Turtle sighting

The last couple days have been excellent for spotting the animals that live in the countryside around me. It has been very exciting.

Sunday was Father’s Day. We had a nice morning at home and then decided to take the canoe to Lion’s Park to spend some time out on the millpond. It’s just down the street, but too far to carry. So we improvised:

My dad won that wagon in a raffle when I was, like, three. And that would be a jump rope tied to the handle. Josh led the way and steered; Lexi and I took turns pushing. We laughed all the way down the street.

Our trip in the canoe took us all the way across the millpond and a way up the Maunesha River. Once we paddled out of the open water of the pond and into the quiet marsh grasses of the river, I saw two great blue herons. They are elusive and don’t like to be spotted – usually I see them as they are flying away from me. I love to watch their long legs dangle behind them – it’s sort of funny.

As we got further into the river channel, we were surrounded by these quick sucking sounds, sort of like a snort.

The sounds came from all directions, and we could see rustling, but no animals. After watching for awhile, we realized it was the sound of carp eating at the shoreline and roots of the wetland greenery – every once in awhile a red fin or shiny scales would skim the surface. You could see areas where they had created canals back into the grasses.

I have read that one way carp are detrimental to wetlands is that they erode shorelines - I guess so, if you can hear them dining on it! But it was neat – a unique sound of one of nature’s cycles.

A downed tree forced us to turn around after probably a mile and a half. The timing was about right – I could have gone further, but then I have a tendency to put my paddle down and watch for wildlife. The red “x”s on the map show where we put the canoe in and where we turned around.

On the way back down the river we saw a painted turtle resting on a log. I wasn’t quick or quiet enough with my camera and it plopped into the water before I could photograph it. This turtle’s shell was maybe six inches in diameter, not quite fully grown yet.

After we got home I rested for awhile and then went out for an evening bike ride, putting on about 10 miles around the Deansville area. There was a misty rain during most of my ride. It didn’t bother me. While I was out I saw several goldfinches, red-winged blackbirds, a muskrat and two sand hill cranes.