Turtle walkies

The weather was fantastic here last week, so Anne Ida and I thought we'd make the most of it and try to combine two semi-irreconcilable concepts - a picnic and turtle walkies. It went pretty well, just with more walking than you'd expect at a picnic. It was fascinating to observe the different behavior the four little guys exhibited ... this was Anton's first time meeting other turtles since he was separated from his siblings when he was a little dime-sized critter. We thought it might be fun for him, but it seemed to be awful. Raphael, unsurprisingly, was awfullest.

Since it was a picnic, of course we had food, and as a natural result of this, Herman didn't wander very far. He generally sticks pretty close to me when we're out anyway, but this time he can't have walked more than a fourth of the distance Henrik did. As for Anton, sheesh, he managed a turtle marathon. :-) Herman was quite enamored of this tomato, since it was the same color as the feeding tub, but alas, it resisted his attempts to devour it. I wish I'd gotten a shot of him actually biting at it, but no such luck.

Henrik turns away from the camera a lot, which is usually annoying ... but at least here it shows off some of the layers of pollen he collected in his turtleneck ;-) and on his face as he was walking around.

Anton seems to hate having his picture taken ... he's forever squirming away from the camera. I took a number of crappy shots of him, but look at this one, it's adorable! Although you will notice that he was being physically restrained.

Spot the turtle. Raphael likes to burrow underneath things and, ideally, tip them over.