danger, we decided to go back to find out the source of what happened. When we returned, almost an hour later, we found a tree freshly broken in half, the break being about eight feet from the ground. The break was not a clean cut like that of a ...