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Sunday, July 06, 2008

Catch & Release

On the way home from Wegman's this afternoon, I spied a little turtle attempting to cross a busy road. Naturally enough, when I came back to get him, he (or she - I wouldn't begin to know how to check on a turtle) responded by running away from me, further into the road. Fortunately, no cars came along, and I am faster than a tiny turtle.
Snapping turtle, as it turns out.
So I took him home, put him in a bucket, and K & I walked him down about 4 blocks to the Susquehanna River. We could hear 4 wheelers in the woods, so we took the turtle right down to the river. When we got close, he started trying to climb up the bucket walls. And when we put him on the ground, he booked right off...
...straight for the river.
Once in the river, he took a deep breath (snout sticking out of the water, with body to the right),
and then settled right in - can't really see him in the last photo, but he's right in the middle, half buried in the river mud.
Finally, he moved on to a denser tangle of underwater branches - just what this website said a snapping turtle would like to do.

2 Comments:

Blogger La Duchesse said...

Gold star for you! :)

8:14 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Definitely! Two gold stars!

3:23 AM  

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