After hanging out at the Huntington used book store in Mandan, my little boy and I took the long way to the downtown street fair. While turning the corner where Tavis Road meets Burleigh Avenue, I noticed a big lump of something in the road. I thought my eyes were deceiving me, but they weren’t: it was a big, angry snapping turtle, just sitting in the middle of the road!

People tend to fly through this corner well in excess of the speed limit, so my first concern was to avoid this snapper getting plastered all over the road (and sending someone’s car to the wheel alignment shop!). I had a set of leather work gloves in the truck, but there’s no way I was going to try to pick him up. His claws were nearly an inch long, and he was already ticked. I used a stick to try to prod him along, but he’d only spin and snap at me.

I spent a little while waving traffic around him, as cars were barreling down on him pretty fast until they saw some idiot in the road waving his arms. PJ fell asleep in the truck, so he missed out on the excitement.

Did I mention he was angry? I bet he had a few close calls before I showed up, because I wasn’t about to stand there taunting him. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen how fast a properly motivated turtle can move on pavement, but I have. They can actually be extremely fast! When they’ve got a beak on ’em like this guy, they’re best not teased.

Check out those claws! Like I said, even lifting him up from behind with leather gloves seemed a pretty stupid idea, because I’m pretty sure it’s impossible to grab that shell and be out of the claws’ range at the same time. I was tempted to try, but I’m trying to quit being such a frequent Emergency Room visitor.

A couple came by and grabbed a windshield ice scraper out of their trunk, the kind that’s around three feet long with a scraper on one end and a broom on the other. The guy was able to shuffleboard the turtle into the ditch, which didn’t help the snapper’s temperament any. But at least he was out of immediate danger, assuming he didn’t climb back onto the road. We pushed him into the weeds a bit further, so that he was closer to the water than the road.

Once it was all over, I told the turtle a joke and we laughed ourselves silly, as you can see from his smile. Okay, that’s not exactly it. In this picture he was tired of being prodded, so he rolled his eyelids shut and hissed at us. Figuring that were were fortunate to have everyone escape without being hit by a car, bitten, or scratched silly, the good samaritan and I went back to our respective vehicles and left the turtle to sort things out for himself.

Parting shot. Nestled securely in the weeds next to the backwater, this turtle hunkered down and waited for the pesky humans to leave. Satisfied that we’d done the right thing, leave is exactly what we did.

It seems like I can’t go anywhere without something interesting happening, and this Saturday was no different. I’m blessed to have a life where every day throws me an unusual event to write about. Thankfully I never go anywhere with my camera, so I have pictures to back it up!

I took a couple of minutes after work to stop by one of my favorite wetland patches to see if the dragonflies were doing anything. Most of them weren’t, but then I noticed this one buzzing around me. I stopped walking for a bit and he decided I looked like a better landing spot than the weeds, which were waving in the wind.

As I looked down at my shin, a lone mosquito joined him. I wasn’t worried about the skeeter, as the denim wasn’t up against my skin. What was even more curious than the futility of this mosquito’s attempt at a meal was that she didn’t even notice what the dragonfly was doing! He was finishing up his meal…a mosquito! You can see the last wing sticking out of the dragonfly’s mouth. I snapped a few photos before this one, and it’s even more obvious there.

I didn’t see many other dragonflies, the mosquitos were pretty thick, and I needed to get home for dinner. Aside from these two stowaways hitching a free ride in exchange for a photo, I didn’t really get anything else to post.

I haven’t had much opportunity for photography lately. Between freelance work, sinus infections, and family time, time behind the camera has been a pretty hard thing to come by. Tonight, however, little baby PJ and I struck out to see what we could find. We had played together on the living room floor for quite a while, and I guess I ran him out of energy; as soon as those big knobby tires got rolling, he was out. Oh well.

These deer were at the intersection of River Road and Burnt Boat Road, just across the street from the Ducks Unlimited building. I’d seen deer in people’s yards on the south side of town when we were just beginning our voyage, but the way these three stopped and lined up was too cool to pass up. I’m glad they were willing to stand still for a little bit, even despite a Harley-Davidson® rolling past. Once I’d snapped a couple, they moved on and tried to find a place to cross the street. Dusk is a spooky time along River Road if you have an aversion to hitting deer with your car…look out, they’re pretty bold!

I wonder who mows the patch between these two fences…it looks like a tight squeeze! These fences sit side by side at the Double Ditch Indian Village north of Bismarck. While the land to the north of the fence on the right looks like it’s hayed, I don’t know whether it’s park land or not. To the south of the fence on the left is the area we all know as Double Ditch. Why these two fences sit an arm’s length apart is a mystery, at least to me. They make a nice set of lines for the camera, though…and I had a feathered visitor to share the moment!

I took some time over the past few days to peruse the tall grass around the OWLS site east of Bismarck in search of some insects. They’re often quite difficult to capture on film, as they don’t sit still for long. Also, it’s VERY easy to get a blurry shot with a macro lens when focusing closely. Here are a few of the critters that I caught:

Golden Dragon – this guy was actually panting in the heat! That was a weird sight.

This little guy was a translucent white color with black stripes.

The blue ones are my favorite, of course!

This little black and green fly was hanging upside-down with his wings spread. Here you can really see how my macro lens focuses on a very narrow range. That’s called Depth of Field and this lens has a very shallow DoF. Sometimes part of the bug will be in focus and part out of focus, which is artistic, yet frustrating!

