Warm sunny day... one thing was on our mind. Turtles. I guess that means there was a lot of things on our minds... lots of turtles. We headed to our new favorite place in Plymouth County where they are abundant. We got there around noon and the sun was high.
We both had to "look for Wood Frogs" first, though, so we headed into the woods. It turns out that Woodies AND Peepers were awaiting us in there!
We poked around a bit despite being overly excited to go look at basking turtles. That paid off when Andrea found our First of Year Ribbon Snake!
This is also the first Ribbon we have seen at this place! Win- win!
We searched around the frog sounds for a while in a hidden cranberry bog but never did land our eyes on the noisemakers. So it was out the the sunny paths to look for turtles.
One reason we love this place? It is fully loaded with Spotted Turtles and this stretch had quite a few to offer. I missed a few shots but you can see what I mean...
Right around here, I was wondering where the hell were all of the Painted Turtles? Ah... saw one through the trees...
Ummm... nope.
Finally got one... basking below another Spotted!
And that changed the tide... from there on out, it was all Painters. No frogs, no more snakes but a shit-ton of Painters.
Many showed me their butts.
This was great. I saw some shell-shine on the side of a bog. I took a shot. There were 5 Painted Turtles up there, but it was a bit blurry, so I took a second photo. Within that moment, three more turtles had joined the cluster! Hot spot!
Out by the main pond, there were turtles seen on both sides of the path. Here is a sampling of the Painters seen, both young and old.
This one came out nicely... the straight ripples make it look like a better shot than it really is!
A chorus line...
Not observing social distancing...
And the award for cutest Painter on the day goes to our last one, a wee niblet who was basking near where we took a sit-down.
My, but that was a lot of turtles. I got a sunburn, even. What a great walk that was. We ended up watching some birds and Andrea pointed out this Eastern Bluebird (#44) who posed nicely for us.
And that was that. Other than some disgusting dog-shit-bag problems, it was a wonderful day. (By the way, my new thing is to move the shit-bags from the trees, bushes, water and what-not and put them in the center of the path. If responsible dog walkers see what the scumbags do, maybe they can teach them how to not be assholes. It's worth a try.)
it's me vi, this really helped brighten up my morning (which hasn't been too good)
ReplyDeletethank you so much
I hope you're feeling right as rain SOON!!! <3
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