Snapping turtle, Starling, Goldfinch (20150613) A trip down the Valley

The bride and I decided to to visit mom on a beautiful day here in NS. We were in no hurry so we took the old highway enjoying the scenery. Just after getting on the major highway west bound I spotted one of my "target" specie for Nova Scotia. I had thought that perhaps I had missed the "season" but that was not the case. I asked her to pull over to the side of the road so that I might get the unit off the highway. We had to travel about 150 yards to get to the end of the guardrails in order to have enough room to get comfortably off the highway.

The road wasn't too busy but a "Snapper" of this size could do some damage to a smaller vehicle. This transport would hardly feel the bump, I'm certain. So I ran back the shoulder of the road hoping I could get to the turtle before it suffered any collisions. I would stop every now and then and grab an image.

A small blue car straddled the critter and I didn't know if it had been hit or not. So I continued and watched as the cars kept zipping by at 100 kph. I finally got into a postion where, with a break in the traffic I would be able to go out and rescue this beauty. I love the dinosaur-like structure and tail of these ancient reptiles.

I was able to find an opening, and picking the unit up by the shell waaay back by the hind legs, I was able to get it to the same side of the road that I was on. It seemed to be its direction of travel based on my first sighting. I am looking forward to getting more images of these incredible water dwellers. I don't mind ahaving a couple of images here as this is a first time visitor to the blog!

 While at Mom's I took a little time in the yard, but overall it was very quiet. Here is a European Starling on here roof.

She loves it when the American Goldfinch are in their breeding plumage and come to visit her feeder.

Take some time today and put a little "wild" in your life!
Turbo