Common Snapping Turtle - Tortue serpentine - Chelydra serpentina
I have written before about how challenging I find it to be on ‘bird alert’ and, say, ‘insect alert’ at the same time. I find it hard to switch from an awareness of the sky and the trees and signs of movement in shrubs and leaves, to an alertness of the immediate ‘macro’ surroundings.
How I didn’t step on this creature is something of a miracle, given the difficulty I have. This hatchling was trying to get to the Lake, I suspect, but where it came from is a bit of a mystery. Not anywhere close. It was alone. And it was still a ways from water when I found it (thanks in part to the setting sun). I secured a few images while it powered itself past me to a slope into the water, and then it was gone.
Aristotle said that something was alive if it could move itself, whether by growing or by moving from place to place. This hatchling, which could have easily fit in the palm of my hand with space left over, was the most condensed expression of life I have seen in a while. The determination to get to that place and the distance it had travelled was pretty amazing.
Common Snapping Turtle - Tortue serpentine - Chelydra serpentina
I have written before about how challenging I find it to be on ‘bird alert’ and, say, ‘insect alert’ at the same time. I find it hard to switch from an awareness of the sky and the trees and signs of movement in shrubs and leaves, to an alertness of the immediate ‘macro’ surroundings.
How I didn’t step on this creature is something of a miracle, given the difficulty I have. This hatchling was trying to get to the Lake, I suspect, but where it came from is a bit of a mystery. Not anywhere close. It was alone. And it was still a ways from water when I found it (thanks in part to the setting sun). I secured a few images while it powered itself past me to a slope into the water, and then it was gone.
Aristotle said that something was alive if it could move itself, whether by growing or by moving from place to place. This hatchling, which could have easily fit in the palm of my hand with space left over, was the most condensed expression of life I have seen in a while. The determination to get to that place and the distance it had travelled was pretty amazing.