I love biking, especially in Boulder. There are trails everywhere, and lots of fun wildlife. Whenever I'm out I see hawks, prairie dogs, red winged blackbirds, rabbits, and more. Sometimes even owls. What I did not expect to see the other day, however, was a big ol' turtle lumbering across the bike path! [Click the picture to testudinate.] For scale, I'd guess his (hers? Who can tell?) shell was about 30 cm across. He was trying to get to a creek off the path, I think, when I got this shot. I switched to video on my camera, and happened to catch a moment that I'm sure would embarrass the turtle if it had access to YouTube:
[embed width="610"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=An2i-StM2LI[/embed]
Ha! Boom. Clearly, he shook it off and kept going. After I took this clip, he got a better look at how steep the creek bank was, changed his mind, and turned around. That process took several minutes; turtles are in no hurry. As far as video quality goes, my apologies for a) the panting; I had just gotten off my bike to take the video so I was still catching my breath, and 2) the wrong aspect ratio for the video; I was holding my phone sideways to take pictures and didn't turn it upright for the video. Sigh. I guess turtles have the right idea. Hurrying just gets you in trouble.
Related posts: - Look hoos back - Owl be seeing you - Hoo barfed? - I toad you it's Caturday - Xtolocaturday
