Monday, April 19, 2010

Turtles are much easier to spot once you realize you should be looking for a pile of mud, not an actual turtle. For example, consider this:



"But wait," you're saying, "that really is just a pile of mud." Aha, but check out its tail!


It's a snapping turtle in disguise!




What's more -- there's a second one! If I hadn't watched it swim up to this branch to "hide" I wouldn't have suspected it was really a turtle.




Another kind of shell I found today was this carapace discarded by a cicada:


That was the only shot I took of it. Fortunately the picture turned out, because I paused to adjust my camera and a breeze blew the thing off its perch and out of sight. I took that as my cue to get back to work pulling garlic mustard. I gotta say, things are shaping up nicely after a solid effort over the last few days. I can lick the GM handily. The bad news is that there seems to be twice as much Japanese knotweed as before.

2 comments:

Boud said...

You're quite right about spotting turtles. I was out birdwatching at a local sanctuary, up on the platform, and noticed now and then that a little island out on the marsh seemed to be in a different spot then when I arrived. I figured it was a trick of the light, until I saw it move a couple of feet and noticed a head now emerging! giant huge turtle about three feet across, with grass and flowers growing on his shell!

Boud

Marnie said...

Tricksy things, turtles. Every little lump and bump of mud has me suspicious now.