Red Dragon – just like the title of a Thomas Harris book I read in high school, the one that introduced a certain Doctor Hannibal Lecter.

Another white and black damselfly, hanging on in a precarious position.

This gold dragonfly exhibits some shiny gold to his wings as well as the rest of his body.

These guys were hoving around the stalks of the plant life, occasionally darting in and pecking at them. I can only guess that they were eating little aphids off the leaves or something. This fella decided to stop for a rest, and that’s when I got him.

Wherever there’s a good supply of little bugs for them to eat, they’ll be darting around. If you’re around water, you’re likely to spot little flies like this one. In years past, the state capitol grounds has been full of dragonflies, too! Keep your eyes peeled…they’re out there.

I was out hiking around a friend’s land last week when we noticed a big fuzzy caterpillar in our path, climbing down a stalk of whatever plant grows so wildly out on that particular hill. Itching for a chance to use my Canon macro lens, arguably the sharpest lens Canon makes, I set down my pack and dug out the gear. This little fella wasn’t shy at all. He just took his time climbing around as I snapped away.

As I got ready to continue with the hike, I turned my pack over to find this guy on the back. Apparently I’d found a rather rude (from a caterpillar’s point of view) place to set down my pack, and he was transferred from his particular plant to the strap. I deposited him back on something green, took a few snapshots for his trouble, and moved along.

At that point I looked around and could see a whole army of caterpillars, which hopefully will mean a good crop of butterflies later on. It’s good to see things so vibrant on this hills, which are also greener than I’ve seen in recent memory. This is truly a wonderful Spring, with plenty of moisture to heal the parched land. If the caterpillars are any indication of the state of things, it loooks like our drought-stricken area is on the mend.

While accompanying a coworker on a fly-fishing lunch to the OWLS site east of Bismarck, I obviously had the camera with me. I’m glad I did, because there were tons of damselflies and dragonflies hanging around the water. These are fascinating little creatures…here are a couple of close-ups:

There are so many cool features on a bug like this, I don’t really know where to start! In the interest of time, I’ll just let the picture speak for itself.

One other neat characteristic of this bug is the design of the wings. The shapes of the individual wing facets are pretty cool, and remind me of something NASA would put together.

The lake at the east OWLS site has undergone a makeover, so there isn’t as much plant life along the shore. I expect that to change very quickly. Even without it, the damselflies are raiding the rocks along the shore, and they’re quite willing to be photographed! Go check them out when the storms pass.

The land between the Game & Fish office and the State Penitentiary east of Bismarck is set aside as an Outdoor Wildlife Learning Something-or-other, or OWLS (I believe the S is actually for Site). With acres of grasslands, small drainage streams, trees, and a spring-fed lake, this area is a host to a lot of wildlife, frequent fishers, and a few photographers. I’ve come home with some spectacular one-of-a-kind photos from this site!

Today they’re having a fishing day to kick off the year, and promise the possibility of catching any number of fish species. They’ve got bluegill, trout, bass…you name it, apparently they’ve stocked it! This is a catch-and-release area, by the way. I often see people bring their children out to fish from the floating bridge as an introduction to fishing, and it’s a great place to enjoy an afternoon with a hook in the water. It’s in town, it’s well maintained, and it’s a nice place in general.

Last year this lake was groomed, if that’s the correct word; the low water levels made it an opportune time to come in with heavy equipment and scoop all the slimy muck out of the bottom of the lake while regrading the shoreline. There are other habitat items here such as gravel beds, shelves carved into the bottom, and sunken culverts to help aid in the spawning processes of the various fish. It looks like everything went very well, the area around the lake is tilled and seeded, and we’re set to have a really nice OWLS site. We even got the rain we needed to help bring the water level up!

When I came to work Friday, it was to a pleasant surprise. Near the garage entrance at work, we have a plastic bin full of wood chips from the landfill, which we used in a video last year. Our videographer and I happened to glance inside, and there we found…four baby bunnies!

These little guys couldn’t have been very old, perhaps even a day or two. Apparently one of the bunnies we see hopping around our building must have jumped into the bucket of wood chips to have her babies. She was nowhere to be found, although I’m sure she was nearby.

This was a pretty odd location for them, but the consensus at the office was that we shouldn’t move them or otherwise interfere with them. We put out a company-wide email to make sure that nobody disturbed the babies, then left them alone once everybody had gone out to take a sneak peek at them. They were climbing around a little bit within the little burrow, but their eyes weren’t open and they didn’t do much besides snuggle.

The parking lot this is in faces south, and that brick wall next to the bin acts as a giant reflector. Sadly to say, when I checked on them in the afternoon, they’d burrowed deeper in the chips but couldn’t survive the scorching heat. While it’s unlikely they would have survived any tampering on our part, by leaving them in place we were unable to give them shelter from the sun’s heat. All four were casualties yesterday afternoon.

As my boss and I disposed of the poor little guys (I work for a compassionate guy, I’m proud to say) we did see the mother hopping around the edge of the parking lot. It’s too bad she didn’t stay with them to care for them throughout the day; I’m not sure if she could have helped keep them cool, but at least she could have provided them some shade. In any case, I’m hoping she picks a different location to have her babies next time around. We’ll have to move or dispose of the bin of wood chips so it doesn’t encourage the same mistake.