I’ve got a couple of posts that I’m trying to get to, and yet things keep popping up that deserve the bloggish attention, so they get pushed back a little. I seem to be running in this vacillating state between no posts while tackling other projects, and then too much to post. Geez…
Okay, you remember when I talked about the weird things that appear in my outdoor trash basket? You don’t have to – that’s why I provide these links that you can click on. But tonight, we have a new entry, that if it hadn’t moved suddenly when I went out to get my sandals (to tackle another subject, one that didn’t pan out so don’t worry,) I might have missed entirely.
That’s a common musk turtle (Sternotherus odoratus,) and I’m more than a little curious as to how it managed to get itself in there. Now, in the intervening time, I ran a resin print job and so the rags therein are much more potent, so perhaps it was attracted to the alcohol or resin fumes. But it would still have to have either scaled a brick wall better than 30cm (more than three times its carapace length,) or walked along the narrow top of that wall, barely wide enough to accommodate the turtle, until it fell in, and that was a meter drop. I provide the same illustrating image from last week so you can see what it was facing.
Neither option seems likely, but here it is, so something happened. I know The Manatee threatened to bring something to put in there, but he lives better than 700 kilometers away, so if he did, he’s playing the long game…
This is the best way to identify the species, because everything else of this type has a larger plastron and not this little skid plate. Plus it’s a nice scale shot – they’re not big turtles. This one was reluctant to provide a nice portrait.
I was intending to go out and potentially snag some more lightning photos, but I had this one in hand and I couldn’t just let it go without some better views (because I feel obligated to put shit like this on the blogareeno,) so we went into the yard and I set the turtle down, then sat nearby with the headlamp and waited. It took longer than I liked, but was probably typical for a turtle that’s been threatened recently, or at least, feels like it’s been threatened – I mean, I rescued it, but that’s gratitude for you.
The head slowly extended as it checked out the surroundings – what it could see of them past the glare of the headlamp anyway – and I held still.
And after a few minutes, it untucked and turned towards the pond, which I was thankful for, because it meant less likelihood that the turtle might return to the intoxicating bucket. If indeed that’s what is causing this. I’d exchange the open wastebasket for a lidded one, but that would only trap the fumes in there, which isn’t what I want, plus after this I’m not sure it would prevent such appearances anyway. The question now is, can I populate each category in my stock folders with a magic bucket denizen?