Animal Wednesday - what I've seen.

Between biking and walking I've seen lots of animals this week...well "seen" in a funny word to me this week. I've had an eye infection that has been painful and won't (of course) allow me to wear my contacts that I use for reading.  So my vision has been long, and I've had to look up and out and enjoy what I can see far away.  Unless I have glasses on I can't see the camera lens picture, so I just "point and shoot" and hope something good comes out.    A long philosophical discussion about eyes and glasses at a later date - stay tuned. 

This is a pic of one of my favorite walks - a water reservoir near my house.  Walking distance, round trip to the lake, around and back is about 4 miles.   Good on a lovely cool summer morning. 

There was a heron in the lake and I got a very fuzzy far away shot of it. 

These Canada geese were enjoying the water and completely ignored me - which was good cause they can be scary if they want to.

We saw this little turtle on the bike path. He was super still, and so brown and funny that we actually thought he was dead. But after I took these pics he scuttled away.   Is he/she a snapper? I'm not sure.

Then I saw this toad, just sitting by the side of the bike path.   I think it's a brown toad. He didn't move at all as I snapped away,  and I managed to get down and get a picture of his happy face.

Isn't he awesome?

I missed getting a pic of the snake that slithered across the path, boy can they move.  By this time I was starting to wonder why I was seeing so many animals, and then realized that they sky was darkening dramatically and a huge storm was on it's way.  So we turned around and went back to the parking lot to pack it in.

In the parking lot, I saw this poor little painted turtle walking and heading to the grass. How he/she got into the parking lot I'll never know but it was obvious that there was no way it could get over the curb.

I got gloves from the car and tried to help by picking it up and putting it on the grass.  I succeeded but only after practically chasing the animal - clearly it thought I was about to eat it and it scuttled SO fast that I couldn't keep up.  I finally did catch it, put him on the grass and hopefully it found a place to stay.

 Finally a RedTailed hawk flew right by us - chasing a small bird (didn't catch it).  He/She perched for awhile and then flew away with swooshing wing sounds.

Happy Animal Wednesday - we're off on vacation and no good computer access, so have a lovely few weeks.