Renewing Aquaintances

Stephanie and I visited the Environmental Center today . The link to .Stephanie's photos are here. She said her father had brought a turtle with a damaged shell here about 3 years ago. I told her I thought I had photographed that turtle the last time I came. Sure enough, it was the same turtle and here it was with a smaller friend - and the Koi hanging out below them.

Then we went on a tour of the deer, aviary, the coyotes and hiked out to the bog garden. Last time I came, the bog flowers were blazing. It was still blazing, but with black-eyed Susans. Most of the pitcher plants had died down except for a few like these lovely red ones.

The meadow was dotted with these cup like spider webs...

We hiked down to the big lake and were apparently standing in an area that the caretakers toss in food to the fish and lake turtles. The original photos showed the water as brownish - photoshopped it looked bluer.

Here's an unretouched photo......
.....and the photoshop one - looks like a space photo called "The Turtle Galaxy".
There were two Alligator Snapping Turtles who kept cruising by, but never came up for air. You could hardly make them out, but in PhotoShop - they popped! Looks like the Astronomy Photo of the day, too.

You can see that spade shaped head and the ridges on the back..
We passed this raccoon enclosure and saw this fellow snoozing away on a ladder. It was wedged between the wire and the ladder rung. That couldn't be comfortable with a bar in your back!

The lake geese kept an eye on us in case we had feed for them...

This group on the lake spillway looks like they've found the goose version of an endless pool....
When we got back to the main building, we spied fellow club member, Susan, out by the butterfly garden. Seems someone brought in this butterfly because they thought something was wrong with it. Nothing was, but isn't it a sweet thought that someone would go to all that trouble to help a lovely creature like a butterfly. :-)