Today while the teacher next door to my room was taking her lunch-time walk, she found a box turtle next the sidewalk behind our classrooms. It was headed straight for the playground, so I went out and moved it up into the woods beyond. I looked it over closely and discovered that at one time it must have been chomped on by a large dog. It had a large hole its plaston that had healed over and a small puncture hole in its top shell. I hope the woodsy area holds out for this guy, but it seems so much land is slated for development on the edges of town.
For the past couple of weeks I've been noticing a fawn feeding in the front lawn of a house along the highway I commute on. My husband said he's been seeing it for about 3 weeks. It still had spots as of this week. We're guessing mama probably got hit by a car and it's just hanging out close by. I'm hoping and praying that it will move deeper into the woods away from the road.
The strange little duck was still here this afternoon when I got home. I got a real good view with binoculars and was able to get within 30 feet of it, as it likes to hang out with our ducks. In the sunlight it appears to be a brownish color. But what I thought was strange was that its feathers appeared very wet, unlike our ducks who are dry with beads of water on them. It dives under water and floats very low in the water compared to our ducks. It reminded me of when our geese were young and not yet oiled. They also swam very low in the water. Could this be a young duck? I would think it's very late for one this size, and if it's not oiled up, then it would have chilled to death last night as it got down to low 50s. Does anyone have any ideas? Could it be a grebe, like I guessed earlier? Just curious is all, very curious.
