Watch those digits!

There are a LOT of ponds and lakes in my general area. So many in fact that a lot of folks have them on their properties, myself included. And when I say pond, I'm not talking about some fancy coy pond, no, these are just holes in the rock shelf that runs not too far below the topsoil for many miles in all directions. Obviously, said holes fill up with water, and you got yourself a pond. Or, if they're big enough, a lake. 

And since I live in a still relatively undeveloped area, it should come as no surprise to hear that a lot of wild things live in said ponds and lakes.

I'd say that at least half the properties in my "neighborhood" have a pond, so it's especially common to have one right around here. I've never measured it, but mine is probably around 20' x 10', and 4-5' at it's deepest point. It can vary quite wildly in size though. Three of the seven summers that I've been here, it's dried up completely, and pretty much every fall or winter it swells to half a size bigger with all of the rain that we get. 

Last week was one of those swelling weeks, as we had many, many inches of rain that ultimately led to some minor flooding. I thought it was gonna be much worse, so no complaints from me, well, aside from it being all dreary out for most of the week. 

On he second day of  rain, I happened to look out at the pond just in time to catch a bit of movement behind it, and even though I was pretty sure of what I had seen, I ran and grabbed the binoculars to confirm my suspicion -- which they did. It was only misting at that point, so I put my rubber boots on real quick, and made my way over to the source of movement.

That my friends is a snapping turtle, and at close to 18" across the back, a nearly full size snapper at that. As per usual, I took a few photos, most of which didn't come out very well thanks to the mist that was falling. This one turned out pretty well though, note the tail on the right.

Tempted as I always am, I resisted the urge to pick him or her up, so there's not a lot for scale here. An addition to the already stated measurements, I'd hazard a guess that this one was in the 25-30 pound range.

This is zoomed in a little too much, but at least I got semi-decent shot of that little dinosaur tail.

I think that this the fourth or fifth snapper that I've been fortunate enough to encounter since moving here, although this was the first one that has been over at the pond. Usually the pond only houses frogs and dragonflies (with the occasional sandhill crane stopping by as well) during the spring and summer, so it was pretty neat to find that this big cutie is most likely wintering in their this year.

EXTREME CLOSEUP!

I realize too that I should be including a picture of the pond itself in here, but it's really dreary over there during the winter what with everything being dead and all, and I don't have a good picture of it during the spring, so I'll try to get one in a few months when everything starts greening up again and stick it in a post then.

I've been putting aside some money to get a couple of decent trail cams next year, one of which will be going over by the pond, so hopefully in the future I won't have to be looking outside at just the right moment to see who's stopping by.